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October 19, 2006

Google and the Wonders of Free Publicity

I was scanning some other numbers from the Google release and I was struck by how little the company spends on advertising and promotion: Despite near media ubiquity, it spent only $50-million in the just-completed quarter, or about 1.8% of sales.

To put that in context, over-the-counter drug companies spend 20% of sales, cigarette companies 8%, and, an even better comparison, Microsoft spends around 2.7%. Microsoft will spend a much higher percent in FY 2007 with major releases rolling out.

Hey, all this free publicity for Google apparently does have a value.

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