I'm Feeling Lucky_ The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59 - Douglas Edwards [178]
When my turn to speak came, I made my case to what I perceived as a hostile jury. I acknowledged the advantages of a memorable name for a product that was fully baked, but pointed out that our product search had barely gone into the oven. I laid out, logically and concisely, all the issues that made "Froogle" a poor choice, and I closed by suggesting that we should hold the name in reserve to apply when "Google product search" truly deserved its own brand. Better to underpromise now, I suggested, and overdeliver. I stopped talking and sat back, confident that Clarence Darrow could not have delivered a more cogent brief.
Sergey looked around the table. "I like, 'Froogle,'" he said. "It's kind of funky and different. I think it's cute."
That wasn't the end of it. Eric charged Salar, Susan, and me with presenting an alternative to "Froogle" at the next GPS. We agreed on "Google product search," presented it, defended it, and were overruled.
That was the end of it. Of that part at least. But then the question of the tagline arose.
None of our other Google services had a tagline—a marketing slogan intended to get people to use a product. All our services had straightforward descriptive text on their homepages, explaining what they actually did. Text like "The most comprehensive image search on the web," or "Search and browse 4,000 continuously updated news sources." Perhaps because Froogle was a product dealing with commerce, there was suddenly a yen for a real marketing tagline.
The board of directors had saved the marketing department the trouble of developing one. "The board really likes, 'All the world's products in one place,'" Eric announced at the November Froogle GPS. They wanted us to plaster it everywhere on the site. A great tagline, but obviously and provably false. I set about changing everyone's minds.
Fortunately, Marissa and I were in agreement that the board's wording promised too much. Unfortunately, we disagreed on whether the replacement should emphasize relevance (Marissa) or objectivity (me). We batted emails back and forth like Pong professionals, each making the case for our own word. That debate dragged on for weeks, until Larry said "objectivity" was out. I think it may have cut too close to the bone for Yahoo, which was still a major partner.
I countered with the line "Find products for sale from across the web." It was a purely descriptive phrase devoid of any marketing spin, and it avoided insulting our partners. Five days before the scheduled launch, no one had objected to it. Pearl informed me my line would be the one on the site because it was the least controversial. I had lost the "Froogle" war but won the tagline battle. Small consolation, but I savored it.
The next day, the executive staff changed the Froogle homepage line back to "All the world's products in one place." The word came down that Larry and our board member John Doerr both liked the wording. No—they loved it. My teaspoonful of victory now tasted overwhelmingly of ashes.
On December 11, 2002, Froogle launched with little fanfare. We pushed it out the door quietly so as not to overly alarm Yahoo or AOL about our entry into an area they might view as competitive. But a new product from Google could no longer slip into the mainstream without making a splash. Froogle quickly became the center of a global media storm. Google was challenging the major players in e-commerce with a new shopping site. We were compared to Yahoo, to AOL, to Amazon, though clearly we offered few of the features of a full commerce site. Traffic to Froogle peaked high, then tapered off, and then, after the Christmas shopping season, plummeted sixty-five percent.
Also plummeting was