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I wonder if these big brands (Amazon, Google) can be stretched infinitely with more and more offerings without confusing users. Amazon is a retailer and cloud

I wonder if these big brands (Amazon, Google) can be stretched infinitely with more and more offerings without confusing users. Amazon is a retailer and cloud computing provider and a video streaming service and a TV producer and a device manufacturer and a grocery store and a bank for small business loans and a hundred other things... At what point does the umbrella brand start to confuse people? Bezos must have a brain the size of Texas to keep all these moving parts in mind.

mathattack 13y ago
They made the leap from books to other items seamlessly. I think that their branding as Amazon rather than something else was behind this. They mildly redirected their brand with AWS, but still pulled it off. I think the analytic offering doesn't change much of the branding. My assumption on Bezos is that half is he's an obsessive genius, and half is he hires very well. You need the right people to keep the parts moving without detailed guidance. You can tell that Google is aware of this challenge by the simplicity of their Search screen. They keep a lot of their offerings hived away from the top screen.
xwowsersx 13y ago
I don't see how/why the multitude of offerings should confuse users. If I'm looking for mobile analytics and I find Amazon's, what difference does it make to me that they're hand is in a million other things? The only confusion will be if their documentation sucks :)
sharkweek 13y ago
Great question -- when I ask my mom what she thinks of first about Amazon she says "buying Christmas gifts" The first thing in my mind is almost always one of their technical services, most specifically AWS
- libria 13y ago
  I wonder how far down the list "jungle" is on average.
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    It took me a while to figure out which Amazon service is called Jungle...
ig1 13y ago
It's not anything new, conglomerates have existed for a long time before the internet age. For example consider Sony: Sony Computer Entertainment (gaming), Sony Mobile (phones), Sony Pictures (movies), Sony Music (music), Sony Life (insurance), Sony Bank (banking), Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Visual (imaging), Sony Medical (medtech)
- Segmentation 13y ago
  Then there's Samsung, I think they're the largest conglomerate in the world. My mom would affiliate Samsung with TVs. I'd probably put them with computer monitors and phones. They also build skyscrapers and power plants (Samsung C&T Corporation), and ships (Samsung Heavy Industries). They also sell Life Insurance in South Korea.
  - gms 13y ago
    Indeed. Their revenues account for 22% of South Korea's GDP.
  - sjtgraham 13y ago
    Yamaha: musical instruments, motorcycles, outboard motorboat engines…
    - baddox 13y ago
      Westinghouse: TVs and nuclear reactors. (Really, that's two separate companies which license the brand from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Licensing_Corporation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Licensing_Corporat...)
  - soneca 13y ago
    I am not from India, so someone can confirm or deny this, but I hear one can pass a whole day on India just consuming Tata products: from your car, to your food, to your clothes, etc.
    - 13y ago
sjtgraham 13y ago
This is one of the so called 22 immutable of laws of branding, i.e. the law of expansion: the power of a brand is inversely proportional to it's scope. Vis-à-vis Amazon, I'm not sure it's a problem yet, I think of them as a retailer, AWS and Kindle, etc as separate brands. I don't see the problem at this juncture.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- adventured 13y ago
  To be fair, they're clearly the master of countless trades. To list a few things: - They have exceptionally high customer satisfaction. Routinely ranked among the best. - They have great inventory management and warehousing, delivering stellar shipping times (assisting their customer happiness numbers). - AWS is arguably the best overall cloud service. Google and Microsoft - tech giants bar none - are still struggling to catch up to where AWS was years ago. - Their prices are extremely competitive across the board, with even the king of cheap Walmart. - The Kindle reader service is the best, there really isn't even a close second these days. The Nook is being buried.
  - ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
    From my personal experience: - I pay more fees to Amazon to sell a product and take on more losses than other online marketplaces. - I had to quit Amazon S3 due to glitches hosting and streaming simple mp3 files. After days of troubleshooting, I just moved my files over to another service and all my problems went away. - Crappy video streaming. I stopped buying episodes and movies from them and just bought them on YouTube where the streaming and quality was much better, at the same price. - "AWS is arguably the best overall cloud service." Absolute Nonsense. But it's good to see their marketing efforts paid off. They offered good deals to startups which made them popular with Silicon Valley / Tech Crunch types. Every few months here on HN we get an "AWS vs Rackspace vs Other competitor" article. Amazon is NOT the best when it comes to price nor value. - The user experience is terrible, the control panel even worse. The Seller Control Panel behaves like it's from 1997. Not to mention: - The slave-like conditions in their warehouses that keeps those prices low which so many people have blogged about. Bezos is smart. But calling Amazon a master of something just because of their throughput quanity seems uncalled for. They're a giant company that was the first to make such a giant land grab in marketplaces & they use their weight to get to high places, not their "mastery".
- hackula1 13y ago
  As a long time buyer, I have had zero problems. Anecdotal evidence, obviously.
marincounty 13y ago
Yea, I just got a email from Amazon asking "Why I didn't use the video service." Why--because I already watch the boob tube too much. Jobs summed it up--stick with three things and do them well.
- jmduke 13y ago
  For the record: Apple, off the top of my head, is in the business of consumer hardware, professional hardware, accessories, consumer software, productivity software, consumption software, cloud storage, communications, and eCommerce platforms.
drawkbox 13y ago
Let's set the crazy point right now, when Amazon University offers Masters in Law we'll know it is a virtual Costco from Idiocracy. On a serious side, it stops when Bezos can't make it work and there aren't many things that fit in that category. I'll see you at Amazon U.
alariccole 13y ago
Good point, but I don't think it muddles any messages, at least when the audiences are clearly defined. Marketing to devs using Amazon APIs or consumers shopping and watching movies isn't going to overlap.
CurtMonash 13y ago
Conglomerates peaked in the US in the 1960s; since then, it's been believed that too much de-focus is bad. That said, it's certainly OK for a company to have multiple businesses. Berkshire-Hathaway is like an old-style conglomerate. GE is regarded as being very well run. Etc. The danger of a conglomerate is that a culture or decision-making paradigm suitable for the dominant business(es) might not be good for others. E.g., smaller businesses might get ignored because they don't matter enough. Or they might not be allowed to move quickly and take risks. E.g., Xerox found that selling LISP machines and copier paper mixed badly, as reorders of the latter were held hostage to the immaturity of the former.
deepGem 13y ago
Mitsubishi corporation. Pretty much anything and everything from toasters to trains.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  Mitsubishi is one of the major "Keiretsu" in Japan, the descendants of the pre-WW2 Zaibatsu. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu

mathattack 13y ago

They made the leap from books to other items seamlessly. I think that their branding as Amazon rather than something else was behind this. They mildly redirected their brand with AWS, but still pulled it off. I think the analytic offering doesn't change much of the branding. My assumption on Bezos is that half is he's an obsessive genius, and half is he hires very well. You need the right people to keep the parts moving without detailed guidance. You can tell that Google is aware of this challenge by the simplicity of their Search screen. They keep a lot of their offerings hived away from the top screen.

xwowsersx 13y ago

I don't see how/why the multitude of offerings should confuse users. If I'm looking for mobile analytics and I find Amazon's, what difference does it make to me that they're hand is in a million other things? The only confusion will be if their documentation sucks :)

sharkweek 13y ago

Great question -- when I ask my mom what she thinks of first about Amazon she says "buying Christmas gifts" The first thing in my mind is almost always one of their technical services, most specifically AWS

libria 13y ago
I wonder how far down the list "jungle" is on average.
- StavrosK 13y ago
  It took me a while to figure out which Amazon service is called Jungle...

ig1 13y ago

It's not anything new, conglomerates have existed for a long time before the internet age. For example consider Sony: Sony Computer Entertainment (gaming), Sony Mobile (phones), Sony Pictures (movies), Sony Music (music), Sony Life (insurance), Sony Bank (banking), Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Visual (imaging), Sony Medical (medtech)

Segmentation 13y ago
Then there's Samsung, I think they're the largest conglomerate in the world. My mom would affiliate Samsung with TVs. I'd probably put them with computer monitors and phones. They also build skyscrapers and power plants (Samsung C&T Corporation), and ships (Samsung Heavy Industries). They also sell Life Insurance in South Korea.
- gms 13y ago
  Indeed. Their revenues account for 22% of South Korea's GDP.
- sjtgraham 13y ago
  Yamaha: musical instruments, motorcycles, outboard motorboat engines…
  - baddox 13y ago
    Westinghouse: TVs and nuclear reactors. (Really, that's two separate companies which license the brand from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Licensing_Corporation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westinghouse_Licensing_Corporat...)
- soneca 13y ago
  I am not from India, so someone can confirm or deny this, but I hear one can pass a whole day on India just consuming Tata products: from your car, to your food, to your clothes, etc.
  - 13y ago

sjtgraham 13y ago

This is one of the so called 22 immutable of laws of branding, i.e. the law of expansion: the power of a brand is inversely proportional to it's scope. Vis-à-vis Amazon, I'm not sure it's a problem yet, I think of them as a retailer, AWS and Kindle, etc as separate brands. I don't see the problem at this juncture.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

adventured 13y ago
To be fair, they're clearly the master of countless trades. To list a few things: - They have exceptionally high customer satisfaction. Routinely ranked among the best. - They have great inventory management and warehousing, delivering stellar shipping times (assisting their customer happiness numbers). - AWS is arguably the best overall cloud service. Google and Microsoft - tech giants bar none - are still struggling to catch up to where AWS was years ago. - Their prices are extremely competitive across the board, with even the king of cheap Walmart. - The Kindle reader service is the best, there really isn't even a close second these days. The Nook is being buried.
- ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
  From my personal experience: - I pay more fees to Amazon to sell a product and take on more losses than other online marketplaces. - I had to quit Amazon S3 due to glitches hosting and streaming simple mp3 files. After days of troubleshooting, I just moved my files over to another service and all my problems went away. - Crappy video streaming. I stopped buying episodes and movies from them and just bought them on YouTube where the streaming and quality was much better, at the same price. - "AWS is arguably the best overall cloud service." Absolute Nonsense. But it's good to see their marketing efforts paid off. They offered good deals to startups which made them popular with Silicon Valley / Tech Crunch types. Every few months here on HN we get an "AWS vs Rackspace vs Other competitor" article. Amazon is NOT the best when it comes to price nor value. - The user experience is terrible, the control panel even worse. The Seller Control Panel behaves like it's from 1997. Not to mention: - The slave-like conditions in their warehouses that keeps those prices low which so many people have blogged about. Bezos is smart. But calling Amazon a master of something just because of their throughput quanity seems uncalled for. They're a giant company that was the first to make such a giant land grab in marketplaces & they use their weight to get to high places, not their "mastery".
hackula1 13y ago
As a long time buyer, I have had zero problems. Anecdotal evidence, obviously.

marincounty 13y ago

Yea, I just got a email from Amazon asking "Why I didn't use the video service." Why--because I already watch the boob tube too much. Jobs summed it up--stick with three things and do them well.

jmduke 13y ago
For the record: Apple, off the top of my head, is in the business of consumer hardware, professional hardware, accessories, consumer software, productivity software, consumption software, cloud storage, communications, and eCommerce platforms.

drawkbox 13y ago

Let's set the crazy point right now, when Amazon University offers Masters in Law we'll know it is a virtual Costco from Idiocracy. On a serious side, it stops when Bezos can't make it work and there aren't many things that fit in that category. I'll see you at Amazon U.

alariccole 13y ago

Good point, but I don't think it muddles any messages, at least when the audiences are clearly defined. Marketing to devs using Amazon APIs or consumers shopping and watching movies isn't going to overlap.

CurtMonash 13y ago

Conglomerates peaked in the US in the 1960s; since then, it's been believed that too much de-focus is bad. That said, it's certainly OK for a company to have multiple businesses. Berkshire-Hathaway is like an old-style conglomerate. GE is regarded as being very well run. Etc. The danger of a conglomerate is that a culture or decision-making paradigm suitable for the dominant business(es) might not be good for others. E.g., smaller businesses might get ignored because they don't matter enough. Or they might not be allowed to move quickly and take risks. E.g., Xerox found that selling LISP machines and copier paper mixed badly, as reorders of the latter were held hostage to the immaturity of the former.

deepGem 13y ago

Mitsubishi corporation. Pretty much anything and everything from toasters to trains.

jacques_chester 13y ago
Mitsubishi is one of the major "Keiretsu" in Japan, the descendants of the pre-WW2 Zaibatsu. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keiretsu