A heated debate has recently taken place regarding Google's new Chinese name 谷歌 "GuGe" (The two characters mean "valley song" or "harvest song"). One can wonder what really happened and why their new name stirred up so much controversy. 

The Google brand 
To answer this we must first understand what the Google brand really is. The world leading search engine, with its headquarters in Mountain View California, has always been recognized for its creative and youthful attitude. 
Although recently created, the brand already has a huge importance and value. "Google" is at the same time a corporate and a product name. Moreover, the Google brand now prefixes a long range of sub-brands in the Google product portfolio such as Google Alerts, Google Earth and Google News, among several others. 

The brand culture is based on transparency, fairness, openness, and is supported by communities for cooperation and trials where users have a direct input. Google has many loyal "followers" of the brand. 

Seeing the launch of its new Chinese name last month, it was undoubtedly more of a corporate identity launch than a simple product release for the Chinese market. 

The original Google Chinese naming intention 

Google has earlier said that since their name was already widely popular they didn't need a Chinese name. In their new efforts to become the leading search engine in China and surpass the current leader Baidu, they have changed their mind. 

With its new Chinese name, Google wants to get closer to traditional Chinese values, and are even willing to put aside some of their own. Google also expects to attract more Chinese users from Baidu百度 "BaiDu", meaning "one hundred levels", their main competitor in China, who want a more "Chinese" search engine. Baidu's name originates from a Song dynasty poem which is mor than 900 years old. The poem compares the search for a retreating beauty amid chaotic glamour with the search for one's dream while confronted by life's many obstacles. "Hundreds and thousands of times, for her I searched in chaos, suddenly, I turned by chance, to where the lights were waning, and there she stood." Thus the Baidu name has deep roots in Chinese culture and it was created in Chinese, Baidu is just its pinyin transcription. 

Google probably looked enviously at Baidu's Chinese name and tried to come up with something similar, with references to the Chinese heritage. It had to be something that the new search engine users (who still mostly belong to less English proficient groups) would easily remember and feel comfortable with. 

Therefore Google's chose a new Chinese name that is closer, in terms of naming choice, to its main competitor; this seemed at first to be a well-thought marketing initiative... 

What has then gone wrong? 
Young Chinese people and heavy users of Internet, who are already aware of Google's corporate identity, feel cheated by their new branding approach in China. 

Firstly, 谷歌 "GuGe" is too old, traditional, sounds too Chinese: it is nothing to do with the original feeling Google has built in China. The fact that the name was done internally without the consultation of the customers (created internally by marketing manager Asia ) was perceived as a huge lack of consideration. 

However, some older people appreciate it. They think it is a more respectable name than 狗狗 "GouGou", meaning Dog-Dog or 够了 "GouLe", meaning enough (it is enough) -maybe not aware Google's corporate identity in the rest of the world. 

Still, the new name has disappointed a lot of people and it seems like if their most loyal users are among the most upset. On the website www.noguge.com, some of Google's Chinese fans express their discontent with the new name, saying "We love you Google, but we hate GuGe". Thousands of users have voted on their website for what they feel Google should be called in Chinese. At the moment 狗狗 "Gou-Gou" (Dog-dog) is the favourite, with the basic use "Google" in English coming in second position. However, the name 谷歌 "GuGe" also has supporters and the debate is fierce. Except for not liking the pronunciation of the name, and calling it maladroit or "old", some also associate it with a sound that would come out from the bottom of a person! (Gu, another character but similar pronunciation is part of the Chinese name for the buttocks) 

Our opinion 

We think that Google could benefit from this situation if some action is taken: the present dilemma is an occasion to show that they are close to their users for they carefully listen to their feedback. It will avoid them being categorized as a stubborn foreign player, unable to quickly react to its new environment, therefore adding to the other existing controversies recently altering their brand image. Google has always presented themselves as a dynamic company; their products in test in the Google Lab are not static, they are always improving from the users' comments they receive. Therefore why should they be unable to correct a mistake in their naming approach? Google has now the opportunity to show that their original spirit is more alive than ever! They should seize it and build on it. 

However, it will be interesting to see what will happen if Google stick to their choice, and if the name effectively enables them to reach a larger user base. Many bad names in the past have managed to build their fame, so the Chinese name of Google may make it too. Additional costs could also incur to support such a name. It could be very unpleasant to face this bad name issue for a time, but Google could eventually overcome this problem for they still are the world's leading search engine. 

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