Video conferencing is more commonplace than ever because of the coronavirus crisis and the options are endless in terms of what website/app or links to use. Yet there has been one company that skyrocketed to the top from the very beginning.
In just one month Zoom’s monthly users increased 2000% from 10 million to more than 200million. The popularity of Zoom has only been magnified during these dark times and it can be attributed to it’s easy to use interface especially as it doesn’t need a login and can run in the browser.
You don’t say I’ll call you on Google Hangouts or Microsoft teams, “I’ll call you on Zoom”, or “I’ll zoom you” has become part of the language – this is the viral nature of marketing. The word you use for communication is essential to get right and is the point of “viral” outside of digital link and URL sharing. This is the genius of pairing a product that sells itself with a catchy and useable name. This is not a new phenomenon where successful brand recognition has caused a change in vocabulary, think of “Google” or “Uber” becoming normalised as verbs and now Zoom has become synonymous with video conferencing.
Even though the market is saturated with video conferencing applications, and clearly those like Skype missed the boat, Zoom is at the forefront of the discussion. Yes, there are other reasons platforms gain traction, existing security (Microsoft Teams), friends and relatives are on it (Facebook), the stickiness of their other products (Google hangouts), but when trends move, they move around people’s ability to share things fast. The benchmark for sharing is not just a link – every platform has that… it is the underlying brand is the big factor here, and people are even saying I’ll send you a “zoom” and then send another link instead, it is the ‘Let me Google that’ of video conferencing. In the end, we are busy creatures who adopt habits fast and on the least path of resistance. So when you’re branding or naming something, always think, how will this be said?… on the phone, in an email, on social, and when we open up again, our favourite saying, “what will you say to your friends at a bbq?”