The Google Cast screen-sharing technology celebrated its third anniversary earlier this year, but its branding may soon become a thing of the past. Namely, the Mountain View-based tech giant has recently started phasing out the “Google Cast” branding for televisions and Internet of Things (IoT) speakers boasting support for Casting. The company’s TV partners like Philips and VIZIO have also started ditching the old branding, with the latter even removing all previous references to Google Cast from its promotional websites. By the looks of things, Google is currently in the process of replacing the Google Cast branding with a “Chromecast built-in” label, or just “Chromecast.”
Earlier this week, the tech giant also renamed its official Google Cast Twitter account to “Chromecast” while the Google Home website even removed all previous mentions of the old branding. As for the actual Google Cast site, it’s now pointing out that this technology is also denoted with a “Chromecast built-in” label. Until today, the official Android TV website still hasn’t embraced the new branding. While Google has yet to comment on this new marketing direction, it doesn’t seem likely that the company will phase out the Google Cast branding from the actual proprietary protocol and its software development kit (SDK) which originally debuted back in 2013. However, the official Android TV website will likely be rebranded shortly.
Rebranding a casting technology along with devices and services supporting it may look like a minor move, but given the steadily growing nature of Google’s ecosystem, it’s not surprising that the Mountain View-based Internet firm is looking to streamline their commercial products to avoid any potential confusion among consumers. This new marketing strategy already started back in early October when Google renamed the Google Cast Android app to “Google Home.” In other words, Google’s growing ambitions as a consumer electronics manufacturer mean that it’s time for the company to start simplifying its product naming conventions, which is precisely what the Internet giant is currently doing. This strategy is also evident in the Google Pixel and Pixel XL marketing campaign which doesn’t even differentiate between the two and simply advertises the company’s flagship devices as “a phone made by Google.”