Brand Failures_ The Truth About the 100 Biggest Branding Mistakes of All Time - Matt Haig [85]
As the internet progresses there is a move away from thinking about ‘eyeballs’ to a concentration on relationships. Many leading e-business figures now believe brand development should be measured less in terms of how quickly a site can expand its customer base and more in terms of how existing customers decide to come back. As Rory Sutherland, executive director of Ogilvy One has put it: ‘The internet is about brand depth, not breadth. It’s not worth chasing share of market, it’s share of wallet that really counts. Once you have your loyal community, there are fabulous opportunities for cross- selling, personalized services and meeting the multiple needs of the same group.’
Not only does the internet enable companies and their customers to engage in conversation with each other, but it also helps customers to talk to other customers about your company. As the Cluetrain website explains, ‘Markets are conversations. Through the internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter – and getting smarter faster than most companies.’
Prolific e-brands such as Amazon, eBay, Yahoo! and MSN have learnt that if visitors communicate with each other, it not only increases their loyalty to a site (and hence their ‘lifetime value’) but it also enables the brand to develop in line with the needs of the consumer by providing visitors with a platform on which they can voice their opinions on the brand. In some cases opinions aired in community forums have led to a radical rethinking of e-companies’ marketing strategies.
For instance, when Amazon was toying with the idea of variable pricing, it decided to trial run the policy for one week on its DVD products only. Amazon then monitored its DVD Talk chat forum to try and gauge consumer response. When it spotted a handful of negative comments Amazon immediately announced that it was withdrawing the policy because, in the words of Amazon’s chief executive Jeff Bezos, ‘it created uncertainty for customers rather than simplifying their lives.’ Amazon was therefore able to act quickly, before it became too heavily associated with what was appearing to be an unpopular move.
However, none of this means that the fundamental purpose of branding has changed. Daniel Letts, senior consultant at brand strategists Wolff Olins (who have clients like BT and Unilever), believes it is wrong to assume that branding online is incompatible with offline branding. ‘The fact that people treated it so differently in the early days, is one of the reasons why so many online brands fared so badly. After all, we don’t talk about “TV brands” and treat Sky very differently because its primary channel is TV do we?’
As many customers’ first experience of a brand is via the net, it is best to view online branding as a confirmation of your overall brand identity, rather than as a quirky offshoot. It is also important to understand the potential brand damage that can be caused by the internet.
On the internet, there is less control over the brand message. If a business fails to inform the online public about a product flaw or a weakness in its service, consumers will be quick to inform each other. They can join a chat room, post a message to a discussion board or even set up their own website. Everyone is connected to everyone else and can make their opinion heard. This means that the perception of the brand has never been closer to the reality of the product or service as it is today. There is no fooling the target market.
The reason so many online brands have failed is that they have been blinded by the technology itself, and almost forgot the target market completely. When the crash began on New York’s high-tech Nasdaq market