Building a Strong Brand on The Internet
A New Medium as an Effective Channel for Promotion
More and more consumers are adopting the Internet today as the preferred medium not only for searching and disseminating information but also for online buying and selling. From the point of view of a marketer, therefore, the internet has become an effective channel to promote and market their brands.
It is a pertinent problem for these marketers to embrace an appropriate branding strategy that will be efficient in exploiting the technical advantages of this medium, as well as effective in reflecting the communication objectives of the company. In this regard, experience of online branding enjoyed by the audience should be consistent with the offline experiences gained through other physical channels of communication, because the consumer's ultimate brand experience is created after getting exposed to different communication media.
What is a Strong Brand?
A 'strong' brand thus can be defined as a measure to determine the brand's future value, based on two factors: "differentiation (the extent to which a brand has a distinctive meaning for the consumer and is able to gain consumer choice, preference and loyalty), and relevance (correlates with household penetration)" (Keller: 2003).
These two factors eventually determine how associated a brand will be with a consumer's mindset. Relevance of a brand should consider not only the personal relevance of the information to a particular consumer put forward by the brand communication, but should also consider the consistency with which the message is presented across different media, the timing and the markets.
Internet As Medium
The internet is a great medium for brands as it allows them to address consumers. While the internet enables consumers to express their identity and reinforce their individuality through personalization and customization, it also allows them to satisfy their social needs through sharing of consumption and their related experiences by developing online communities.
The present consumers give maximum importance on the level of social interaction that is taking place between different consumer groups. Given the technology behind the internet supporting the formation of and communication between these groups, this phenomenon of interaction prompting a brand choice is steadily gathering pace.
The Brand Building Exercise
If the website is consistently enriched with new content, is informative enough to satisfy all relevant queries of the potential customer(s), can present the brand(s) in a unique and innovative way generating a memorable experience in the mind of the viewer, the brand can surely meet with success.
Customization is another area very specific with the technological aspect of the website. The site has to be more customer/user-friendly by incorporating feedback record and providing the option to choose particular feature(s) to be included within the brand. Customization is considered to be targeting at the extreme, creating a unique marketing mix for the individual customer. When the customer is involved directly into the process, it results in a sense of ownership in his/her mind, reduces the transaction cost and ultimately, enhances the popularity of the brand. The customer is transformed into a collaborator in the whole branding and marketing process.
Reference
Keller, K.L.(2003), Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring, and Managing Brand Equity (Second Edition). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, USA: Pearson Education, Prentice Hall.
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