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Branding Branding IS important. It is not a fad. Branding has been around since the turn of the 20th century, made famous by mass
marketed consumer products. Branding has become more prominent since the 1950's
with the advent of more sophisticated marketing, advertising, and packaging through Proctor & Gamble (P&G), one of the brand leaders. Many people get the wrong idea about brands, due to dot.com mania where catchy, We believe that a brand name must transcend the visuals of a logo design
and graphics. All too often the brand must stand on its own merits. Naked, sans the glitz and glamour, in the written or spoken word. Perhaps that is why so many dot.coms imploded. There was no substance behind the glitzy ads and trumped up fan-fare.
The URL must be memorable, intuitive, or easy to type in. Monster.com would NEVER have been meaningful without millions in advertising to create awareness and make the word relevant to the career category.
What is the essence of a brand?
We don't believe that the one word monikers on the web will have staying power and the power to create brands. It is the sentiment behind the brand that makes it memorable and meaningful. Often a three word description stands for something. It has meaning to the user. It is like a mini ad. It has a persona, an essence that is captured in the name. It has tone and substance and three-dimensionality that one word lacks.
More brands will implode because they don't make sense, are too hard to spell, or because they don't deliver on their promise.
Is A one word category URL is great for a portal, but not for a branded business that you are trying to distinguish. Although it may be easier to type, a single word can lose its punch. A mini billboard of your product and benefit becomes easy to recall. Like marketingmomentum. It says what we do and how we do it.
The URL must be memorable, intuitive, or easy to type in. Monster.com would NEVER have been meaningful without millions in advertising to create awareness and make the word relevant to the career category.
A brand is a word
You can have the greatest visual logo, but the brand name has to stand alone.
Naked to the world. Sans graphics. Sans advertising…in the typed and spoken word.
Some of these offbeat URLs that have no relevance to their product line will not survive.
A brand embodies your company product, and mission.
A great brand has the power to create and reinforce a visual image. Often it takes lots of advertising to imprint a brand image into the hearts and minds of the company's customers.
As the lesson of the dot.com implosion has taught us, a great brand is nothing if the product doesn't deliver or if the business plan is flawed. Creative advertising may be witty, but if people don't remember the brand name or the message, it has failed in building the brand franchise.
Sure, Amazon and Monster changed what many people think of top of mind on these common words. But will they be classic brand names like Coke and Xerox and Kleenex….that truly stands for something tangible, that have transformed the product category that they 'owned'. All companies are vulnerable. A brand can live on, or it can lose its luster.
A brand is a visual image, a cue that people associate with a company
Building quality and purpose into a brand helps sell the product and create a loyal customer base. Many products have become commoditized, that is, one brand is (perceived) as good a substitute as the other. As kleenex is to tissue…the brand defines the category. America's great companies, like P&G or Standard Brands have a stable of great brands, across broad product categories.
A brand is a message.
The Internet has created challenges for marketers of goods and services. Markets are now global. Bust still, a brand name, image, and quality must be meaningful across nations, languages, lifestyles, demographics, and boundaries. For instance the Chevy Nova failed miserably in Spanish speaking countries where the words literally translated into "No Go".
Mistakes to avoid. The Internet makes it easy to proliferate a brand and create a web site that appears to have substance. But if you look, there are many similarities across products and logos and brand names. So it is even more important to truly differentiate your brand from the competition and the clutter in the marketplace and on the Web. Just look at all the logos that have a swoosh or a crescent or an ellipse shape. Hardly memorable. Understandable if it is a do-it-yourself effort, but many companies have paid big bucks for a branding strategy that falls flat.
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