Branding @ The Digital Age : Herb Meyers and Richard Gerstman 2001st Edition

ANDY BATEMAN Managing Director, Interbrand Interactive VIVIENNE BECHTOLD Director of I-Knowledge, Procter & Gamble HILARY BILLINGS Chairman, CMO, RedEnvelope CHARLES E. BRYMER Group Chief Executive, Interbrand Group DAVID A. BURWICK Vice President, Marketing, Pepsi-Cola Company DEBORAH CHAE President, Interbrand Interactive BOJANA FAZARINC Formerly Director of Global Marketing Services, Hewlett Packard DAVID B. GREEN Senior Marketing Officer, McDonald’s International ROBERT J. HERBOLD Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Microsoft Corporation FREDERICK J. HOROWITZ President, NetGrocer.com RUDY NADILO President and Chief Executive Officer, Greenfield Online JONATHAN NELSON Chief Executive Officer, Organic ALLAN POULTER Managing Director, Markforce Associates

INTRODUCTION
Herbert Meyers and Richard Gerstman

The growth of e-trade during the past few years is, without doubt, the most formidable development in the history of commerce and there seems to be no foreseeable slowing down. The speed of penetration of this medium into every commercial media is almost incomprehensible to even the most ardent cyber-enthusiasts. Not since the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century has a development so dramatically altered the path of human behavior.

The possibilities of further developments seem literally without limits. Future cyber applications to business, not even explored, seem to have no boundaries. Nor are these developments restricted to interface with current desktop and laptop computers. The increasing appearance of wireless appliances, such as cellular phones, not to mention the infinite means of transmitting and distributing messages from one point to another and the continuing miniaturization of equipment, promise to alter our means of doing commerce throughout the world. Who knows what other, never before invented communication media will surface tomorrow and in the next few years?

The impact this technical revolution is having on retail commerce and on the means we have come to associate with traditional retail marketing is felt more and more every day. It is likely to revolutionize the relationships marketers have with retailers, their channels of distribution, their suppliers, their advertising agencies and their ultimate consumers. Marketers will need to examine how the rocketing cyberspace developments will affect their current and future branding methodologies and determine how and when to adjust them to the ever-growing speed of technological advances.

An article in Brandweek recently summed it up as follows: ‘Today, companies of all sizes are translating their marketing objectives into cyberspace and many are weighing how to replicate their entire marketing effort online.’

But will simply replicating a current marketing program online be the answer to the e-commerce revolution?

BRANDING IN THE 21ST CENTURY

In looking at the numerous websites that have suddenly surfaced in all categories of commerce, it appears that many of the numerous cyberspace entrepreneurs feel that the Internet is simply another means of communication that requires little, if any, variation from the traditional means of promoting and selling products and services. They have not yet grasped the tremendous potential of promoting their products and services on the Internet to a carefully targeted audience, vis-à-vis the mass communication approach of other media, such as television, that conveys messages to a broad audience in the hope of reaching the few who may be interested in them.

Traditional Marketing is not dying it s dead, says Sergio Zyman, a former Chief Marketing Officer of the Coca-Cola Company, in his book The End of Marketing As We Know It. Mass Marketing has lost the ability to move the masses, he continues, Technology has given people many more options than they had in the past and created a consumer democracy Marketers increasingly need to find ways to speak to customers individually, or in smaller and smaller groups.

If this is true, the Internet seems to offer the perfect solution. Marketers are able to communicate with their customers in ways never before possible. The opportunities of interfacing with individuals and smaller, carefully targeted interest groups, and the ability to reach them whenever and wherever they may be at any given moment, are unlimited. Marketers are exploring all this with a variety of approaches, making the Internet a flexible and ever-changing medium. Even marketers, whose products cannot be obtained directly via the Internet, such as fast-food restaurants, use the Internet to communicate a favorable personality and the value of their services to create goodwill among their customers.

In the midst of all this, brand presence emerges as an important means of continuity and interfacing with other communication media. If not, new brands and brandmarks, that surface almost daily on the Internet, can become extinct even before being recognized and accepted by the consumer. The time span for creating new brands and brandmarks has been shortened substantially through the availability of computers and a wide variety of computer software. Many creators of these brands and brandmarks, by being enamored with technology, are ignoring the fact that technology changes so quickly that brands which have not been developed and maintained with thoughtfulness, foresight and in context with their target audience will disappear as quickly as they are born. Thus, the blessings of technology can, if used frivolously, become their creators demise.

In trying to find answers to how brands can take advantage of this mercurial, not yet fully explored cyber environment, the entrepreneurial spirit of e-commerce marketers is stretched to the limit. As in any revolutionary development, there are pros and cons, ups and downs, and frequently wild fluctuations in productive results. Thus, it comes as no surprise that thee-commerce revolution is going through the same contortions. The enthusiasm and excitement of participating in new and promising ventures that led many investors to overextend their investment contributions in untried and largely inexperienced e-businesses has resulted in many disappointments as ventures faltered and occasionally collapsed under the burden of financial responsibilities. Nevertheless, the electronic means of doing business represents a viable and growing means of commercial enterprise that will unquestionably survive its initial roller coaster course.