The Importance Of Branding And Ebranding Marketing Essay

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015

Nowadays, world is changing very fast. After advent of computer technology is improving. Companies provide different services and products to their costumers and there are many competitors. In competitive world companies have to introduce something special for their customers to survive, but the big question is how they have to achieve their goals? Although commercial internet has been around a decade and many internet companies work on advertising on the internet, but online branding is a new way of building a strong brand and few works have been done .

In recent years brands have an important role in our everyday life. Thinking about buying products is impossible without paying attention to brands' names. "Brand is a specific name, symbol or design" (Doyle, 2002. p 158). Brand is a characteristic of products and services. Distance between producers and buyers have been raised recently. There are no communications between buyers and sellers. Companies have to rely on other factors to reach potential customers. Branding is a way of distinguishing the goods of one producer from those of another (Keller, 1998). Having a strong brand helps companies to be followed by consumers. Customers always expect special products from large companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Zara and etc. branding means create values to customers and keep them satisfied to come back again and again. It causes that a company gains a strong market share and an enhanced and sustainable competitive advantage, which generally provide a firm basis for future growth (Kevin I. N. Ibeh, 2005).

After advent of the internet technology has increased very fast and it created intensive competition among companies. It enhanced consumer power and created low barriers to enter in the market for new companies. Big question is rising. How companies could have strong brand and how do they have to do branding? Online branding is the best way. Nowadays e-branding is more important than before. There are many internet users in the world, and then internet companies have to pay attention to internet marketplace more than ever. Internet marketplace in very intensive marketplace. E-branding has revolutionized the competitive landscape and brand building environment within which companies operate (Kevin I. N. Ibeh, 2005). It is very important to know how interne base companies promote their brand values and promise effectively in the internet marketplace and how they employ offline and online branding strategies. Offline and online brand protecting is so necessary for large and top companies (Fitzgerald 2000; Hanson 2000; Mosquera 2000; Sargert 2000). For many years a lot of internet base companies did not realize the potential of e-branding. Additionally, brands may be used as search keys, especially when the domain name equals the brand (Rowley, 2004). Many new companies cannot be seen in online world unless they appear on the top of search engines such as GOOGLE, YAHOO and BING when they are searched by internet users, so it has become important that brands are search keywords. In online world where there are no interpersonal between buyers and sellers, trust has become one of the most important issues. There are many online companies which work on the net and in online world but just few of them are reliable to consumers. Security problem on the internet is not solved completely and consumers are worry about trading in internet marketplace.

Problem discussion:

Companies have to create both tangible and intangible values for costumers. Brands have existed since early Roman times, but branding as a marketing tool is only about 120 years old (Tedlow 1990). The origin of branding can be found in the early years of 20th century. Making influence on customers' mind is its main goal. Brand has to have impact to change consumers' decision making. Preference for the brand, trust and customer loyalty is needed to make a brand competitive (Horst Treiblmaier, 2006). A lot of researches have been done in this field but there is no clear picture about this. One main reason is because of cyberspace area is very young to legislate any roles and regulations. The concept of branding on the internet is almost as same as traditional branding. Consumers' experiences online can affect their decision. In other word, on the web experience is a brand (Dayal etal., 2000. P44). E-brands ( electronic brands ) are called by internet users to companies which work in the online world and offer products and services to their consumers. Customers want to save their time and money, so internet is the best way of trading, but lack ok websites attractions, security of transaction, customer services and effective communications cause many problems to users. There are just few companies which could attack customers and keep them satisfied to came and use their websites again.

Overall purpose:

Given the above discussion on e-branding and use of internet as a tool of branding in cyberspace. The question of this studying is:

How internet can be used by internet base companies to build a strong brand?

Outline overview:

Literature overview:

This paper is about the importance of branding, e-branding, communication with customers and international branding.

Brand management:

Companies should have strong brand developing strategies to build a good brand image on customers' minds. There should be someone to be responsible for brand image and brand identity design in a company.

Brand managers are responsible for invest on branding in media and online world. They are also in charge of marketing programs.

Brand equity managers are responsible for products and market. They are also responsible for equity measurements and brand research.

Global brand managers are responsible for brand identity around the world and he they should know that brand strategies of companies are done well in every country.

Category managers should develop strategies in each country and they should be aware that all strategies are effective in logistics and distributions. Category managers are responsible for brand strategies among sub brands in worldwide.

Advertising agencies are the best candidate to communicate. The try to employee good personnel who are keen on branding and developing advertising, because they have good experience in branding field and can be useful to have impact on the way that they advertise.

Brand identity:

Brand identity is DNA of branding and it represent by name, slogan, logo, singe, combination of colors and so on. For example, when people talk about Coca-Cola they know that it is red and if they see another color for Coca-Cola they will be impressed. The figure which is shown below is about brand identity process in companies by Upshaw (1995).

BRAND IDENTITY

Essence

Strategic personality

Brand positioning

Brand

Brand name

Logo Market communication

Selling strategies Promotion

Product or service performance

The importance of branding and e-branding:

A strong brand can add value of products and attract more loyalty and create good perception in consumers' minds. Well-known brands can have better distributions and they can save customers' time and money even in real stores (Steiner1987). Deciding which brand to buy is often related to recognize brand names (Kotler and Armstrong 1993). Brand names can be products' categories such as coke. When people talk about coke it means they talk about beverages or when people talk about GOOGLE it means the talk about internet and search on the internet. Many of well-known brands have become strong brands in the online world, because consumers have better perception about those brands than others which are not famous in real world. Branding is even more important on the internet, because it is an intangible for customers and they have to be reliable enough for internet users and traders. Use of search engines is declining and experience shows that visiting some websites again and again is more than surfing the net. Clicking on banners and advertisements are decreasing. Many of internet users like to have access to their favorite websites directly without helping of search engines, so domain name is becoming more important than before. Domain names should be memorable easily like FORD.COM (Ries and Ries 2000). The ideal domain strategy lets a prospective visitor easily remember or guess the domain name (Hanson 2000; Ilfeld and Winter 2002). Domain name is very crucial for companies and its products. Unfortunately, weak regulation and the easy registration of domain names have encouraged the abuse of brands as domain names. The failure to register relevant and obvious domain names leaves the brand's image, and thus its equity, susceptible to sabotage by competitors, adversaries and scheming entrepreneurs (Hanson 2000). Domain name is protecting brand.

Branding and e-brand building strategies:

Advent of the internet has had a lot of impacts on many businesses, both traditional businesses and online businesses. Opportunities are increasing and entry barriers are decreasing for new startup companies. Power in businesses is shifting from firms to consumers. Firms try to changing their business strategies of branding and marketing because of interment capacity and characteristic due to overcome traditional roles and win this new game in the online world. Branding is about adding value to company's products and keeping customers satisfied and providing their needs. Brands can save customers' searching process and help to get suitable information about products and services before they decide to buy. Advert of the internet has change many things in real world and has shift it into virtual world. Recently internet marketplace has become very crowded and most of customers provide their need from cyber market instead of real market. So, in this new world trust has become very important for consumers, because the way of transaction is different from the past in real world. Everything is intangible and customers want firms which they buy something from be reliable. Previous research has mentioned about difference of offline and online businesses and it was about speed of execution. Offline businesses took six months to complete, but online businesses just take six weeks to execute. It shows that how much online trades are faster than offline trades and it is all about the advantages of the internet. As it was said above, trust is a very important factor in online businesses, because it does not depend on national laws, physical proximity, handshakes and body signals (Clarke R. (1997), Ratnasingham, P. (1998)). Customer loyalty is another factor in the online world and online businesses. Companies' logos, advertisements which are shown on websites, promotions, online experience of web users and good delivery all affect on loyalty of customers and traders. Companies have to try to keep them satisfied to come again and repurchase from their websites (Dayal, S., Landesberg, H. and Zeisser, M.(2001)). To improve e-branding, online companies have used a lot of strategies to encourage customers such as improving their online brands to gain first advantages, attract users, understanding target markets and market segments, needs of customers to build a good relationships with them and use public Medias to make awareness of internet users. All factors which are mentioned are used to make trust, because if customers trust a company and have a good online experience customers will be satisfied and it means they will come back again and again. It is what that all online companies are looking for in the online world. It causes to increase click to order ratio repurchase rates (Court, D., McLaughlin, K. and Halsall, C. (2000)). Building a strong brand with a good and unique message, communication with customers, good delivery of products and services of a company, enhance brand promise all can help to internet base companies survive in the intense internet marketplace and compete with other rivals and increase entrance barriers to new ones. Kearney mentioned seven items for attraction of customers to increase companies' buyers. Connectivity, building community, good delivery, personalizing and customizing, increase customer care and being user friend of websites for customers (AT Kearney Report (1999)). All online firms can enhance their competitive advantages by increasing all factors which are mentioned in their websites to be sure that their customers are satisfied and they delivered companies' promise to their customers.

Communication strategies:

There are many ways of communication in offline and online businesses. Many ways such as media advertisements, e-mail marketing, banner advertisements, affiliate programs and many other ways. Building online trust is very important for online companies. Satisfaction of customers in online experience is a crucial one. Internet provides many information for everyone, but creating loyalty among users and customers should be noticed by companies to have loyal customers and it is what they need to survive in crowded internet marketplace. Products or services which are sold buy online companies are intangible for customers before e-transaction ,so making trust is even becoming more important than before. Delivering good imagination of brands on customers' minds and good signals are the main points. Understanding suitable target in the market can help to attract exact consumers of products and services and gaining better feedback (McWilliam, G. (2000)).

International e-branding:

Internet has provided many opportunities to internet based companies to expand their activity around the global. This advantage can be seen in some companies such as Amazon, Ebey, and Yahoo and so on. They have globalized their activities in many other countries by using local domain names such as (eg fr.amazon.com, uk.amazon.com). Countries have different cultures and traditions, so online companies have to adapt their products with each culture. Attractions for one country could be different from another one.