Offline vs Online Branding - 1

To brand a product or service, it is necessary to teach consumers ‘who’ the product / service is – by giving it a name and using other brand elements to help identify it – as well as ‘what’ the product / service does and ‘why’ consumers should care. In other words, to brand a product or service it is necessary to give consumers a label for the product and to provide meaning for the brand to consumers (Keller, 2003).

According to Keller (2003), branding involves creating mental structures and helping consumers organise their knowledge about the products and services in a way that clarifies their decision making and, in the process, provide value to the firm. For branding strategies to be successful, consumers must be convinced that there are meaningful differences among brands in the product or service category. The key to branding is that consumers must not think that all brands in the category are the same.

Rowley (2004) claimed that online branding is at an interesting point of development. Many organisations recognise the need for integrated marketing communications across offline and online channels. This makes it difficult to differentiate, both practically and theoretically, between online and offline branding. On the other hand, branding in online environment poses a sufficient range of challenges and opportunities that it is important to shine the spotlight on branding in digital environments, and to explore some of the potential impacts of online channels for branding strategy.

It is crucial to ensure the consistency of the brand is not lost when the company’s brick-and-mortar brand is coming online. The functionality of a web site can sometimes be forgotten in place of look, feel and sound of the brand. If a marketing manager wants the company’s brand to relay reliability, focus and dependability - by cramming a web site full of Flash animations which will take considerable time to load and isn’t compatible for every browser may not lend itself to his initial aim.

Websites arguably present more demands than any other brand touch-point. For some web users, the site is the entire customer experience. Business strategy, brand strategy, communications strategy, product quality and customer service strategy are transparent. The site is a pressurized environment, since it exposes every dimension of the company.

Jackson (2006) argued that to delay updating or addressing site problems because of budget concerns is a false economy. Think of a customer who is prepared to pay a substantial premium for consumer electronics but who discovers, upon visiting a company website, that product images take interminably long time to build – or that crowded pages and unclear navigation make it next to impossible to locate a product’s detailed technical specifications. This situation would undermine this customer’s confidence in the brand and his or her motivation to purchase.