Meanwhile, Back on the Web
Tips for creating online brand identity
One thing is sure about business-to-business direct marketing: Few successful companies are following exactly the same business plans they set up three to four years ago.
The reason for this is the Web. But some B-to-B marketers still don’t understand the new medium.
One problem is that many firms “create a Web page, run an ad and then wait for the customer to visit the site and hopefully ring the bell,” says Kevin Blayne, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Boston-based Protocol Communications. “That falls way short of the effort and skills required to draw desired customer action.”
And part of the reason is that most B-to-B firms don’t know how to brand themselves, adds Steven Donaldson, president and marketing director of BGDI, a company based in Berkeley, CA.
“A successful brand is a moving target and a DM company has to constantly evolve its identity or be left behind,” Donaldson says.
He adds that brand awareness is valuable in itself, even if only built through a logo and tagline. This doesn’t mean that banners need to be clicked or actual sales generated.
Who’s doing it right? BGDI overhauled the site operated by Ask Jeeves Inc., which offers Web-based question-answering technologies and services to businesses.
The objective was to make the brand stand for service, just as FedEx stands for reliable overnight delivery. Jeeves isn’t just a name, like Yahoo or Amazon, but a character who personifies the promises of the brand – real answers, simplicity and service, Donaldson says.
“Simply ask a question in plain English and Ask Jeeves will give you an organized, finite range of answers that you can easily review in an intuitive and fast way,” he says.
Donaldson’s team chose to focus on this aspect in developing the brand identity. And it tied it to a strong visual identity.
“One of the keys to successfully launching and building a brand is a visual identity system that clearly projects the brand,” says Donaldson. “Visual components that work together in a variety of environments and media are key to triggering strong, consistent associations.”
“We created three key elements that act in synergy to help build the Ask Jeeves brand – the Jeeves character, the red “ask” button and the Jeeves logotype,” he points out. “It became apparent that the name itself – as a logotype – can be used as a valuable brand-building component on its own. These options provide the flexibility needed to project the brand through various media, but within a consistent system that guards the brand’s values.”
The “ask” button also reinforces the URL for the Ask Jeeves site: www.ask.com. Ask Jeeves also sells its question-answering technology to corporate clients, and the “ask” button as a sub-brand is extendible to those efforts without the Jeeves character.
In The Book of Jeeves, BGDI describes who and what the brand is and what it represents to the consumer – attributes to be consistently communicated throughout the Web site and offline in print and advertising.
To build a brand online you should have a branding guide, defining the entire range of applications and the do’s and don’ts of presentation, Donaldson emphasizes. This guide should also cover how the brand should be treated in offline media.
“Loyalty and perceived value drive customers to your company, your service or products,” he continues.
“Whether it be a FedEx or Sony or, in the online world, an e-Bay or Amazon.com,” he notes, “it’s the strong associations – the positive images – that link with the name and the experience that drive people to certain brands.”
