The New Branding Soapbox
Stop treating your website like software; it’s your brand in motion.
It’s difficult for most people to remember just how curious a discontinuity the Internet was just five years ago. Few could visualize the impact it would have on our daily lives. Today, it’s hard to imagine functioning without it.
The deep penetration of the web into almost every industry and category continues. It’s revolutionizing even the most mature and “traditional” categories – everything from banking to travel, from automobiles to media. Its distributive power has placed control back in the hands of the end consumer by offering an endless and easy supply of information and options.
Yet the Internet also represents a new platform for creating, positioning and maintaining brand identities that is, as yet, largely unused. The website is the most potent “branding soapbox” ever created, yet it’s still treated as software.
Turning the Website into a Commodity
Our company, Blue Bear LLC, is a research firm focused exclusively on helping clients create superior websites. We’re on the front lines with clients and their websites. Consumer understanding and website development is a contact sport. Our unique approach is deeply immersive for our clients who, often, are startled by what we help them learn.
More and more, we see two user reactions to the websites we research:
1. Most Websites Are About The Same - In any given category, consumers increasingly feel that most websites are very similar, to the point where logos could be swapped.
2. Exceptionally Well-Branded Websites Are Standouts – They have stopping power – the ability to move consumers, change their perceptions, deepen their loyalty, and drive purchase. Users remember them, use them, identify with them and, importantly, tell others.
The Website Development Phases
How did we get to the point where most websites are about the same? The answer lies in how the website has developed over the past 5-7 years. We’ve seen three distinct phases:
Usability - In 2000, when we started our business, even the most sophisticated of companies were largely focused on navigation and usability -- simply put, helping users to “get from here to there.” This has become less of an issue as developers adopted -- and users accepted -- some design standards.
“Do-Ability” - The creation of features and functionality -- what a website does for its visitors and/or what visitors can accomplish on a website -- has been driven at warp speed in even the most modestly competitive categories.
All too often, however, website developers freeze in place once they exhaust the “features toolbox” of relevant functionality. Why? Because the definition of “software” stops at the border of “doing things”. “Being something” doesn’t count with software.
That’s where they’re wrong. Websites are not software. They’re marketing tools. So, what’s happened? Competitors have managed to replicate each other’s key features and functionality without much trouble. It’s at this point that consumers have started to complain that websites are all the same.
In fact, they are.
Brandability - Bringing offline brands to life online is a very unique challenge, for three reasons:
• Users, not advertisers, are in control of the website. It’s their experience, not yours.
• Brand identities that fill a 30-second TV commercial must now translate to a profound multi-minute online brand experience. These old brand equities feel as two-dimensional as old Hollywood Westerns sets when translated into this deeply immersive medium.
• The website calls for real action from what was previously a static identity. Translating brands to the web requires putting “brands in motion.” Brands must be brought to life to succeed on the web.
Transform Your Offline Brand into a Vibrant, Differentiated Online Brand
Each brand situation is unique. As such, translating brands successfully online requires individual attention. But for starters, here are six basic steps to take.
1. First Flash Reaction – The visitor’s first 10 seconds on a website establish 90% of their overall reaction. Can they:
• Play back “the big idea” and tie it back to what your brand stands for?
• Understand what the site likely will allow them to do/learn?
• Feel confident that the site was meant for them?
2. Brand Identity Inventory – On each key web page, how many brand-specific elements can you count?
Next, check the intensity and integrity of the branding presentation. If it strikes users as hollow or fake or transparent, you have an issue. Step back and re-learn what makes your target consumers need the category. Ask them to complete the following sentences in relation to their world and your category: “I wish…”, “I worry…” and “I need….”
Now, analyze how those needs could be met on the website. Create new ideas and present these to consumers for their reaction. Present work from other categories to learn from others’ successes and mistakes.
3. Product/Service Focus – It is remarkable how many companies present their products or services poorly on the web. The excuses vary: “not enough money,” “photos were imported from another project,” “doesn’t matter.”
Well, it does matter. If visitors don’t sense a heroic place for your brand from you, then why would they place your brand on a pedestal? On the web, a heroic presentation of your product/service means:
• The highest possible quality of photography, even high resolution, if your target consumer accesses the site via high speed connection.
• Detailed and complete information about the product/service specifications. The user should not have to leave the website with an unanswered question. Ever.
• The product/service has a place of honor on the website though, in fact, it may not be the first thing the consumer sees.
4. Production Values – This is somewhat related to steps 2 & 3. From a consumer perspective, your website is your headquarters. Ever been to a company whose headquarters was dated, dowdy or even dirty? Remember the impact this had on your expectations? Let your consumers examine your “headquarters” and provide their reaction. Likely, you will be surprised and then moved to take action.
5. Simplification – Most websites we encounter in our work would be far better if one-third of the content, graphics, photos and navigational devices were removed. Complexity obscures simplicity. Copy, particularly, needs to be styled after Haiku: minimal. Written instructions are largely a waste of time. Complexity obscures the uniqueness of your brand.
6. Aggressive Customer Service – This may seem out-of-place, but in fact it’s critical. Most websites offer some form of “Contact Us” link or section. However, the location, complexity, options, access and follow through determine whether you mean “Please Contact Us” or “Please Don’t Contact Us.” Clients who “cleverly” hide the 1-800 phone number to force visitors to learn how to use the website are often accomplishing that – on their competitor’s website.
Finally, once new ideas are put into conceptual form, with even limited functionality, they should be retested with consumers. The good news is that pure branding is less about how “something works” (it’s not software, remember) and more about “what is” and how it’s presented. That means the work can be developed, tested and perfected at very low cost, before expensive back-end development begins.
Successful branding on websites is the next thing. It’s a contact sport. Get it right by working with your consumers. Branding, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
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