Here are the five most important characteristics of web
brands:
- Web brands are useful
- They have a clarity of purpose
- The embrace simplicity
- They interact and engage
- They are customer-centric
Web brands are useful
Google has a market capitalization of $153 billion because it is
useful. I will easily change my car brand, my mobile phone
brand, my shoe brand, but I will not change Google. I will not
change from Google because it helps me find stuff faster than
other search engines.
Search is purposeful. We don’t search for the fun of it. We
search because we need to find something that will help us
complete a task. The Web is a functional, no-frills pace. It may
be our goal to spend more time with our family, but we go to the
Web to get a good deal on a family vacation.
Clarity of purpose
When you arrive at the homepage of a quality web brand you know
immediately what it is about-what it can do for you. A web brand
is not a murder mystery. It tells you who did it right from the
very first line.
“Google is an absolutely phenomenal brand in the sense that it
is very clear what it stands for and it has perceived leadership
and innovation,” Peter Walshe, global brands director at
Millward Brown, told Silicon.com.
Making life more simple
Quality web brands save us time. They don’t force us to think
too much. The BUY button is nice and big. It’s easy to figure
out what to do next. It’s hard to get lost. We only need to read
the sentence once to understand it. We are not overawed and
confused by too many choices.
Web brands interact and engage
Craigslist has 10 million customers and gets over four billion
page views per month. It has 22 employees. Wikipedia is a hugely
popular website. It has 10 employees. Skype has 171 million
customers. It has 510 employees.
Web brands have a different concept of the organization. They
see the Web as the organization. They see their customers as
part of the organization.
Web brands are customer-centric
Great web brands are built around the customer. They don’t start
out with this question: How can we make money out of customers?
Rather, they start with this question: How can we help customers
do things they need to do?
www.gerrymcgovern.com