Balance needed on Web: Sponsored by Business Week

Marketers must adopt a balanced approach when building an Internet brand: proceeding too quickly or too slowly or making simple generic statements are a recipe for disaster. Speaking at the Business Week-organised E-Biz seminar, Steve Calder, a partner in the US-based agency Citron Haligman and Bedecarre, said that brands must evolve quickly to keep pace with changes in consumer behaviour, technology and the competitive landscape. For instance, he said that the time between when people go online for the first time and when they purchase for the first time over the Internet has shrunk to just four months compared with 22 months before. At the same time, however, companies cannot hope to build a strong brand from extremely short-term and expensive advertising bursts. "Could you cook a turkey in 15 minutes?" Mr Calder asked. "Yes, but who would want to eat it?" He stressed that to be successful, all brands - not just dotcom ones - must deliver on their promise, stand for something and have a consistent voice and message. But for dotcoms without the traditional bricks and mortars business, stressing key brand attributes is even more important. He cited eToys in North America as an example. The company had a 71 per cent market share in 1998. But that plummeted to just 16 per cent the following year when Toys-R-Us.com made the jump into cyberspace and took a market share of 17 per cent. "eToys failed to establish a clear, strong branding in its first year, but Toys-R-Us made effective use of its traditional brand which is well-known around the world and leverage a presence on the Internet," Mr Calder said. Mr Calder also said that marketers of Internet brands must think "out of the box" to make their campaigns unique and, therefore, stand out from the clutter of the growing number of dotcom advertising. He spoke of the US online invitation service eVite, which targeted socially active people by placing ads with sophisticated graphics on the floor of the wine aisle in supermarkets. The company also placed ads on taxis, dry cleaning bags and on blimps above sports stadiums. Dotcoms should also stop making generic statements in their ads - such as "it is fast, easy, convenient and saves time and money, which "consumers expect anyway", Mr Calder said. "They have to give consumers the insight that they have unique values and propositions that they can benefit from." The E-Biz seminar was held in both Hong Kong and Singapore.

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