The Pontiflex Blog

Building brands via the web

June 2, 2009

An article in Adweek by Brian Morrissey points out the poor job the web has done in proving that it is a good vehicle for branding. The article cites a study conducted by Forbes.com. When asked what measures they used to gauge success, only 31 percent said brand building topped the list.

Not surprisingly, marketers felt that the web did an excellent job of driving direct response. About 82 percent of those surveyed identified conversions as the leading gauge, 55 percent said registrations and 51 percent said clicks.

The results are not surprising.

The web’s inherent measurability compels marketers to put a number on everything – including branding. And that’s ok. In an era, when even environmentally friendly cars take great  pains to tout their acceleration, there’s no reason why brand marketers should be insulated from the need for performance. If brand marketers can show their executives just how their brand advertising creates demand and drives revenue, they will ultimately benefit in the form of larger budgets.

Unfortunately, the efficacy of branding campaigns is more often than not measured through metrics like impressions and clicks – which quite frankly do a poor job of measuring both  brand metrics (awareness, perception, recall, recognition, intent) and direct response metrics (conversions, sales, repeat orders, etc).

Crucially the article states: The challenge for those selling brand advertising online is not to run from measurement…We’re going to need to go forward with a supportable ROI, but I think we’ll have to push the type of metrics being measured.”

And here’s where change has already begun to happen – a new set of metrics have begun to evolve that are focused on engagement.

To give just one example, even though we are a lead generation company,  our growth has been driven not by direct marketers but by brand advertisers .

In the new approach to branding, brand marketers  first build a pipeline of interested consumers acquired through both offline and online channels (such as CPL advertising). Then, they engage the consumers in relevant ways through e-newsletters, community sites, scoial networking groups, Twitter forums and the like.  Assets used to engage consumers range from Youtube videos, ad collateral, widgets and a host of other innovations, many of which bear a striking resemblance to advertising as we think of it.  Engagement marketing can be used to inform, to drive specific call to actions and to empower brand advocates and create demand.

Utilizing a “broadcast” approach to deploy a branding campaign online doesn’t do justice to the capability of the  Internet in connecting a brand with a user in meaningful and relevant ways. With the new emphasis on engagement, the web will finally be able to boost branding metrics, while being able to deliver returns at the same time.

Entry Filed under: Lead Generation,Online Advertising. .