Brand Building in the Digital Age:
Websites as Branding Tools

Interface Branding… Inter what?

"The most successful brands hold a strong, favorable and unique position in our minds"
- Kevin Keller, Strategic Brand Management, Prentice-Hall

Remember the days when a brand could manipulate public perception simply by pumping endless TV ads to a passive broadcast audience? The invention of the remote control made things a little more difficult and now DVRs and on-demand content are changing the landscape forever. In this new environment, the successful brands of the future must adopt a comprehensive marketing strategy that effectively integrates multiple touch points with their campaigns. The web is rapidly becoming the most important of these brand touch points--the glue that holds the campaign together. Websites offer a unique opportunity for brands to interact directly with their customers. They entertain, assist and inform the user. They empower the user to access the information that they want. The brand builds trust and creates a deeper relationship every time the user successfully locates information or completes a task on their site. This practice is known as interface branding.

Interface branding is the online component of integrated branding or transmedia branding. The online component must complement and augment the experience across all other touch points with the campaign. Many top brands are already exploring the power of transmedia branding.

• Ford has successfully reached the Web2.0 audience with their boredomhurts.com microsite that encourages users to upload videos and pictures through YouTube and Flickr

• The success of Geico’s caveman TV advertising is enhanced by the cavemanscrib.com website

• Holiday Inn is changing perceptions of their brand through their Holidayinnpromotion.com/workhappens microsite with very funny videos that relate to their current TV campaign about rules for business travelers

• Coca-Cola experienced global success with their ‘The Coke Side of Life’ website that tied together all the touch points of the integrated campaign: a live concert tour, TV ads, sports sponsorships, sweepstakes, online games and a fascinating online feature that allows users to create their own Coke artwork

• Xerox’s Frugalcolor.com adds humor and an interactive element to their TV ads

• The popular NBC show, Heroes, blurs the line between TV and reality by maintaining actual websites for the organizations in the show that allow you to apply for a job, get tested for special powers, etc.

All these initiatives have one thing in common. They focus on a website that provides highly interactive content, video and experiences for entertainment purposes. Here lies the key. Modern consumers are too savvy for the hard sell. They appreciate entertainment from the brand as a way to generate trust, value and goodwill. Due to the interactivity and engagement associated with successful sites and microsites, the Web offers the key to fostering this deeper relationship with the brand.

Marketers should remember that there are three main ways that a brand builds credibility and loyalty through a website.

Brand Consistency

The theme must be consistent across all touch points. The website should include a consistent look, feel, tone and message of the brand and campaign.

Appeal of the site

The successful site will recognize and promote the ‘hook’ or appeal, such as entertainment, humor, a professional experience, engaging images, advanced tools/features, etc.

Helping users easily accomplish their goals

The site must be usable--not only to avoid frustration, but to build trust and loyalty. If the site is able to predict and understand the user’s needs, then they will trust that the brand must understand their needs as well.

Companies are slowly becoming aware of the true power of interface branding, but the best brands will be those that capitalize on this unique opportunity through comprehensive transmedia campaigns that drive users to the site and then deliver consistency, appeal and loyalty through successful completion of user goals.

At TNS, we measure involvement to understand consumer experiences. To be successful, brands cannot continue to talk at their consumers. Brands must develop campaigns that are compelling enough to make consumers seek out the experience, thus empowering the consumer to become truly involved with the brand.

For more information, please email tnsbcdinfo@tns-global.com.