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Internet Branding
By Michael Alan Hamlin
October 4,2004
CEO and publisher of Washingtonpost.com
and Newsweek.MSNBC.com Christopher Schroeder surprised publishers,
IT experts, and branding and marketing consultants alike last year
when he announced that his "company saw advertising revenue
jump 50 percent in the first nine months of 2002, a time when many
media companies were seeing a devastating downturn." While
overall Internet advertising revenue declined in 2002, mainstream
online publishers for the first time saw real promise in electronic
publishing.
Online ad revenues in other sectors
jumped back in 2003, as investors saw legs in some "traditional"
online business models, especially Yahoo.com, Amazon.com, and Google.com.
Total ad revenue recorded in the U.S. was approximately $6.6 billion
for the year, and the trend is holding this year.
In announcing the 2002 revenue jump,
Schroeder argued that his company wasn't an exception among publishers
that depend on online advertising revenue for their survival and
profitability. "According to one Online Publishers Association
survey of leading content sites, including WSJ.com, ESPN.com, Slate.com
and several others, the average year-to-date advertising revenue
increase has been over 33 percent," he wrote in The Asian Wall
Street Journal.
One of the most interesting aspects
of this unexpected surge in online advertising is that traditional
companies now make up 60 percent of online advertisers. Schroeder
notes, "The void left by bankrupt dot-coms has been filled
by companies with staying power. These companies are spending, on
average, nearly two-thirds more on Internet advertising than they
did a year ago."
These advertisers have found that
being visible to hundreds of millions of Internet users internationally
that can immediately click through to their sites is a powerful
brand building, retail, and lead generation tool. But what about
Philippine advertisers and media sites? As is always the case with
just about any empirical number here, no one really knows, and even
the anecdotal evidence is contradictory.
The general assumption is that online
publishers in the Philippines aren't doing nearly as well as their
North American counterparts - although online readership is eating
into traditional hardcopy readership - in large part because local
advertisers aren't yet convinced that online advertising works.
There are some exceptions, however, and these are mostly multinational
advertisers who contract online advertising out of regional headquarters.
In Asia as a whole, online advertising revenues are expected to
increase to $1.62 billion by 2007 from just $304.3 million in 2002.
In the Philippines anecdotal evidence
does suggest that the power of the Internet for generating online
revenues in general and brand building on corporate websites is
a bit clearer. This is particularly true for firms in the IT-enabled
services sectors, which generally seek to recruit individuals with
at least a minimal comfort level with technology. According to contact
center sector HR and marketing executives, 80 percent or more of
resumes and applications they receive are forwarded via the Internet.
Because of competition for what is
perceived to be an increasingly tight pool of qualified people,
IT-enabled services companies in the contact center, design and
engineering, and software engineering sectors particularly have
started taking brand building very seriously. It is interesting
that the push to increase brand awareness, positive association,
and recall does not have to do with attracting clients, but with
attracting bright people, and that the Internet is a key communications
channel for this purpose.
David A. Aaker and Erick Joachimsthaler
in their book, B®AND LEADERSHIP, say that three unique characteristics
of the Internet account for the increasingly important role of the
web for building brands. First, the Internet is "interactive
and involving." For instance, it is an extremely fast resource
for research. When I wrote my first book in 1996, virtually none
of the companies we profiled had a web presence when I began. But
by the time I submitted the completed manuscript, it was hard to
find a company that didn't. The latest book is based almost completely
on research done over the Internet. It also made interviewing far-flung
executives and seeking permission to reproduce copyrighted material
a snap.
Second, the Internet offers "current,
rich information" that is hard to duplicate with bulky, traditional
direct mail pieces, and especially in a fax. Fax recipients typically
get a bit testy when a fax exceeds one page. But on the Internet
there is no limit to the information that can be provided. And the
increasing popularity of bloggers such as instapundit.com has made
them an attractive online advertising channel.
Third, the Internet "personalizes."
On Schwab.com users can customize their opening screen to provide
a snapshot of their portfolio, research on potential investment
opportunities, and the latest news on sectors in which the investor
focuses. WSJ.com will also send bulletins on breaking news involving
companies in which the reader-investor is interested, as well as
a regular, customized summary of news and feature stories. Same
for the New York Times, and most other publishers.
The Internet is a powerful communication
tool, despite contradictory evidence, even in the Philippines -
especially if you are targeting upwardly mobile professionals for
your products, and bright, young minds for your staff.
(Michael Alan Hamlin is the managing
director of consultancy TeamAsia and the author of three books on
Asian economies and companies. His latest book is Marketing Asian
Places, of which he is a co-author (Wiley, 2001), and he is currently
at work on High Visibility: The Making and Marketing of Asian Professionals
into Celebrities. Write him at mahamlin@teamasia.com.).
Copyright © 2004 Michael Alan Hamlin. All Rights
Reserved.
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