Branding - NOT for small BIZ

From: Ramon Ray <rayramon_at_nyfccs.com>
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 1999 10:47:30 -0600 (CST)

Moderator, thanks for the opportunity to hash this issue
out...

I must bring us back to branding for small biz one more
time, especially in light of a recent Clickz article about
offline advertising to push online visiting or views, etc.

I can't think of one small biz that is a brand name - except
for a dog company that American Express highlights in it's
Inc. Mag ads and other exceptions like this. The only
brand's I know of (IBM, Microsoft, AT&T, Clorox/Tide, etc -
the mother load of brands) have invested billions in
developing their BRANDS over the years - a small biz can
never, ever do that. Of course, someone like Amazon is the
darling of the media and their name gets in print all the
time.

Digression:

Even Barnes and Noble hardly gets mentioned in the main
stream press - you just hear on the Amazon best seller list
Monica's book is number 1!!! Forget NY Times.

End Digression:

All I'm saying is that with Yahoo, iCat and other's all
making it very easy for small businesses to not just put up
WEB sites but ecom enable them - small businesses need a
viable mechanism for advertising - BRANDING is something
they can never do on the net.

I think if they want to make a quick buck - thy CAN and
SHOULD USE THE INTERNET!!! The Clickz article encouraged me
- for about $1500 I can do a 1 - 3 week radio campaing here
in NYC . I'm sure a well designed 30-60 second spot would
greatly increase traffic to a site!!

So unless someone can convince me otherwise - online
branding is NOT for Small Businesses. We want a fast ROI,
immediate results, etc. HotJobs is another great example.
These guys are not a brand name - however, they sure as heck
did get a lot of extra traffic to their site. Guess what -
I'm sure they've greatly expanded their email database and
can go from there.

To me, BRANDING is what happens when a consumer thinks of a
product they think of yours. Luxury car - Mercedes. You
don't see any Lexus cars at the UN. Orange Juice: Tropicano.
Bleach - Clorox. A small biz can never reach this level. But
they sure can use the 'net to get people to do what they
want - either visiting a site, or just picking up the phone
and dialing a number!

*****************************
Ramon Ray - rayramon_at_nyfcs.com
Small business technology consultant, analyst, speaker, free lance writer
http://www.tiac.net/users/rayramon

Editor, Small Business Technology Report
http://www.tiac.net/users/rayramon/filedoc.htm and
Editor, Technology and Your Business
http://www.listbot.com/archive/technologyandyourbiz


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Received on Thu Mar 04 1999 - 11:43:24 CST