Creating and Brand Identity on the Internet

Volkswagen's New Beetle Website
In 1994 Volkswagen, Europe's largest car manufacture, announced that it would revive one of the commercial and design legends of this country: the "Beetle". In that year the organization presented a prototype of the New Beetle at the two major motor shows in Geneva and Detroit and pledged to manufacture the New Beetle before the end of the century. To support the introduction of the New Beetle, in March 1996 Volkswagen launched a web site devoted solely to the car (http://www.beetle.de.). Like the car itself, the websites is stylish, original, fun, and experimental. Extending the Volkswagen Beetle aesthetic into cyberspace the site uses the Internet medium to its fullest potential for image management.

The Website consists of several interlinked Web pages of text, graphics, and downloadable components as well as links to relevant e-mail addresses and other Volkswagen Web sites.

Netscape and Yahoo!

The web identities of two related organizations, a Web browser and a search engine - both virtually unknown just a few years ago now in everyone's lexicon - offer a stark contrast of differing Web identity approaches.

Both these organizations were savvy about using the properties of the Web to establish their identities - not surprising, since they are Web- based organizations. But each managed to create a distinctive sort of aesthetic while still achieving high interactivity. Netscape's call to users to help design the corporate logo invited the public in, but the final result was still polished by the organization itself. The final look of the logo, in keeping with the corporate identity of the organization, is lively but austere. Yahoo! Solicited input from users at every step of its conversion, creating the feeling of a community, one in which communication flows freely. The final look of the site is zany and casual, with usual color mixes and adventurous graphics.

The World Wide Web as a Marketing Tool

As the examples of Volkswagen, Netscape, and yahoo! Make clear, digital media such as the World wide web have become key instruments for corporate and brand identity and image creation, And the Web style - the prominent use of visuals and the nonlinear writing style- has already influenced other media. Gigantic visual images are in vogue again in outdoor city advertising, and printed copies are becoming more and more modular and less and less linear.
In most industries, a Web presence is absolutely essential to competitiveness. But as Alan Sigel, chairman of Sigel & Gale, a New York-based identity firm, observers, establishing a presence on the Internet must be done strategically. " Many corporations are rushing headfirst into electronic communications without a realistic set of priorities that will help them focus on the user and intelligently extend their corporate identity into the new media."

The Web is a system on the Internet that allows a business to be present and open on 24-hour basis through its Wed site, which is made up of special files (text, graphics, and sound or video) that are placed on a computer connected to the Internet. Users logged onto the Internet can get to any Web site via so-called browser programmers. Organizations must focus on the unique features of the Internet and use the medium to its fullest identity creating potential. The Internet is far more than just a new platform on which to post traditional promotional materials. To express their corporate identity on the Web, organizations must consider the full array of electronic options available - text, striking visuals and graphics, audio and video, interactive sections, e-mail links, links to other Web sites and so on. The choices seem to be endless, and new options are constantly added. There can be temptation to do too much, a temptation that companies should resist. A poorly designed Web site reflects poorly on a firm's identity.

The Unique Properties of the Web

Proactivity
Given that the computer is currently the only way for people to enter the web, marketers have to make their communications stand out. Above all, the Web site needs to draw people. The communicator must be proactive enough in order for the consumer to proactively find the communication. Advertisements on other Web Sites are an effective way to lure visitors to your site. They are small and relegated to a small part of the screen; not only do they deliver your message, but if you can lure a viewer of your ad to click on it, he or she can be taken right to your site.

The current method of finding sites is through "search engineers". To some degree, the popularity of search engines determines the lay of the land for marketers. Consumers make aesthetic and other comparisons not only or not necessarily between direct competitors, but between all the organizations that appear under a certain heading. What other organizations do on their Web sites - their look, style and theme - is now relevant to any organizations web strategy. Communicators need to conduct a competitive assessment for their Web presence.

Increasing proactivity can enhance identity by providing order and understanding to customers. For example maintain Key words so that search engines can find you in appropriate searches. Some organizations are excellent at thinking of every word that someone might use to find site. Consider using competitor names as well. If your organisaton or brand has more than one web site, be sure to have an easily understood and easily found home page as the center of the "village" of all your sites.

Interactivity

Interactivity usually refers to the interaction between a communicator and the person to whom a communication is addressed, for example a Web site that entices a user with questions that he or she must click on to an answer and bring on more options. A communicator has to cater to people's basic needs when they come across a new space: the need to explore - to exercise curiosity and have some freedom of movement; the need for sociality - to interact with others; and the need to have privacy and anonymity. Communicators on the Web must cater to these needs by creating interactive sites that stimulate and excite people, that make them feel like the communicator is there for them - not merely that computerized responses to their queries have been programmed. Relationship on the web should mimic our interactions in the real world with potential communicators. While there are still some limits on what kind of electronic world can be achieved, organizations should use the current technology to create for consumers as lifelike a situation as possible.