Internet branding successes

July 9th, 2006

Amazon, eBay, Google, Yahoo are no longer just simple names, they are valuable brands known by anybody who’s ever worked on a computer. 

What made these businesses the huge successes they are today? First of all timing! They appeared on the market when needed. For example Amazon had been launched in 1995 when people where curious and anxious to have a virtual bookstore, available from their own homes anytime.

Then they have successfully branded their websites using different techniques. Back in 1995 eBay started its activity with the sale of a broken laser pointer. Today it’s the most well known online auction and shopping website. It has revolutionized the collectibles market because it brings together buyers and sellers from around the world. It is not only private individuals using eBay, due to the reputation of this brand, well known companies such as Apple sell their newest products (see Ipod) and offer services on eBay.

Yahoo, the most visited website on the Internet today with more than 400 million unique users, has become the success that it is because they understood and fulfilled client’s needs. They branded their site by applying different strategies (auto response messages, information in different areas, latest news, horoscopes) they have offered people with same interest the possibility of joining together to talk (Yahoo Groups).  As James Bilefield, business development director at Yahoo UK once said, yahoo is “first and foremost a media company, selling audiences”. 

Youtube.com for example has chosen a suggestive logo (“Broadcast yourself”) along with an expressive image (a red tv). So when visitors of the site think of it, they have the image of a tv in mind.To successfully brand its web side Google has found another strategy: AdWords Select (an optimization strategy to bring web sites more visitors as potential clients). According to Business Week, March 2006, “Google didn’t make money until it started auctioning ads that appear alongside the search results. Advertising today accounts for 99% of the revenue of a company whose market capitalization now tops $100 billion”. 

From every successful story of a company activating on Internet there are lessons to be learned and applied to your own website.    

Entry Filed under: branding