This paper looks for the impact the Internet has on branding now and in the future.

Authors Avatar

  1. Executive Summary

This paper looks for the impact the Internet has on branding now and in the future. Therefore a short overview over the different views about branding in the last decades is given. The way from “brand as a physical entity” to “brand as a set of rational and emotional attributes”, over to “brand as experience”, finally to” brand as a set of defining relationships that people value” is shown. It argues that the principles of branding have changed not much because of the rising of the internet and are still valid, but that the view of branding has changed from being a one way street where the company tells the customers what they should think about the brand to a two way communication model. This fact is identified as a current issue in marketing. The view that branding is all about communication has changed to the believe that branding is about creating relationships with the customer and all partners that they value.

The impact of this new view on the development of marketing strategy is investigated. Four phases of development and implementation of the Internet within organisations are identified. (Doren 2000) It is found that the impact that the Internet has on the marketing strategy of an organisation depends very much on the phase that that organisation is on.

In a next step, the impact of the change of branding as communication to branding equals building valued relationships and its influences on the marketing functions is investigated. As a conclusion, it is found that this market-orientated emphasis requires a new management approach, seeing marketing less as a specialist function and more as a part of overall management responsibilities.


  1. Content


  1. Introduction

Branding on the Internet – Branding on its way from a communication approach to a relationship

The development of the Internet and its availability to a large number of customers has brought big changes to the way in which organisations can conduct business. Branding has changed in the last decades.  From the aim to build up long-term memorable brand icons (Logos, names, packaging, etc) through marketing agencies to the idea of a brand “as a set of defining relationships that people value” (Rubinstein, 2002).  This influences especially the role of marketing communications. The interactivity and fast two-way communications enabled by technology leads to the development of new strategies and better understanding of the customers needs.

  1. Findings

  1. Branding and the Internet

  1. The development of ideas about branding

There has been a significant change in branding. According to Rubinstein (Rubinstein, 2002) the ideas about branding have developed from “brand as a physical entity” through “brand as a set of rational and emotional attributes” to “brand as experience”. In a future next step brand is seen “as a set of relationships that people value”.

Join now!

From the 1940th onwards, a brand has been seen as a physical entity. Advertising agencies tried to build up long term memorable brand icons. Most important was to create visual identities such as the name, the logo and an associated symbol. The communication is one way. The message of a brand was determined by the company and sent out via the agencies to the passive customer. (Smith,1998) The idea was to sent the message as often as possible to the customer to make it stick and remain hopefully  for years. When new medias became available the same message was sent ...

This is a preview of the whole essay