Re: UKNM: 'Wacky Names'

[Terry Kendrick]

Tsugumi makes some good points about brands but one part of the post made

me think .........


>.  Egg for example,

>despite the 'individual money matters' strapline, has led on price with all

>its product offerings. The 'individualised' element appears forgotten

>throughout the site. This suggests that it will have "bought" customers,

>rather than built loyal relationships. Ultimately, the value of the brand

is

>being diluted by inconsistent communications and price based offerings.


My feeling is that being loyal on the net is a strange concept.   It's not

about loyalty it's about the best deal.   I used Infoseek then Alta Vista

Came along, then I moved to Northern light, a brief stop off for a couple

of months with Alltheweb(FAST), and I currently use Google.   I have no

loyalty whatsoever - the best deal will do.  The internet encourages this

promiscuity because information is freely available and switching is

easy.   I cannot think of a single site (apart from my own and my son's

www.rtguitar.org) that I'm loyal to.  Most of my bookmarks are just there

until a better deal comes along.


In financial services you have either promiscuity or apathy - loyalty is

not a word I've felt compelled to use when I've consulted for financial

services companies.   Yeah yeah yeah... nice idea  but I can''t find loyal

members of the banks or insurance companies amongst my friends. How can you

really be loyal to a bunch of people who you don't trust a great deal?  You

may not switch but it would be dangerous to call that loyalty.


Also, on the net,financial services are are not competing with the high

street or out of town (such as other product areas  - groceries for

example) they are competing with the direct telephone guys and gals who

have seen that there is little added value so the best source of advantage

is to strip cost out.  It's a brave (consultant's term for loony) thing to

do to avoid driving by price even if you market with a smokescreen.  Try to

build in value-for-more-margin again all you like but you've still got to

get some volume before you can even begin to talk about customer retention.


Plenty of room for segmentation with the online brands though.  You could

sell Egg with an upmarket set of "added value" products under the label

Cress or a downmarket price driven

"free porn and drugs for points" label  -  Chips.   So you could be an Egg

and Cress or, under a diluted brand, an Egg and Chips customer.


Terry


**************************

Terry Kendrick

School of Management, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ. UK

Direct line on Mondays, Fridays and Thursday morning: +44 (0)1603 593217

Home office at other times:  +44 (0)1603 628818

More about Terry :    http://www.terrykendrick.co.uk

(updated May 2000)

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