E Branding by Dr. Orit Mossinson

Seth Godin found and named “The Dip”. 
He reminded us “Being the Best in the world is seriously underestimated “.
He demonstrated that the mass market is dying and that if you are not the best in the world, you just shouldn’t bother.
He also indicated we should all find our Micro world and become its leader. Cause this is the way champions think like. 

E branding is all about being the best.
Our E world is filled with endless possibilities and numerous platforms & websites.
Meaning you just have to become the best in the world. Nothing else would do.

Your E brand equity has to establish your “best in the world” value or you won’t stay in the Web arena for long.No place for losers here.
Even The Long Tail is made out of winners.
Each micro market creates its own tiny arena you should excel at.
Just make sure you find the best arena for you.  

Internet Biz Dev is a huge maze.
You need to know when to give up and when to hold on to your dream. Otherwise, you would waste all your energy trying to figure out this endless maze.

Seth Godin calls it “Dead End” & “The Dip”. But we all mean the same. 

We all know Apple hardware is working with Windows cause it faced a “Dead End” and decided to jump into Microsoft’s “Dip”.
Apple is trying to create a Dip with its ITunes and IPhone platforms , and Microsoft has created an impossible Dip for PC platforms.

We can feel The Dip everywhere but how could we use it ?
When should we stick with “The Dip”?
When should we figure out we’re facing a “Dead End” and quit ? 

I suggest using E Brand Equity. Check your brand’s intangible values. Or better yet, write all values and delete all utility values.
Do you have “leading” , “cutting edge” or “best at” as one of your values?
Is it possible you’ll gain such values in the near future?
If your answer is “No”, it’s a Dead End.
Quit and start building your new brand. This time, don’t forget to include “best” as one of its Brand Equity values.

We are global. Web 2 has outgrown countries.
Social networks are our countries.
No matter where you came from, what you do or how you look like, we all have the same profile.
We are all a one big united nation.

But we are not the same.

Chinese still think differently than Americans and French are looking for different things than Japanese.
Web2 seemed to forget different mentality aspects.

If a Japanese user and an American user share the same interests, Web 2 would offer them same options and expose them to the exact same advertisements based on their shared interests.

They would both get the same advertisement but they would interpret it differently.

Web 2 strategies forgot brand’s equity aspects.
Brand equity is defined as psychological advantages (defined by the consumer itself), social advantages and even experience benefits.

Different mentalities grasp different psychological advantages.

But Web 2 strategies decided we are all the same.

No wonder most e-marketing managers can not produce a decent marketing plan these days.

Non of them know what brand equity is.

If web 2 is all about sharing everything, what will become of web 3? Will the sharing be regulated? And if so, what will become of the users?
Sharing is an euphoric vision. Open content, Open source, Open world.
We all love slogans. We all identify with “Make love not war”. But somehow wars occur.Chaos has always been a problem. Worst dictators grew out of chaos.

Web 2 started an euphoric dream. But euphoria can not sustain once money is involved.
Platforms are about to become our dictators. And like everything bad, we would probably notice it a minute too late.
Web 3 is about to add something to the equation we already know. Probably a middle man. An identity that would regulate web 2 . An internet UN.
We already suffered from UN’s failures offline so just imagine what are the possibilities for an Internet UN that could regulate our virtual future. 

Who will become our Web UN?
It could be a representation of all segments, but judging by our Web history, it won’t. I believe we are about to have a dictatorship UN that would initiate all rules the web is lacking these days.
We would be able to use this new authority and sue spammers, find pedophiles and trace each and every activity on the web.
And we would have a president and a prime minister and a Senate, and they would all be chosen from a wide variety of Google’s and Yahoo’s employees. 

It’s as if Web2 became users’ sweat shops, ha?
Everyone gives users free platforms but no one wants them to get anything meaningful out of it.You can make videos, write blogs, edit Wikipedia, but you can not gain anything but fame.
Fortune is left for the platforms.
Youtubes’ founders got their share and so will all other platforms owners. The user, the one that made it all happen for them, didn’t and won’t get a thing except for the chance to work hard for nothing.  

It feels like most users are blind and all enterprises are trying to gain more and more out of their hard work.
 Digg gave users the ability to mark items for them. They gave users a title if they gave them enough strong items. Once they got strong enough they forgot all about their Top Diggers.
Now, Netscape stopped marking their “power users”.
Those platfroms decided that even sharing their fame is too dangerous these days.If Web2 users were smart enough they would boycott those platforms. Same platforms that are changing the new web into a giant sweat shop.

Affiliates programs served web’s enterprises for several years now.
Those programs offered content owners great profitability based on the exposure they offered their sponsors. 

Web2 gave us the power.

Each user is branded as a content owner and we believe users should be the ones gaining from their exposure.
Sponsors should pay the individual content owner for his time and money.  

Each user should thank Web2 enterprises for changing the World Wide Web.
There is no doubt they should and would gain profits from each and every enterprise.

But, in order to continue Web2 mission we should all spread the rumor:
Each user should get the power to sponsor his work.
The user is the one sponsors should pay to.
Billion dollars’ enterprises shouldn’t profit from end users’ work.

Power to the people guys!.

Many researches tried to define the concept of Brand Equity.Yoo , Donthu &, Lee  (2000) defined brand equity as the equity differences between two similar products. This definition deals with two brands gaining the same utility benefits, with a different brand name.

A different brand name gives the product its unreal benefits. 
Our market place has been changed and the internet is a different arena with different brand equity benefits.
Still, while two major websites offer the same hotel services and two major bloggers write the same points on the exact same subject, we still prefer one of the two. 
I believe brand equity in our new Web 2 economy is the only reason people prefer a specific web site.The feeling you got the first 1/20 sec you entered a site is what makes you come back to it over and over again.This messes up the equation.Users suffer from a neurotic disorder of knowing everything and this does not leave them the time to like a site in those 1/20 sec.The controlling partner in this collaboration is the user. The same user that pumps your rating and adds his social network the strength it needs in order to count. 
No site is strong enough to control a user. Branded equity is a 1/20 sec experience these days and the user is the one left with all the power.

What is a brand in our traditional market place? 

A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol, graphic design or a combination of those,that is identified as a manufacturer good, and creates a segregation (differentiation) between the company and its competitors. For customers, a brand holds a promise for: authenticity, reliability, warranty and guarantee, a connection to the manufacturer, low search cost and low endangerment. (Rich, 2001) . 

Same goes for Bloggers. Bloggers are Web 2 manufacturer goods.
But who is the responsible manufacturer?
A name (Scobleizer , Arrington, etc.) holds a promise for authenticity and reliability.
The new Web 2 economy didn’t think of traditional ways for limiting such an authority.
The community is the government these days.Web 2 brands are built by social networks and we should hope those networks could protect us as well as authorized market place could. 

Coke Cola was a branded icon when it had to take the Coke out of the Coke Cola. Who is going to force our icons to stay legal and reliable?

“Brands are not built

in a factory

Brands are built

in the mind”

Dr. Orit Mossinson (Ph.D.)- Expertise