From chaos to constellation: Creating better brand alignment on the Web

Design Management Journal, Spring 2003 by Phillips, Eliot

It's easy for an organization to put up a few Web sites. It's quite another feat, as Eliot Phillips makes clear, to ensure that they are brand-building, coherent, compelling, up-to-date, and easy to use. He offers a framework, criteria, and design options for building an effective multi-site Web presence, and amplifies critical issues with an in-depth case study.

GE has more than 45 public Web sites-in the US alone. MetLife, more than 35. ExxonMobil, more than 15.

For our purposes, the reasons these sites came into existence-business strategy, competitive necessity, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, geographic expansion, new product launches, promotional campaigns, divisional entrepreneurialism, and so forth-are less important than the fact that they do exist. For it is what these sites collectively reveal-wittingly or not-about the organizations that stand behind them, their brands and communications practices, that corporate communications and branding executives need to do something about.

Experience teaches us that strong brands and satisfying user experiences are the keys to winning hearts, minds, and revenues in the congested online marketplace. But for companies with complex, global Web presences composed of numerous sites, brands, audiences, purposes, and service offerings, the likelihood increases for brand dilution, mixed messages, and inconsistent user experiences. And this can lead to a range of perceptions-not all of them positive-about the flagship brand and parent organization.

This article and case study explore how one industry leader-a financial services information provider-is going through the process of organizing all its sites, around the world, into a rationalized, cohesive, rigorously branded Web constellation featuring an impressive set of user experiences. Lippincott Mercer is serving in the role of brand and interactive counsel. Because the work is still under way, we have intentionally disguised some aspects of the case. We will refer to the company as Nugent.

The situation

A rapidly changing regulatory environment. Heightened competition. Continually increasing Web adoption rates. A volume of online user complaints. An overburdened call center. New corporate communications leadership. In 2001, these realities coalesced within the walls of Nugent. So it decided to strengthen its Web offerings and capabilities while ridding its Web presence of chaos, cacophony, and confusion. In seeking to transform it into a cohesive, comprehensible constellation, the corporation outlined long-term goals for its Web presence.

* Capitalize on the Web as an indispensable channel for global brand-building, communications, and commerce.

* Ensure an accurate and rich brand expression throughout and within all the sites, external and internal, in every country in which it conducts business.

* Create a plan to organize, optimize, and evolve a master-branded Web constellation while recognizing that intra- and inter-channel consistency and flexibility are both important.

* Develop and implement Web information strategies that balance audience and company needs.

* Create Web user experiences that foster customer loyalty while helping to bring to life its family of corporate, product, and service brands around the world.

The starting point

An audit of Nugent's loosely knit Web presence yielded these findings:

Scale

There were 45 sites in 26 countries, including:

* 1 US-based corporate portal

* 2 US-based corporate intranets

* 4 divisional marketing sites

* 4 extranets for sales representatives

* 4 types of client extranets containing key product applications

* 5 extranets for customer service representatives

* 25 native-language country sites, each reflecting the local product and service offerings, 18 with accompanying intranets

Consistency

Within and across site types-informational and transactional-there was a decided lack of consistency in application of the corporate identity, information architecture, navigation schemes, page layout, look and feel, imagery and graphic elements, interactivity, readability, and usability. Adding to the confusion, there was little rhyme or reason why some sites had linkages between them while others did not. And an examination of the divisional marketing sites pointed out that each was structured differently, even though they all served the same purpose and, to some extent, audiences.

Reach

From a communications standpoint, the corporate portal offered minimal explanation of the company's international presence or businesses. Most of the affiliates were not mentioned at all.

Personality

On the whole, the personality and tone of the sites were dry, distant, passive, and officious. This perception was underscored by the use and content of imagery, including photography, that was characterized by Nugent as unimaginative, trite, and stiff.

Content

Riddled with jargon and acronyms, site content assumed that prospects and customers had a deep understanding of the industry, products, and services. In addition, many sites featured content that had lingered unchanged for too long. There were few instances in which content was dynamic.