The digital life of a brand

Markets are not what they used to be. An ever-stronger wind of change is blowing. Brands do not have Life insurance. The situation is getting more and more complicated for them because of the increasing dynamics and technological pressures.

Yesterday's model

The brand is everything that is associated with the trade mark and which is reminiscent of a company or its product. The brand creates recognition for itself and its products, and namely this "friendship" brings added value to both parties in the process of selling and buying. The consumer believes that the brand stands behind its quality and guarantees for it. Therefore, research convincingly confirms that the client is willing to pay more for their favourite brand, and sometimes this "more" is multiple times more. This helps companies quickly recover their investment in brand development and the corresponding goods and services by investing considerable resources in marketing and advertising. At least up until yesterday.

The Wind of Change

Amidst the abundance of offers on the market, the brand is an "anchor" that simplifies the choice. However, who manages to survive in this constant "war" for the attention and the client’s money ... The Internet causes an intensifying wind of change. For decades, international manufacturers of mass-consumed goods have been spending billions to create an influential brand that has found a place in every client's mind. For this purpose, they used all possible means, ranging from product care, including its appearance, to advertising and store merchandising. But shopping is increasingly switching to the online space. In that case, the focus of attention also changes - the product has to be presented and sold in a different manner.

Modern mechanics

E-commerce rearranges things completely. Consumers are becoming less interested in the brand than in its price. They easily compare how much everything costs, compare the characteristics of each product, and then make their choice. Impulsive shopping online is not the rule, unlike brick store shopping, where we often buy with our eyes, not with our mind. The ways in which the Internet search occurs lead to the demise of brands, or rather to the deaths of the majority of the brands which are unable to find a way in this new market environment to influence the consumer’s choice to their benefit. In such case, search engines will have the crucial role of hiding, directing, and focusing the consumer’s choice on certain products and services through their hidden mechanisms. Retailers in the brick stores could skilfully influence their customers, being careful not to omit the most valuable means of exchange - trust. In e-commerce, this is already in the "hands" of algorithms. Commercial wars will be virtually waged by new means, and some have already succeeded in consolidating positions and imposing a dominant role while others viewed the internet simply as a means of entertainment, for fast and convenient communication, or simply as another channel to reach their customers.

The birth of technology

Unnoticeably, technology takes over. In most cases, it remains behind the scenes and few know exactly what it does. But we already feel how it changes the market and the supply even of traditional goods, changing the consumers themselves. Let's see, for example, what happened to music. At the beginning of the digital revolution it was claimed that digitization kills the music. But actually, technological solutions have been found, and today there are different ways to "protect" music, as there is a constant rise in sales growth on a global level. The need creates the technology and it arranges the puzzle in a new way.

The way up

If they want to grow, brands have to adopt a new behaviour. The ones who have sensed the wind of change are doing it, having taken the right steps. Some of the big ones will become even bigger. Many brands will disappear and others will appear in their place. The wind of change will continue to blow, and many companies, if not swallowed, will just stay out of the main path. The digital era is writing its new rules for market success. The way up in the financial results will force the ones who aspire to walk it to take over new and new parts of the value chain, to implement innovative solutions that no one has previously thought of introducing.

Change is the ground-swell that drags us into the deep, and there is no going back...