Among the highest profile dot coms out there is Amazon.com. On the one hand, branding Amazon as a dot com could be seen as a terrible mistake. And indeed despite a continuous rise in sales throughout 2000, high operational costs have prevented the e-tailer from making any profits to date; the growth in sales has been matched by a massive increase in losses. The share price was as high as US$ 113 in December 1999; it is now as low as US$ 11.

But companies that have tied themselves to the Internet don’t necessarily view it as a barrier to growth. Sun Microsystems, who originally proclaimed “We’re the dot in dot com” are now known by the tagline: “take it to the nth.” However they are still fierce in their mission to “dot com the world.” Tracey Stout, VP of Branding, says “The infrastructure build-out for the ‘net is going to continue for the next many years. If we define ourselves as a company that marries big business with the web – by virtue of our products, our services and our solutions – then we are still pretty proud of that.”

So why did they change their tagline? “The ‘dot in dot com’ was our campaign to raise visibility and awareness, and communicate what Sun does, which is connect businesses, people, and technology with the Internet. So it was a perfect initial global branding campaign for us to put ourselves on the map and define the space that we played in.”

The repositioning, Stout suggests, was a result of Sun’s move into a leadership positioning in the Internet market. “We wanted to move on and begin to build equity in the products, services and technologies we offer, as opposed to defining who we were.” However she insists that they aren’t going to shy away from their association with the ‘net. “We believe ‘dotcomming the world’ captures the spirit of the company. That’s what we do, and we don’t shy away from it. And we find that our customers don’t shy away from it either.”

She is optimistic that Sun’s new strategy is in line within the context of its industry and mission but says (after one year of the new positioning) it’s still too early to know whether it’s going to work. “It’s not really an apples-to-apples comparison because many other things in the economy happened just as we were trying to launch the campaign.”

In acknowledging the wide span of opinion on the issue of positioning your brand in relation to the Internet, she says, “It’s really an individual thing. If some need to take their businesses into a different place, I can understand why. You need to look at it in terms of what’s right for you.

Echoing the case-by-case nature of the issue, Cottineau uses Amazon.com to illustrate the successful positioning of an Internet brand. “I think it was a smart move in establishing the brand. It really was trailblazing in what it was trying to do.”

However, she said, “I wouldn’t be against dropping the ‘.com’ now, because the brand has evolved beyond that. And when most people refer to it as Amazon, they don’t talk about the ‘.com.’ The ‘Amazon’ part has a breadth and depth of choice, which is a very powerful promise.”

Amazon’s brand is so strong, she believes, that it could easily stretch to grow offline. “Based on the power of the Amazon brand, if I went into an Amazon store, there would be specific things I would expect from that store. It doesn’t matter where they are, as long as they are consistent.” In fact a survey by Compass Management Consulting found that 72% of respondents felt that Amazon.com was by far the strongest e-tailing brand (December 2000). The reasons given included reputation in the market, fulfilment, good press coverage, and strong advertising.

The takeaway here is perhaps that successful branding – online or off – can only be achieved through reaching a combination of these traits attributed to Amazon. The realities of building a brand have caught up with online ventures, and companies are finding that the same principles apply just as strongly in the virtual world as they did in the real world.    

[3-Sep-2001]