Content-Type: text/html Branding Content Running head: BRANDING CONTENT ON AGENCY WEB SITES Advertising Agency Web Sites: Presence of Branding Content & Capabilities Daniel Marshall Haygood University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill Park Doctoral Fellow 700 Bishops Park Drive #302 Raleigh, North Carolina 27605 (919) 834-4917 [log in to unmask] Advertising Agency Web Sites: Presence of Branding Content & Capabilities In 1988, when Philip Morris purchased Kraft and Nestle purchased Rowntree, the advertising and marketing community was suddenly alerted to the tremendous value companies place on consumer brands. Paying over four times the amount of tangible assets, Philip Morris and Nestle made an important statement about the value of the brand names contained in Kraft and Rowntree's portfolio of products. These two company purchases drove the Economist magazine to name 1988, "The Year of the Brand" (Arnold, 1992). In response to companies' recognition that their brands represent valuable assets, many of the large marketing and advertising agencies began developing skill and knowledge bases around the concept of branding (Keller, 98). In fact, several of the larger agencies established divisions or separate entities that dealt solely with branding issues and the services that support those brands. These "branding" services typically involve brand definition, brand creation/development, brand stewardship, research, and counseling on brand maintenance. For example, J. Walter Thompson has its "Thompson Total Branding" philosophy. Leo Burnett touts its "Brand Team" approach in which a dedicated, full team focuses its energies on "building leadership brands." Y&R has its "Brand Buzz" group. This movement is not restricted to agencies. Research firms are adjusting their service offerings to reflect the interest in brands. Even the traditional management-consulting firms, such as Boston Co nsulting Group, now provide counsel on building successful brands (Barkan & Semans, 2000; Schultz & Barnes, 1999). In short, the branding concept has become a relatively new and robust area of specialization in the industry mirroring other movements in years past such as media planning, direct marketing, and alternative media (Keller, 1998). But just how extensive is this phenomenon? Is it limited to the large full service agencies or is branding an industry wide movement reflecting a major shift in how agencies and clients approach their communications? And how are agencies presenting the branding concept? Are agencies merchandising specialized branding tools or other services? The purpose of this study is to answer these questions. Literature Review Reflecting the emergence of branding as a specialized field in marketing and advertising, business leaders and scholars have contributed to a growing body of work around the brand-building concept. Yet almost all of the existing research centers around the fundamental concepts involved in branding, such as brand definition and evaluation, plus the tools used in building brands. There has been a lack of research that attempts to understand just how extensive branding practices are among agencies. However, we can begin to understand the importance and value of branding by tracing the broad outline of this work from its early stages of the branding concept definition to current published work that features more refined techniques such as how to heighten consumers' "brand experience" on the Internet. One of the earliest and most important publications on brand-related issues was from Ries and Trout (1981). The book, "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind," deals with the fundamental issue of creating a basic position for a brand and communicating that position in advertising in a single-minded way. Additionally, this book recognizes the power of a strong, clearly positioned brand in creating extensions and flanker products, which feed off the strength of the base brand. Perhaps the key publication signaling the growing importance of brands is David Aaker's Managing Brand Equity (1991). In this work, Aaker (1991) helps to define brand equity beyond the broadly accepted definitions of "brand heritage" or "general collection of brand images" in consumers' minds. Aaker breaks down the brand to five, key components: brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived quality, brand associations, and proprietary brand assets. Feeding off Aaker's thinking, books and articles about "managing" brands for long-term health emerged. Strategic Brand Management's (Kapferer, 1992) focus is on successfully managing a brand over time by avoiding common obvious mistakes, maintaining a contemporary image, introducing extensions, and optimizing the brand portfolio. Additionally, much of the early thinking on branding was centered on "brand personality" whether communicated by television ads or other forms of communication (Durgee, 1988; Aaker, Stayman, & Hagerty, 1986). The personality represents the "voice" or "attitude" of the brand and is a major differentiation point versus competitors. Plus, brand personality is recognized as a key component of brand goodwill with consumers (Batra, Lehmann, & Singh, 1993) and a crucial element in developing a "relationship" with consumers (Blackston, 1993). Refining the idea further, Aaker (1997) identifies five distinctive, personality dimensions of brands and within those dimensions, a set of numerous personality traits with which consumers identify brands through advertising. The discourse on branding eventually evolved to how to measure the success of brands, particularly brand equity. Keller (1993) refines the definition of brand equity as "consumer-based" brand equity or consumer knowledge about the brand over and above that of a generic product in the category. Thus, it is a definition of brand equity based on the outcomes or effects of the marketing efforts of a particular brand. Keller outlines this definition in Strategic Brand Management (1998), which incorporates techniques for building, measuring, and managing brand equity. Recently, the literature has focused on the broader issue of building strong brands. In Building Strong Brands, Aaker (1996) presents a complete process for creating a strong brand. The process begins with a strategic brand analysis, developing the brand identity, implementing the identity via positioning and advertising execution, and finally tracking the brand health through research. Aaker recommends the "Brand Equity Ten," ten measures designed for measuring the success of advertising in creating a strong brand. Keller (2000) offers an alternative outline for the creation of strong brands. This is a set of ten characteristics that strong global brands have in common such as delivering solidly against consumer wants, staying relevant, maintaining a proper position, and receiving proper support consistently over a long period of time. Finally, a broad range of new work is emerging regarding branding in the age of the Internet, reinforcing the need for brand building skills in the high-speed economy. "Deep Branding on the Internet" outlines ways in which the Internet can help build brands through a consumer's meaningful and productive experience on a brand's web site (Braunstein & Levine, 2000). "The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding" reviews the necessary elements in building Internet brands (Ries & Ries, 2000). And "Warp Speed Branding" reveals how technology and speed of business places even more importance on using the Internet to build brand relationships with consumers (Winkler, 1999). While there has been a great deal of work written on the principles and practices of branding products and services, some of which has been reviewed in this paper, there is also work on corporate branding or corporate identity (Balmer, 1995, 1998; Mason, 1993). This work centers on defining a firm or company and then how that identity is communicated to the public (Capowski, 1993; Balmer & Wilson, 1998). In short, corporations are also brands (Leitch, 1999; Gregory & Wiechmann, 1999; Carls, 1989), replete with a set of qualities and values similar to products or services. Advertising agencies, who spend a great deal of time and effort in convincing their corporate clients how to manage and present their portfolio of brands or their corporate brand to consumers (Aaker, 1996), also have to be concerned with how they present themselves to their target audience, both current and potential clients. Like corporations, advertising agencies must know how to construct their agency brand or brand identity; the way a firm or company presents itself in terms of its essence, substance, knowledge and skill base, and culture (Olin 1996). Further, a web site is an important element of communicating an organization's brands and services to its various target audiences. Much research has been done confirming that firms can reinforce their image, identity, or corporate brand through repeated exposures to audiences thereby producing a positive image (Gray & Balmer, 1998; Gregory & Wiechmann, 1999). It follows that a web site offers an ideal opportunity to companies for additional exposures. The research progression reviewed above indicates that there are several gaps in the existing research. First, researchers have not looked at the extent to which agencies offer branding services to clients and what type of services are being offered. And second, while there is a body of research on how large corporations communicate their identity or corporate brand through their web sites, no work has been done on how advertising agencies present their agency brand or services via their agency web sites. This study will attempt to fill both those research gaps. The theory on which this study is based is "framing." Robert Entman (1993) defines framing as involving the selection and salience of a message that is intended for communication. Effective communication involves selecting or highlighting a frame, or a word or number of words, that communicates the essential message (Kahneman & Tversky, 1984). By simple selection or highlighting of an item, this elevates the item's salience. Communicating with a salient message enhances the chances for successful communication with a target audience (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). But just as important as choosing what to highlight, is choosing what to omit. Inclusion and omission of elements in a message are both important in communicating a message (Sniderman, Brody, & Tetlock, 1991). Essentially, this paper is a study of how agencies are selecting or highlighting a message on their web sites to promote themselves to clients. In other words, the paper looks at how agencies are "framing" their service portfolios to clients. Are agencies choosing to frame or emphasize their service offerings as providing branding services? Research Questions Overall, this research will analyze advertising agency web sites in order to determine whether or not agencies are presenting their branding capabilities on their web sites and to what extent they are doing so. Understanding the extent and type of brand building services among agencies of different sizes will reveal just how broad and how deep this brand renaissance has spread throughout the industry and its potential long-term prospects. The specific research questions are as follows: RQ1: How are agencies presenting their branding capabilities on their web sites? RQ2: To what extent are agencies presenting their branding capabilities on their web sites? RQ3: Are there significant differences between the agencies in the top 100 and the Second 100 groupings in presenting their agency capabilities on their web sites? Method The sample was selected from a population of the top 200 agencies. The sample was specifically chosen from the Advertising Age listings of the top agencies in the United States (Endicott, 2000). For comparison purposes, the actual sample was broken down into two groupings, the "Top 100" agencies and the "Second 100" agencies. Ideally, all 200 agencies would have been used in the analysis, but some agencies did not have web sites or some agencies' site addresses were not available. Given the direction of the study, the specific agencies chosen had to have a web site that was in working operation. This was done by using the American Association of Advertising Agencies' web site, which allows visitors to access its members' sites via the web addresses listed by the Four As. There is a site tool that allows a site visitor to input an agency name, and the site locates the address via its primary listing of the members. If the agency was not an AAAA member, then the specific agency name was entered into the "Google" search engine for location of a web address. Thus, the results were that among the Top 100 agency sites, there were 79 sites included in the sample, and for the Second 100 agency sites, there were 81 sites included in the sample. The analyzing of the web sites was done on September 2001. The analyzing of the actual sites was limited to the first two pages of the web sites. Of course, a web site has many "second pages," so all of these second pages were included (Spool, Scanlon, Schroeder, Snyder, & DeAngelo, Li, 1998; Haas & Grams, 2000). Once the agency sites were located, the first and all the second pages were printed out so to freeze the sites in a moment in time. This assures that the analyzing of each site was executed on the sites as they appeared on the stated September dates (Falk, 2000). It should be noted that some agency web sites contain an introductory page that often features a visual special effect. This is not counted as a "first page." For this analysis, the first page is considered the page in which the site menu items appear (Middleberg, 1996; Nielsen, 2000). The actual analysis involved locating all references to "brand," "branding," or "branded." This included not only any combination word including brand, such as "brand study" or "brand architecture" but any created words such as "brandworks" or brandynamics" as well (Arnold, 92). Once these words were located and scored for location, the coding process began. (The author of this study served as the coder.) First, all web sites were coded for the presence of a branding reference on the first and/or second pages. This was done to see if the agency placed enough importance on the concept of branding to present it on the first two pages of the site. This initial reference was also coded for the type of branding reference. There were six types of branding references: - Agency Brand Slogan - Branding reference incorporated into the agency slogan such as "ERP Agency: We do Brands" - Branding Mission - Branding reference is part of the agency's statement of mission such as "ERP is dedicated to building brands" - Brand Definition Instrument - Agency has instrument for defining a brand such as "brand framework," "brand architecture," or "brand wheel," etc. - Brand Research Tools - Agency has research tools for monitoring, tracking, or otherwise researching brands - Branding Creative Services - Agency has creative services to create visual elements of brand - Basic "Brand" reference - Site includes a basic reference to brands or branding; this could reflect basic discourse on brands Second, all sites pages were coded for the presence of the above six elements (not just initial brand reference). Third, the brand references were coded for proprietary claims made against various branding tools, techniques, or instruments. There were three types of proprietary claims coded: register mark, a claim using the word "proprietary," and a basic ownership claim made by the agency. Fourth, the site was coded for any "brand leadership" claims. In other words, does the agency, on its web site, claim the capability to create "leadership brands?" Fifth, the sites were coded for the total number of times the site included a branding reference. Finally, the analysis looked at the extent of branding presence on the site. This does not mean the sheer number of times branding is referenced. The tool to measure extent of presence needs to be subtle enough to measure quality as well as quantity. Thus, the "Marshall Branding Scale" was developed. This scale scores web site branding presence by giving points for containing each of the six brand reference types listed above as well as points for number of brand references. The inter-coder reliability score using Scott's Pi is .908. Results RQ1: How are agencies presenting their branding capabilities on their web sites? In order to answer this question, this study first looked at whether or not the agencies were presenting the concept of branding or their branding capabilities on their web sites on the first two pages of the site. Of the total 160 agency web sites reviewed, 52.5% contain a branding reference on the first two pages of their sites. And among those with a branding presence on the first two pages, 33.1 % contain a branding reference on the first page of the web site. To find out the ways in which the agencies present their branding capabilities on their web sites, the sites were coded for the presence of each type of branding reference. 12.5% of agency sites contain a branding reference in their Agency Slogan, and 32.5% have a Brand Mission statement. Additionally, 15.6% of the agencies have a Brand Definition Instrument, 2.5% have a Brand Research Tool, .6% has a Branding Creative Services reference, and 40% contain a Basic Brand reference. ________________ Table 1 About Here ________________ Looking further at the web sites and presentation of branding capabilities, a review of the initial brand reference on each site reveals that 21.1% of the sites' have an initial reference that is an Agency Brand Slogan, and 36.4% have an initial reference that is a Brand Mission Statement. Additionally, 5.9% of the initial brand references are Brand Definition Instruments, 2.4% are Brand Research Tools, and 34.1% are Basic Brand references. Also, regarding how the agencies are presenting branding on the web sites, very few agencies present their branding skills as proprietary claims. Only 8.8% of all agencies use a register mark to distinguish a brand tool or skill, and only 1.3% makes a claim using the word "proprietary." Further, only three agencies actually claim the ability to create "leadership brands." RQ2: To what extent are agencies presenting their branding capabilities on their web sites? To answer the second research question regarding the extent to which agencies are presenting their branding capabilities on web sites, two methods were used: counting the number of branding references and using the Marshall Branding Scale. This will reveal the extent to which branding permeates the web site. Among all the agencies, the mean number of branding references is 3.18 per agency web site. This means that on average, each agency web site, meaning the first and second pages, contains just over three branding references. The Marshall Branding Scale, designed to measure the extent to which an agency web site contains a branding presence, both qualitatively and quantitatively, reveals a mean score for the all 160 agencies as 1.10. RQ3: Are there significant differences between the agencies in the Top 100 and the Second 100 groupings in presenting their agency capabilities on their web sites? The third research question seeks to find significant differences between the branding content presented on the web sites of the agencies in the Top 100 versus the agencies in the Second 100. Among the agencies in the Top 100, 63.3% contain a branding presence on the first two pages of the agency web site. This is in contrast to 42% of the Second 100 agencies containing a branding presence on their web sites. The difference is significant at the .007 level. _______________ Table 2 About Here _______________ Regarding how agencies present their capabilities on the web sites, the data show that there was no significant difference between the agencies in the Top 100 and the agencies in the Second 100 in presenting branding on their agency web sites. This holds true for five of the types of references: Agency Brand Slogan, Brand Mission Statement, Brand Definition Instrument, Brand Research Tools, and Branding Creative Services. However, there is a significant difference regarding the number of Basic Brand references between the two groups. 49.4% of the agencies in the Top 100 include a Basic Brand reference in their web sites while only 30.9% of the agencies in the Second 100 include a basic reference. The difference is significant at the .017 level. Regarding the initial brand reference on the web sites, there are no significant differences in how agencies present their initial branding reference on their web sites. Perhaps if the sample size is expanded to include more agencies, then perhaps significant differences will be revealed. Regarding the extent to which agencies in the Top 100 and Second 100 are presenting their branding capabilities, there are no significant differences. The mean number of total agency references on the web sites of the Top 100 agencies is 3.89 while the mean of the Second 100 is 2.48. Similarly, the means derived from the Marshall Branding Scale for the Top 100 and Second 100 agencies reveal no significant differences. For the Top 100, the mean is 1.19 and for the Second 100, the mean is 1.01. Again, perhaps if the sample size is increased, there could be significant differences. And finally, the number of agencies in the Top 100 and Second 100 making proprietary claims and leadership branding capabilities is too small to detect significant differences. Due to the very few agencies making such claims, it is highly doubtful that increasing the sample size will show significant differences. Discussion Clearly, agencies are presenting the concept of branding on their sites as over half, 52.5%, have at least one branding reference on the first two pages of their site. And the fact that over 33% have a reference on the first page of the site signals the elevation of branding as an important item within the agency's service portfolio. While there are no historical data with which to compare this information, the fact that such a large percentage of agencies have at least a single reference indicates that branding has emerged as a vital element in agency service offerings or as an important item on the agencies' agenda. Underscoring this sheer presence is the fact that a large number of agencies are using a branding reference in their agency slogan or they are positioning branding as a mission the agency serves or a key service that they offer. This means that these agencies are either positioning themselves as a "branding agency" or are claiming that building brands is part of the agency "reason for being." To further reinforce this tendency, for over 57% of those agencies with brand references on their site, the initial branding reference was either incorporated into the agency slogan or as part of the agency mission. This demonstrates the emphasis on which agencies are placing on their branding capabilities. Branding is not simply a research tool or a creative project; it is a vital and integral part of the agencies' service offerings to clients. It is the way the agencies are defining themselves. Yet, while there is a high number of agencies attempting to define themselves as branding agencies, there are very few that actually present specific branding skills on their web sites: 15.6% have a Brand Definition Instrument; 2.5% have specific Brand Research Tools, and only .6% has Branding Creative Services. However, over 40% of the agencies have generic references to "brand" or "branding" on their web sites. Thus, when considering how many agencies are presenting themselves as branding agencies or stating that building brands is their mission, the implication is that agencies are talking branding or about their branding skills but with very little actual skill base support. In other words, the agencies are quick to claim expertise in the area, but are unable or unwilling to define that expertise. There appears to be a number of opportunities available to agencies not yet touting branding skills or that are doing so in a less than dramatic way. The data show that very few agencies chose to make proprietary claims against their branding capabilities. From this study, the opportunity to distinguish or emphasize the unique nature of their branding skills is a vast one for agencies. This can only help add credibility or legitimacy to the agency's skill set. Also, only three agencies make any special claim for their ability to create "leadership" brands. This too seems like an ideal opportunity for other agencies. However, it is also recognized here that an agency must have sufficient credentials in this area in order to make such a dramatic claim. Regarding the extent to which agencies are presenting branding and their branding skills on their sites, the study presents yet another opportunity. With the means for total number of branding references and the Marshall Branding Scale so low, an aspiring agency can make an impact on site visitors with a larger number of references, whatever the actual brand reference type. The increased frequency of references can help reinforce in the visitor's mind that the agency considers branding to be important and that the agency has extensive or strong skills in branding. Finally, in comparing the Top 100 agencies and the Second 100 agencies, it is apparent that while a number of agencies in the Second 100 have a strong branding presence on their web sites, the concept of branding is more prevalent among the sites of the Top 100 agencies. This could certainly be a function of the largest agencies having the larger clients and/or global clients, clients that would be likely to demand such services. But as this study shows, agencies other than the very large ones are now presenting their branding abilities, which could reflect that it is not just the bigger clients demanding such services. Conclusions While there are significantly more agencies among the Top 100 that promote their branding skills, it is clear that a fundamental shift is occurring where more and more agencies of varying sizes are promoting their branding skills on their web sites. Branding is not just for the top echelon of agencies. But the concept of branding is not yet ubiquitous. The opportunities still exist for other agencies to step in and make a substantive impact with an effective positioning and presentation of their branding skills. The key is not just to talk about branding but to support any claims of expertise and ability with a specific skill set covering the range of branding services. Further research needs to be done among a wider number of agencies to determine if branding skills are offered by smaller agencies. This would demonstrate further that there is a fundamental shift occurring in the agency community. 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Table 1 Presence of Type of Branding Reference ___________________________________________________________________ % Agencies with Type Reference Agency Brand Slogan 12.5% Brand Mission 32.5% Brand Definition Instrument 15.6% Brand Research Tools 2.5% Branding Creative Services .6% Basic Brand Reference 40% ___________________________________________________________________ Table 2 Web Site Brand Presence - Top 100 vs. Second 100 Agencies ____________________________________________________________________ Top 100 Agencies Second 100 Agencies Brand Presence First Two Pages 63.3% 42% ____________________________________________________________________