Ebrands: Building an Internet at Breakneck Speed

It is refreshing to find a book on e-business that investigates REAL businesses, some of which have made REAL successes for themselves in the Internet economy. This book is not fluff; it uses a case-study approach to the concept of brand identity creation, and pursues the concept with real-world scenarios.Carpenter provides the kind of insight that business leaders can count on when looking for real answers to the e-business questions that are more often than not answered with conjecture.

As Carpenter explains, his book "is based on an analysis of the brand-building efforts of six companies. Four of them, which represent the core of the book, are established Internet ventures that rose to the challenge of developing brands distinctly for this new medium." The six are: iVillage, CDNOW, Barnesandnoble.com, Yahoo!, Fogdog Sports, and Onsale. Carpenter does a brilliant job of explaining what each did right...and what each did wrong. In process, he rigorously examines a number of best practices common to all:Focus on Building Brand AwarenessCultivate Customer CommitmentForge Strong Distribution and Content AlliancesMove Early, Move FastDevelop an Intimate Knowledge of the Market and the CustomerCultivate a Reputation for ExcellenceDeliver Outstanding ValueCarpenter devotes a separate chapter to each of the six companies. In the Conclusion, he suggests that "the development of an Internet brand is a holistic process. Building awareness -- the activity that many equate with `branding' -- is just one aspect of brand development. Crafting a powerful online brand requires paying just as much attention to developing other facets of brand as well, such as customer loyalty and influential distribution partnerships. There is no silver bullet solution for the development of a substantial Internet brand. Instead, dominant ebrands emerge when companies invest in a rich mixture of marketing and business practices." If there is a better book on this subject, I have not as yet read it.

I found "eBrands" to include marketing advice that would be helpful for start-ups and big companies alike. Also thought it was pretty well-written -- have read too many dry business books in my time, and this one was a nice contrast.

Good stuff! The author offers an in-depth look at the marketing activities of some of the best-known players on the Web. I've read a lot of books on Internet marketing, and I particularly appreciated the fact that "eBrands" does not sugar coat the examples it uses. Where these companies have implemented strategies and tactics worth following, Carpenter lets you know. But he doesn't pull any punches, and when the case study companies have had problems (for example, he highlights iVillage's outrageous burn rate, to which marketing expenditures have been a big contributor), the writer highlights these isues. Definitely a good read for anyone responsible for driving the marketing activities of an Internet company.