Tuesday, August 7, 2007

How Do Internet Coupons Affect Company Branding?

Branding is very important to companies nowadays. Through the brand, a company can communicate with its consumers. A brand is considered to be valuable if it elicits a positive response from its consumers. When a consumer sees a product with a certain brand label on it and buys the product, then the brand is considered to be highly valuable. Anything that helps a product be sold is valuable. Anything that increases company value is valuable. If a brand can increase the sales of the company, then in turn it will make the company more profitable. If the brand is useful in generating more sales, then the brand is considered to be of value.

Internet coupons can affect branding in so many ways. The following examples are both positive and negative ways wherein branding is affected. Let us first look at the positive effect. When a certain consumer sees an internet coupon, he or she will most likely have a positive response to the product. For example, an internet coupon with the ad, “Buy two of these calculators and get one free,” will let the consumer know that they could make good use of these calculators. Who would not want three calculators for the price of two? The brand of the calculator will be positively affected because the consumers will say to themselves that this company values its consumers so much that it is now giving away a third calculator for free. The consumer will then say, “We should get this calculator from the shop now.” This is a positive response.

On the other hand, the internet coupon may also affect the brand of the calculator in a negative way. When a consumer sees the internet coupon, “Buy two of these calculators and get one free,” he can always think otherwise. He may think that these calculators are being given internet coupons because they are not selling in the department store. This internet coupon campaign is a desperate attempt of the company to sell these lousy calculators. When the consumer thinks like this, then they will basically not buy the calculator. What is worse is how it affects the brand. Since these coupons may elicit a negative response, then no one else may want to buy these calculators because of the image it conveyed through the internet coupons. The brand of the calculator will be affected both now and in the future. No one may want to buy these calculators because since they were sold at a huge discount before, they are likely lousy in performance.

Companies should think very well on how they issue internet coupons. These internet coupons will affect their company brand either in a positive or a negative way. A company should not simply issue internet coupons left and right, they should think twice or even thrice before making such move.

No comments: