Why Moonpig?

[brum]

ahhh branding ???

birthdaycards v moonpig.com

why do companies have a brand ? reason it allows them to sell commodities for a much higher price.

eg sugar in a packet of silverspoon !!!! it's just sugar !!! lol !!!

if they packaged it up in the packet made it look good but just called it sugar and not silversoon ? would you pay more ? than for another bag that was not in such a nice bag but also called sugar. ofcourse not .

brands make us feel an emotional connection to the thing were buying be that a bag of sugar or a card .

it becomes difficult to brand an existing commodity type product ie sugar with a product name to build those emotional connections we already have a set of emotional connections with that product , we know it ie sugar.

so calling it sugar would not allow the company to increase the precived value of the sugar in this bag as compared to any other bag of sugar.
therefore in order to be able to charge more tate and lyle have to make us think their sugar is better than any other sugar.

it's not really, we know that on a logical level... but we will still buy the more expensive silverspoon because of the emotional connections it has in our brain and therefore they can price the product far higher.

this is the problem with existing products and generics if you have the money to build the brand with advertising etc ... you would hardly ever go down the generic route.

and the ultimate is to replace the generic name for doing what ur doing with your brand .

ie googling instead of searching the internet
hovering instead of vacuum cleaning ....

what generics give us is a short cut , those of us who can't afford to spend millions on building a brand a quick way to get some customers in but usually only in the comodity business not in the high margin brand.

think of it this way ....

your walking down a high street ... you want a hair cut ... u look on the street instead of there being 100 shops this street the internet has got millions of shops ... you want a hair cut ... you look around and ask someone (google) .... it tells you haircut is over there and these 300 other brandede hair cut shops are over there, there and there ....

now if all i want is a hair cut then i will just go to the shop called hair cut because that's what i want a hair cut .

but if when i said hair cut i actually meant i want a hair cut that will make me look like david beckham and super cool... then i would want the shop called haircutlikedavidbeckhamandlooksupercool.

not a great domain i guess but guess what toni-and guy have a set of emotional connections in my brain that make me think that they could give me that david beckham hair cut . and that's why someone will pay them 70 for a haircut instead of going to the haircut shop and just paying a fiver.

generics have there place for really big business they will hardly ever use the generic ... name me one billion dollar company that has a generic name ?

i could name you hundreds that don't .

[jasman]

It just seemed odd to me that on the one hand they try saving a relatively small amount of money by looking for an available name instead of buying a generic like greetingcards.co.uk which would probably have cost a few £grand back in 2000. And on the other hand they then go on to spend what must be £millions on TV ads to advertise their brand, a considerable percentage of which would have been to associate it with greeting cards.

OK, you might still argue you need to advertise a generic as well, but we all know that a good generic with a bit of SEO wizardry can top search engine results, and the product is self-explanatory from the domain. I doubt I need to go into the benefits of generics on this forum (!) but Edwin elucidates them as well as anyone on his site http://www.memorabledomains.co.uk/

I agree they have done a really good job on getting the message out with the TV ads. The ads are fun, original, quirky, I even like the song they have come up with. But anyone can get a brand well known if you throw enough money at advertising it. I wonder what the profit level is like after the cost of the advertising has been deducted, and how much of it has had to go to investors or to service debt to pay for the costly ads. There are plenty of companies out there which are well known but which have high costs, giving them relatively small amounts of profit and are at risk of going under if faced with even a temporary decline in revenue, especially in a recession.

It just seems to me a bit funny that an Internet company has overlooked a relatively low cost, low risk, stable, means to draw in traffic, and yet has seemingly gone mad with a TV advertising spend that must be in the same league as many huge multi national companies.

I wish them well though. It's a very original brand and it's very refreshing to see a British home grown Internet company becoming a household name.

[James]

Building a brand solely online with aspirations of becoming a household name isn't going to be very easy unless you have something very unique. You might find it easier by owning a generic domain to get to a certain level (even a pretty big level) by using SEO and paid marketing, but you're unlikely to really create a buzz and end up retaining massive typein traffic long term in the absense of a USP or without having built emotional attachment to the brand.

Greetingscards.co.uk has some quite obvious limitations. It doesn't create much intrigue and doesn't have much potential for emotional attachment. "greetings cards" implies simply "greetings cards". Not only that, but it also has the subconscious effect of making you think "this is definitely nothing more that JUST regular greetings cards". It certainly doesn't make you think "personalised greetings cards", and it doesn't make you smile when you think of those adorable little greetings cards either! At least not in the same way you might chuckle when thinking of that darned cute pig that lives on the moon.

I suppose moonpig.com could have optionally called their company personalisedgreetingscards.com ... but it seems pretty likely that creating crucial emotional attachment is going to be particularly important in their chosen market.

Having said this, there are some markets where emotional attachment could be considered a negative. For example, companies that want to appeal to one's sense of logic or common sense. But emotional engagement is the key to advertising - it should be the number one consideration really. And I believe generic domains ultimately have an upper cieling of desirability on this basis.

[retired_member12]

Originally Posted by brum

ahhh branding ???

birthdaycards v moonpig.com

why do companies have a brand ? reason it allows them to sell commodities for a much higher price.

eg sugar in a packet of silverspoon !!!! it's just sugar !!! lol !!!

...

Branding is only about distinguishing one manufacturer from another, especially effective in a crowded market, but it doesn't equate to a higher sell price, that's usually down to good reputation plus supply & demand. Classic 'cause & effect' business practice! Because of their reputations for cost effectiveness or ethics (the cause), millions of people then buy (the effect) ASDA or Co-op brands. As James has said, something of real (but not particularly financial) value has to be added to the brand.

BP is a high technology brand, its oil is no different to anyone elses, but its reputation is shot to bits, and that'll take years to put right. When this happens, it's usually the brand name that's easier to ditch!

[disruptive]

It is important to realise where brand actually originate from. Some people have already inckled as to where it might but it is for the following main reason, which comes from history.

A brand is a measure of quality. It distinguishes you between your competitors. If you sell grain, how does the customer know the quality of the grain? Simple...with a brand. So its all market driven.