The Death of the Corporate Website
By Jeff Hilimire on Thursday, May 10th, 2007“Digital Presence”. I think that’s the term I’m looking for. Or maybe Interactive/Digital Brand is more appropriate. Either way, I’m struck by the idea that a company’s website is now only part of their presence online and I’m wondering how important it even is these days. Consider these five very different web presences for Adidas:
Their brand website: http://www.adidas.com/us/shared/home.asp
Their e-commerce website: http://www.shopadidas.com/home/index.jsp
Their Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adidas
Their Myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/adidas
Video of their Second Life island: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5RM3KRHvpo
And this doesn’t include the many Adidas niche websites, microsites, landing pages, video sites, etc. More and more, companies are realizing that their brand needs to live outside the walls of their website and expand into areas where their customers are more likely to be.
So then how important is a company’s website these days? In the Adidas example, if I want to buy some shoes I’ll go to the shopadidas.com website. If I want to find out corporate information about Adidas or the history of the company, I’d go to their Wikipedia listing. If I want to watch their latest commercial I’d go to Youtube. If I’m an Adidas fan and I’m in a social network such as Myspace, Facebook or Second Life, I’d likely find their brand there and have the ability to interact with other Adidas fans.
So the question is, are we going to get back to the point where a corporate website is just a brochure-ware, billboard-style marketing tool that has little to no value? Are we coming full circle on this?
Very interesting points! I think you make a convincing case that for a brand such as Adidas, all of their digital touchpoints with customers make a “corporate website” almost unnecessary. I can see how we may be coming full circle with similar types of brands.
Perhaps the major exception is any company offering products and services that involve customer support–computers, telecommunications, credit cards, and so on. For these types of companies, customer support is an important part of managing the customer lifecycle/relationship. The company website is a huge opportunity for customer service that is convenient to customers (available 24/7) and results in cost savings to companies. Major cost savings compared to running call centers.
That said, down the road I can see Second Life having potential for customer support. Companies could replicate a more personal interaction with customers, which would appeal to those who feel more comfortable “talking” to a person.
It strikes me as ‘odd’ that they would have a separate site for e-commerce than their brand site. Why does Brand have to mean ‘pretty pictures’, attitude and style… isn’t also product and customer service? Considering that if I were looking for something, I might type www.companyname.com in the address bar, shouldn’t their primary consideration be ALL things. Of course, there’s always those companies who do not have ’stores’ but need a presence on the web that may not be appropriate for Second Life, MySpace, etc. Perhaps the ‘main’ website should cover all bases and instead of trying to contain the brand in one site. They should cast the wide net of branding to cover all aspects of that which makes up ‘brand’.
Your points are valid, however looking at it from a different angle I would say that Corporate Websites are not dying, but having children. The basic Corporate Website is a first or second generation site that appeals to one demographic. We at Spun understand very well that Web 2.0 is about customer preference and market differentiation.
The fairly recent practice of creating a wide array of web touch points is a sign that companies are now ready to explore the potential of Web 2.0.
Narrowcasting here we come.
Eric’s Blog on “Narrowcasting” vs. Broadcasting coming soon.