David Kippen, Ph.D.'s Blog

My first response is "well, of course they do." Look at me, I spend 30+ minutes every day reading a variety of blogs that affect my brand perceptions. But then my analytical side kicked in and I started thinking about how, why and to what extent do they affect the market as a whole. Admittedly, I'm a member of a small percentage of internet users who use RSS, let alone know what it is. Most people online get their news and content from visiting the big sites like MSNBC, The Wall Street Journal, News.com or perhaps their local newspaper's web site.

Even though there are over 120 million Live Spaces registered (according to official reports) and millions more on other free blogging services, do you think all of those people who have a blog consume many other blogs outside of their circle of friends?

Whenever I mention my blog to friends outside of work I inevitably get the question "what exactly is a blog?" Those of us participating in the blogosphere might know what they are, but what about the billions of people that have no idea blogs even exist other than the 20-second news story about MySpace every Thursday night on their local TV news?

My answer to the question "do blogs affect branding" is a qualified "no." :-) I qualify my answer because the question is too vague with too many facets to be answered with a simple yes or no. In general, I don’t think that blogs have a significant influence on branding as a whole because they are not nearly as mainstream as TV, radio or newspaper advertising/commentary or even simple word-of-mouth.

Meanwhile, for those of us actively reading/writing blogs and passionate about certain types of products/services a brand's blog could play a major part in our perception.

Perhaps this is a better answer to the question: For the majority of people a brand’s blog will not have a significant effect on the brand's perception, but for a small group of people that same blog will have a very large influence. Make sense? Let's take Microsoft as an example.

When I did a search for Microsoft Blog, I received 84,467 results. Although there is not a single, authoritative Microsoft blog there are thousands of Microsoft employees blogging their personal views about the products they work on, ones they don't and the company as a whole (a little over 3,000 is what I last heard).

There are more than a hundred blogs written by teams/groups within Microsoft that discuss the hows and whyfors of their specific product. There are tens, if not hundreds, of blogs written by parties unrelated to Microsoft (reporters, industry professionals, technical gurus, etc.) that focus completely on Microsoft.

All of these blogs have a huge impact on Microsoft’s brand, but to whom? Primarily to software developers and IT professionals who live and breathe the internet and rely on these blogs for information and technical assistance in their daily jobs. In reality, this group is a very small percentage of all the users on the internet. If you look at the grander scheme of things, branding occurs in many places other than just the internet (TV, radio, newspapers, etc.) which dilutes the effect blogs have on Microsoft’s overall brand even more. In my opinion, of the millions of people who use Microsoft products at home and work, the percentage who are influenced by blogs is very, very small. I think that theory would translate to just about any other brand out there.

As an exercise in curiosity, let's try searching for blogs associated with other well-known brands, starting with the other members of Business Week’s Top 5 Global Brands:
* Coca-Cola Blog = 767 results
* IBM Blog = 6,216 results
* GE Blog = 2,845 results
* Intel Blog = 2,023 results

Those are significantly lower counts than the 84,467 we received for Microsoft Blog.

Now, let's try searching for blogs on some other household brands:
* General Motors Blog = 430 results
* K-mart Blog = 19 results
* Harley Davidson Blog = 294 results (same # received for Harley-Davidson with the dash)
* Duracell Blog = 13 results
* Pizza Hut Blog = 11 results

Obviously none of this is scientific, just my observations. I do think that blogging's influence on branding will continue to grow. As more and more people around the world are getting online blogs will become a larger, more visible part of our internet community and average consumers will become more aware of their presence. Not to mention the direct line of communication they can be into a company, if written with sincerity, honesty and transparency.

~tod