Building Brandwidth: Closing the Sale Online

"Brandwidth," according to Sergio Zyman and Scott Miller, is a steeping brew of "brand awareness," "brand meaning," and "brand power" designed specifically for just one thing: making the sale in cyberspace. In Building Brandwidth, former Coca-Cola marketing chief Zyman and political and corporate strategist Miller present simple but solid rules for harnessing this mixture to really move merchandise online. As in Zyman's well-received previous book The End of Marketing As We Know It, this volume considers as marketing virtually every step in the branding process up to the eventual sale--without which, the authors note logically, the entire effort fails. "You may be doing a $2 million ad on the Super Bowl," they explain, "but you're not doing e-marketing if you're not doing e-selling." And it is for the current phase of e-marketing--which Zyman and Miller believe opened in spring 2000, when even the most promising dot-coms were suddenly expected to begin turning profits or kiss their investment dollars goodbye--that this advice is aimed. There's a good deal of go-go inspirational prose here, but also much practical advice for explaining a product or service, enhancing its value, distinguishing it from its competitors, and connecting it with the appropriate consumers. --Howard Rothman