I was talking to my wife and her sister, who run a local bakery and café here in town. I told them what I was working on for our blog and instead of the usual “oh, that’s nice” that I am used to, I sparked some interest. It’s rare that my line of work shares anything in common with two talented chefs who run a successful small business, but today was different. My sister-in-law immediately reminded me about Boar’s Head. It used to be a highly exclusive brand of meats. Their ads were entirely focused on creating a brand image of exclusive, high quality, and different from what you get at your grocery store. “If I want Boar’s Head ham now, I can just go to the convenience store down the road”, she said. “It used to be a brand that you could only find at high-end delis.” Being in the food industry, she knew what she was talking about. She also pointed out that Green Mountain Coffee has a similar story. The brand used to be associated with specialty brands sold at exclusive coffee shops. Now you can find Green Mountain in your local Mobile on the Run, or McDonald’s (recently, McDonalds switched to Newman’s Own and stopped carrying Green Mountain).

So what does this have to do with online advertising? Well, in these two cases, the companies clearly sacrificed brand image for a wider distribution audience. That’s understandable, but with a brand, once you lose the foundation it is built on, you usually can’t get that back.

In the world of online advertising, attention-getting is absolutely everything. Rarely will you find a banner ad, or email sponsorship, or PPC (pay per click) ad that is focused on brand-building, not direct sales. I suppose this is because the attraction for many marketers to online advertising, is that you can quickly report on effectiveness. You spent X number of dollars on a Google Adwords campaign, now how many sales did that get you? That’s what most online marketers are concerned with. So how do you attract more sales from your PPC ads? Well, price, of course. In a very noticeable way, the rise of online advertising has trained consumers to become price-shoppers. Brand recognition may not always be top of mind when you’re looking at a group of ads on a page, each one promoting a lower price on their widgets.

One of my favorite blogs to read, TheBigFatMarketingBlog, had a clever article recently about the E-Trade “baby” campaigns. I think these television ads are brilliant. They are funny, memorable and highly viral. They also support a brand image that the company is young, hip and uses the latest technology with online and mobile trading tools. However, our friends at BigFat don’t agree. Their argument is that the ads are cute, but do not drive sales. In some ways they’re right, but I believe that way of thinking is short-sided. It gives no consideration to their brand building efforts. The question isn’t, “How many people opened an account after seeing the TV spots?” Rather, the question should be, “Is the TV spot supporting their brand?”

To that last question, I would argue, yes.  In fact, I received a mailer from E-Trade once, and I remember reading through the entire thing. I spent a lot of time with their direct mail piece because I had a positive brand image. If it weren’t for their brand-building marketing efforts I may not have been engaged enough to give that mailer a second thought.

So what is your company doing to build its brand? Do you rely solely on online or email marketing? Are you just trying to get someone to click on your ad? I hope not. If you trust your audience enough to send them a nice branded mailer, or run an integrated campaign including other traditional mediums, you may find that not all consumers are price-driven. You may not have to sacrifice your brand or even your bottom line just to attract more sales.