Make Your Brand Succeed Online
Have you seen the new Nike + iPod Sport Kit? For those who haven't, it's a pair of Nike+ shoes together with an iPod Nano and a sensor that connects them. The sensor sends data about your run from the shoes to the iPod, which tracks your time, distance, pace, and calories burned. You can get real-time spoken feedback during your workout and sync your data to both iTunes and nikeplus.com.

The Nike + iPod Sport Kit is cool and innovative, but does it make sense for a technology company and a sports shoe marketer to collaborate on a product? It sure does if you've read their brand positioning statements:

Nike: We bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.

Apple: We lead the industry through innovation.

So, when you know what Nike and Apple stand for, it's clear that their collaboration does make sense because it delivers on their common brand promise of innovation ¿- even though the products they make could hardly be more different.

You can apply this same principle to judge whether or not your Web site builds your brand. Last year, we did just that when we evaluated the sites of 16 famous brands, including apple.com and nike.com. Recently, we used the same methodology to grade the Web sites of major financial institutions, including the sites of the largest auto insurers, full-service brokerages, mutual fund companies, and retail banks in the US.

Take a look at this new report, which showcases our brand review methodology. If you find it interesting, try applying the methodology to your own Web site -¿ you might be surprised by what you find.

Make The Most Of Your Financial Services Brand On The Web
We recently evaluated the Web sites of 16 top financial brands on how well they communicate their Brand Image and deliver value to consumers online (Brand Action). The result: Only one site succeeded in both dimensions. To build their brand online, companies need to get Brand Action right, display brand positioning where employees can see it, and estimate the ROI from a site redesign.

Join Our CxP Peer Research Panel
We're always excited to welcome new panel members to help with survey-based research. The CxP panel is a group of more than 150 decision-makers, directly involved in their firms' customer-facing channel strategies, who help the CxP team monitor trends, assess attitudes, and gauge the heat of new developments. We invite panelists to participate in quarterly surveys, and we thank them by sending them all panel-related research for free. Individual responses are confidential, and panelists can always opt out.

If you'd like to join -- and you are a decision-maker directly involved in your firm's customer-facing channel strategies -- just email me your contact info.

And as always, I'd love to hear any feedback. Please email me with comments about this issue, our research, or any CxP topics that are on your mind.

Thanks!
Harley Manning
Vice President, Research Director

Research Referenced In This Issue A Web Prototyping Primer (39397) Applying Design Methods To Business Practice (39687) Best And Worst Of Australian Bank Public Web Sites (39808) Companies Need A Portfolio Of Tools To Evaluate Customer Experience (39598) Don't Rationalize Bad Site Design (39571) Five Tips For Web Analytics Success (39569) From Rich Internet Applications To Rich User Experiences (39576) How Athletic Shoe Brands Succeed Online (37457) How Brands Succeed Online (36670) How Credit Card Brands Succeed Online (37458) How Design Personas Differ From Typical Customer Segmentation Models (39514) How Fast Food Brands Succeed Online (37459) How Japanese Brands Succeed Online (38148) Make The Most Of Your Financial Services Brand On The Web (39270) Rich Internet Application Usability 101 (39615) Web Analytics Takes A Step Toward Maturity (39481)

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