Best Practice Report

Best And Worst Of Brand-Building Web Sites, 2007

Forrester Applies Its Web Site Brand Review Methodology To The Sites Of 20 Top Brands

September 13th, 2007
With contributors:
Harley Manning , Ross Popoff-Walker , Steven Geller

Summary

How good is the overall experience offered by top brands' Web sites today? To find out, we graded the sites of 20 of the world's top brands on how well they cater to user needs (Brand Action) and how well they infuse their Brand Image into the Web experience. Only one site managed to differentiate itself in both these dimensions: Lexus.com. Common Brand Action problems included poor text legibility and confusing category names. On the Brand Image side, sites were guilty of lackluster function and using imagery and layouts that didn't align with offline materials. To improve the online brand experience, top firms should focus first on supporting user goals, distributing brand "cheat-sheets" to designers and stakeholders, and checklisting proposed content and function against brand attributes.

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