endors who offer Websites that fail to meet the expectations of
their customers cannot expect brand equity derived from the "real" world to
ensure success online -- it will provide a grace period, but little else. New market
entrants, promoting products of comparable quality to those sold by the industry's
leaders, are already using the Web to establish an online presence that would have
formerly taken years and millions of dollars to achieve using the traditional media.
Successful competitors will fend off these newcomers by investing heavily in their brands
to emphasize their superiority. As the Web becomes an increasingly important medium for
marketing -- and sales -- those who do not succeed in transferring their brand
equity to the Web will have to settle for "also-ran" status -- presumably
preferring the more comforting euphemism, "niche supplier."
Better by far, we believe, to invest in the knowledge and skills
needed to build a strong brand on the Web.
Bill Kelly is President of BioInformatics, Inc.,
an innovative supplier of market research and customer opinion surveys to the
biotechnology, medical device and pharmaceutical industries. He can be reached at
301.961.1985 or via email, b.kelly@scienceboard.net
Scientists' Rating of Top 5 Research Products Vendor
Websites
1998 Survey
(worldwide)
1997 Survey
(U.S. only)
Promega
Promega
Sigma
Life Technologies
Life Technologies
NEB
Fisher
Pharmacia
NEB
Sigma
Source: Marketing to Life Scientists: A
Global Perspective, August 1998, BioInformatics, Inc. §
endors who offer Websites that fail to meet the expectations of
their customers cannot expect brand equity derived from the "real" world to
ensure success online -- it will provide a grace period, but little else. New market
entrants, promoting products of comparable quality to those sold by the industry's
leaders, are already using the Web to establish an online presence that would have
formerly taken years and millions of dollars to achieve using the traditional media.
Successful competitors will fend off these newcomers by investing heavily in their brands
to emphasize their superiority. As the Web becomes an increasingly important medium for
marketing -- and sales -- those who do not succeed in transferring their brand
equity to the Web will have to settle for "also-ran" status -- presumably
preferring the more comforting euphemism, "niche supplier."