Corporate Branding: A Framework for E-retailers

E-retailers or e-businesses generally represent a special case of corporate branding. As with most aspects of e-commerce, very little is known about the sources or drivers of successful ebrands. Why are some e-brands better than other e-brands? At the same time, e-brands are a particularly useful way of studying corporate brands because the 'entire' corporation appears on a screen in front of you. Not only is the entire organization encapsulated on a single screen, the reputation of that corporation is very sensitive to the way the company is portrayed. A message of 'site under construction' quickly damages corporate reputation. The paper develops a framework based on statistical structural modeling of a convenience sample of CD users. The focus of the model is the brand attitude of the user towards the e-retailer. Critical drivers of corporate brand attitude are highlighted and shown to be e-interactivity and e-trust. It is suggested that companies striving to build corporate reputations on business to consumer Web relationships need to place priority on developing capabilities that enhance e-interactivity and etrust.