What's in a name? The art of online branding

Of course, many of the visitors back in May were merely rubber-necking, but it does illustrate the strange power of online brands. And on a day when a survey suggests brand abuse is costing companies an average of £9m a year, this may be just as well.

There are many reasons why online brands are different. Two stand out. First is the fact that the path from passing interest as a result of a news story (or for that matter a banner, roadside or TV ad) to active involvement is just a 'URL and click' away. Interest can be sated instantly.

Secondly - as has been well documented - a local business can become a global power via the world wide web. Amazon.com was a household name in the UK well before the '.co.uk' landed or the marketing and PR kicked in.

The downside of operating in a global market is the clash of names. The legendary battle between sports equipment manufacturer Prince and a small training company of the same name was the first illustration of these dangers. Both had a legitimate claim on the brand, neither wanted to back down.

That's why bricks and mortar firms should think beyond their offline names when taking the plunge online.

The UK newspaper industry is instructive in this regard. All the major publishers faced the same choice when they took their products online, whether to retain their existing brand, extend it, or reinvent themselves.

While the Independent and The Times decided to keep faith with their established daily and Sunday identities, others were more adventurous. Perhaps the most ambitious of the lot was Associated Newspapers, publishers of the Daily Mail and London's Evening Standard. Recognising the fit between its focus on the capital's entertainment scene and a global web audience, it created thisislondon.com - half newspaper, half 'what's on' guide for rich, would-be tourists (and Londoners themselves).

The middle ground is brand extension. The Guardian developed the 'unlimited' extension and targeted its content - from films to cricket - at different audiences. Suddenly it had created a niche publishing model (the ad man's dream) from the content of a broad-reaching newspaper.

The Telegraph, the first UK paper to make it online back in 1995, took a simpler but no less effective approach and called itself the Electronic Telegraph. The combination of its brand and its new media setting gave the paper a whole new audience. A paper only your grandparents would read suddenly became fashionable.

Which brings us back to boo.com. This autumn its new US owner, Fashionmall.com, promises to bring it back to life with the same tainted name. Now what does that tell us about the power of online brands?