O.M. Shvydenko

Postgraduate student of National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine

Main peculiarities of online branding in agriculture of Ukraine

Abstract. Necessity of using Internet branding in agriculture is a hard issue to solve until the company gets acquaint with its obvious advantages. Strong brand increases competitiveness of agricultural products and stimulates customer loyalty, resulting in higher profits; getting online it covers even larger audience. However a lot of agricultural companies in Ukraine still hesitate using online branding. This paper discusses the concept of online brand and branding; researches the features of the consumers’ purchasing behavior and the use of Internet branding in agriculture of Ukraine; analyses common conditions and limitations of online branding of agricultural products; and proposes certain recommendations to start branding online.

Keywords: brand, online branding, Internet branding, agriculture of Ukraine, marketing activities, sole regional brand.

Problem statement. These days consumers increasingly prefer shopping in large stores and their online representations with easily recognised brands. "In line" production concedes to the client’s personalization and fulfillment of his individual requirements and wishes. In this case, reputation becomes one of the most important factors influencing its activity. Paying attention to the building vibrant offline impressions of the target audience, companies somehow neglect supporting online reputation and damage it every day due to the lack of consumers’ awareness.

Constant monitoring of own sites and subject forums, quick response to the requests, negative comments, problems and customer complaints, promoting the ideas behind the company's products, the active use of online media – all these incarnate the unconditional key to success of building a bright and strong company’s brand on the Internet. This marketing technology is called online branding (e-branding). The objective of this technology is to improve positioning of the company to attract new and increase loyalty of the existing customers. Online branding complex encompasses the following: development and implementation of positioning strategies and programs of integrated brand promotion on the Internet; naming (choice of the well-aimed name for brand), creation of logo and corporate identity; registration of the trade mark, creating a Web resource (website, e-shop) and communication portals (forums, blogs, electronic media, etc.); and finally online promotion (PR, search engine optimization, context ads, writing and dissemination of articles, registration at electronic bulletin boards, site registration in directories, etc.) and reputation management [9].

Unfortunately, in Ukraine, in contrast to Western companies, where online branding is an essential element of the overall marketing strategy, this segment is just in the beginning of its development. In agriculture, the introduction of Internet branding is particularly difficult because farmers are primarily focused on the issues of strategic development and effective use of physical assets. Intangible assets, such as brand management, branding and especially the Internet, are unfairly paid very little attention [15].

Analysis of recent researches and publications. Branding topic is very relevant in today's consumer world, because brand appears to be one of the primary market drivers and communication link between the manufacturer and purchaser. Common issues of brands were investigated in a number of scientific works of domestic and foreign scholars, including Kotler, D.Aaker, J.Evans, P. Doyle, J.J. Lamben, T. Ambler, D. Keller et al., and L. Balabanov, A. Zozuliov, L. Moroz, J.Nestorova, S.Illyashenko, V. Pustotina, H. Bahiyeva, A. Godina and others [2, 14, 12]. They mainly studied the basics of brands creation and positioning, strategy of brand management and the concept of brand capital [12]. Branding in agriculture is actually very little covered in scientific publications [11].

Purpose statement. The aim of the paper is to outline the nature, importance and advantages of online branding, to define the complex of related services and to determine characteristics of its application for Ukrainian online market, particularly in agriculture.

The main material of research. The term brand has English origin and basically means “the trademark”. In marketing brand is not only "a symbolic embodiment of information, including: name, trademark, logo, certain visual elements (fonts, colors, symbols ) and slogan ( promotional phrase)" [1], but a specific set of associations and expectations that consumers associate with products. Having a brand is an additional competitive advantage of the company and its products/services through receiving greater awareness, which respectively leads to the higher profits [14] .

The concept of branding involves the formation of brand image over time by establishing additional values, determination of the unique qualities of goods/services and providing the product with emotional coloration, thus making it more attractive to the end user [10,1]. Product branding has four main objectives:

• to ensure consumer awareness of the existence and features of the brand;

• to shape consumer preferences

•to stimulate consumer loyalty to the brand;

• to create commitment of the target audience to the brand [4].

Respectively, online branding covers a range of marketing activities necessary for the creation and promotion of a newly created or existing brand on the Internet. It allows company’s specialists to combine classic methods of sales promotion of products with specific online methods. The advantages of this technology over traditional marketing communication channels are: coverage of a wider audience with a precise focus; low cost of marketing activities; high speed of information distribution; efficiency of all processes management; presence of feedback and the possibility of building close communications with direct consumers of products; control and analysis of site traffic statistics, popularity of requests [4,3]. The main disadvantage of online branding is different effectiveness for different companies depending on the direction of their activity and specificity of the respective audience [3].

The main stages of introducing online brands are presented in Figure 1 [2,7,4].

		Development of: • brand name • trademark • information background • positioning models • promotion strategies
Stage № 1

Stage № 2		Legal registration of trademark and its commercial name

		Development and implementation of individual programs promoting brand on the web: a) Choosing appropriate marketing communications; b) Creation, content filling and optimization of the brand‘s (company’s) site/corporate blog; c) Usability optimization of Web resources (efficiency, productivity and ease of use); g) Providing the confidentiality of personal data of customers and security of money transactions (if necessary, for example, if the site contains online shop of products).
Stage № 3

Stage № 4		Monitoring marketing activities for the purpose of operative correction of strategy and tactics
Stage № 5
		Audit of finished marketing activities with a reference to initially set goals and objectives

Figure 1. Phases and activities of online branding

Internet brands by category are divided into:

1. Content projects – they offer various types of information, e.g. news sites, search engines, thematic and industry-specific content sites, etc.;

2. Online services – postal agents, systems of site hosting, job search sites, etc.;

3. Internet services – web developers, design studios, online agencies, Internet service providers, etc.;

4. E-commerce – e-shops , shopping systems, cash payments on the Internet, etc.;

5. Offline brands – representations of off-line companies on the Internet [6].

In addition, there are brands, created exclusively on the Web – so-called inside brands, and brands that use the Internet as a supporting marketing tool – outside brands. For Internet companies it is important to remember that they should enter off-line market only after creating a strong online brand (inside brand).

In Ukraine, a successful brand is perceived as a "system of values that allows to exude products, to separate them from competitors’ goods" and as a symbol of product “authenticity” (genuineness) [8, 15].

Interestingly, the Ukrainian consumers have begun to focus more on the prestige and exclusivity of products or services and to buy goods of "premium" segment at least sometimes. Thus, consumers seek to satisfy their own need for individualization and to demonstrate their achievements. That is why these segments and respective brands are constantly increasing lately. Consumer is looking for a so-called "me brand" – customized products, made for a particular consumer [8].

The main features of the Ukrainian concept of Internet branding are the following:

- The level of brands recognition by the Ukrainian consumers is not high yet, but it is constantly increasing;

- Ukrainian market allows to create a new brand and to promote it quickly, and this contributes to its rapid saturation;

- Therefore, consumers do not have time to form a loyalty to a specific brand, because there always appear new ones;

- Ukrainian buyers treat foreign food products with distrust, mainly giving preference to domestic products;

- It is necessary to indicate the country of origin at the packaging, because the brand attitude of Ukrainian consumers is influenced by three main factors: the country-manufacturer, attractiveness of packaging and trademark;

- Ukrainians respond well to brand "personalisation" (use of famous personalities to promote it);

- Of course, it is necessary to take into account national traditions and perception peculiarities of advertising appeals by the population [15].

In the field of agriculture, especially in the food industry, branding plays an important role. High competition in the food market and the availability of different product assortment require additional competitive factors and finding new ways to gain customer loyalty. Branding, which involves improving the competitiveness of agricultural products, ensures long-term business development and high profits for the entrepreneur. For example, according to the research, consumer associates Ukrainian brands TM "Nasha Rjaba", TM Roshen, TM "Konti" with quality, superb taste and popularity among the population [14]. Associative chains "better product quality – strong brand – higher price", according to the ACNielsen research, are typical for post-Soviet consumers’ minds [11].

Unfortunately, in some areas of agriculture, for example, in poultry, brand still appear to be only the measure of owners’ ambitions and has no big impact on profitability. For example, a survey among the population in Ukraine showed, that buying poultry products consumers generally pay attention to the brand; but when buying meat, this figure is 56 %,while when buying eggs it accounts only 24 % (Fig. 2) [11]. This study leads to the conclusion that not every product is suitable for successful branding until the manufacturer clearly outlines its competitive advantages and differences among similar products in the respective segment.

Figure 2. The impact of the brand on the consumers when buying poultry

According to E. Shchedrin [13], it’s difficult for agricultural enterprises to brand their products for a number of reasons:

- Large volumes of processed products are not able to recoup an involvement of large funds into branding;

- The specificity of agriculture, which consists in that company’s product, in most cases, is not consumer good, but raw stuff which in turn is purchased by plants, processed and sold under plants’ own brand;

- Legal insecurity, when registered trademark may be used illegally by unscrupulous sellers;

- Lack of necessary knowledge and skills in technology branding.

However, increasing competition, especially from the famous and well-known western agricultural producers, requires strong domestic brands. E.Shchedrin [13] back up in 2004 proposed to start branding from creating a sole brand of agricultural region. This practice has been already exploited in many countries, e.g.in Finland, where the labeling sign of their products has actively been using by the local population and farmers since 1990. This sign is associated by the Finnish consumers with high quality, safety, and even high price (sometimes twice as much as imported goods) does not undermine their loyalty.

Creating a single brand will enable production to take its place in the better market segments, thereby increasing the income of all participants in production-trading chain of agricultural output; will contribute creating a favorable climate for investment in the agricultural sector, provide social function – employment in rural areas, increasing demand and, consequently, production, wages, social status of the agricultural worker, general prestige of agricultural jobs [5]. Despite the entire advantages of this idea it is still at its beginning stage.

Of course, this branding requires governmental support, providing legal protection and coordinating the communication process of creating a brand through the media, promotions, etc. for the least costs. Overall, such governmental support is more effective than subsidizing production volumes, as it allows the company to distract from the operational costs and focus on long-term strategic process.

For the successful branding of agricultural products on the Internet certain rules should be followed. First, company must become the online impact hub of its business niche and target audience. This can be achieved through the use of webinars, publications, articles, and audio/video presentations on specialized topics to establish itself as a knowledgeable, progressive and responsible manufacturer.

Company must be honest in the implementation of personal branding and to tell the audience about the difficulties it faced on the road to success, what methods were used to deal with them. Then the results of its’ work will be clear for the consumer, and company will be perceived as an expert. It should focus on fewer strategies, but to be very qualified in the respective areas.

Regarding the site content, it must be presented as a simple information, clear for the reader, and not to use explicit power impact methods over users. This leads to the appearance of the opposite effect – the consumer is much more favorable to the producer who doesn`t try to impose his products, but proposes to solve specific problems. In other words, branding should be a symbol of reliability, quality and trust. All you have to do for this is to use content marketing for promoting company’s brand on the Internet correctly [16].

Conclusions and recommendations for further research. As follows, brand building on the Internet is a complex and lengthy process, which however opens up great opportunities. It requires skilful management, advertising promotion, development of communication programs, such as appropriate PR-actions, contests, etc., permanent brand consulting support and tracking consumers’ attitude towards the brand [11]. Using the Internet branding as a strategic tool of promotion, company can create a reliable and leading image among the target audience in a short period of time. Online branding can and should be applied to farms.

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