Brands are defined by many factors; their personalities, the personalities of their owners, the opinions of their consumers, their attributes, their positioning relative to competitors, their packaging, their price, distribution, advertising and so on. But as substantially more marketing budget moves towards online, we may be about to see another set of definitions being used to define brands. These new definitions will be built around the keywords that consumers use to meet their needs, solve their problems and locate brand solutions.

We’ve all heard about the long tail. And so far that’s been a power law / Pareto curve. But I reckon that when it comes to specific brands, and we move from generic to custom search terms and keywords, strange things may happen to the relationship between keywords and customers along that curve. For example, we know that conversion rates are more likely to increase as more refined ‘long tail’ searches are made. But other things may happen too; the value, loyalty and other characteristics of customers may also vary along that curve.

It seems to me that future ‘brand prints’ or ‘Brand DNA’ profiles may have to consider the keywords consumers use to locate them (remember, consumers rarely search for brands – they search for solutions to their problems, and then use brands to refine and /or justify their choices). A given brand may score extremely well in terms of click rates against terms 3, 8, 16, 18, 25, 60, and 85. Moreover, the same brand may score well in conversion terms against another set of keywords. These keywords will form part of that brand’s online DNA. And of course, the DNA keywords may be altogether different to the keywords against which a competitor scores well – their keywords will be their DNA.

I’d expect brands, particularly brands that are searched, sourced and purchased online to be increasingly measured by their keyword profile. Moreover, brand positioning for these types of online brand may become a contest to fight for, win, retain and recover specific keywords that reflect consumers’ behavioural and search-based view of brands and brand solutions.