AOL, like many online companies, is having trouble differentiating themselves from everyone else. We've talked here before about the growing video market is going to become a commodity soon. Who isn't going to offer movie downloads in the near future. Everyone is already jumping on that bandwagon.
One thing that AOL (TWX) continually does, that needs to stop, is to try to be all things to all people. The mass-media generation is over; it's not going to be resurrected. Even a company the size of AOL must become a niche player, even if it's a big niche.
In Business Week online, they asked several people about AOL's problems. David Martin, president of Interbrand North America concurs with the reality that AOL must become a far more targeted company.
"Brand success is based on one simple thing—being relevant," says Martin. "And in the process of being relevant, being relevant to me. If you are trying to be relevant to everybody, then you are going to be milquetoast and you can't succeed on the Internet by being milquetoast."
That's the bottom line we must all learn in online marketing: we must be relevant to somebody specific; not to some imaginary thing called a "mass."
Even though this is something that is always talked about in reference to most companies, we can stop listening to its importance and wonder why our online businesses aren't getting anywhere. Don't underestimate the importance of this if big companies like AOL, among others, still struggle with understanding that they must be specific to somebody.
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