AOL Hides Brand to Garner New Audiences

Advertisement (Why?)

Though once a prestigious brand name, the AOL moniker has now become more of a universal target for scorn, a scarlet letter, if you will. But unless you're looking carefully, you'll likely miss the fact that the new Asylum website for young men is a creation of the company. Same for WalletPop on personal finance, Spinner on indie music and StyleList on fashion. These days, the AOL brand is taking a back seat as the company quietly launches dozens of sites targeted at specialized audiences.

AOL figures that to grow its audiences - and draw additional advertising the company crucially needs to offset plunging revenue from its shrinking base of Internet access subscribers - it must break from a one-size-fits-all model and let its specialty sites set their own designs and editorial tone, shedding the AOL brand when necessary. "AOL currently implies legacy. It implies old. It implies out of date," said Rob Enderle, an industry analyst with the Enderle Group. "If you want to attract a new, young audience to a site, attaching 'AOL' is probably a kiss of death. They are wise to use the new individual property brands."

View: Full Story at the AP

#1 theyarecomingforyou on 17 May 2008 - 15:40

But the website has "AOL | My AOL | Mail | Make AOL My Homepage" at the top - hardly discreet. That article is a load of nonsense.

(3 replies) #2 HalcyonX12 on 17 May 2008 - 16:35

AOL also implies ads and other nags built into software, as well as dumbed down interfaces and programs, and an ignorant culture.

#2.1 theyarecomingforyou on 17 May 2008 - 17:11

Several years ago I would have agreed but I've found their free email service to be excellent, as well as one of the few with IMAP support when I signed up two years ago - I use it as my default account and have yet to receive a single item of spam. The AOL portal is also very clean and their advertising campaign is now responsible, particularly after the disaster that was their mass CD campaign. It's disappointing that you can't see that and instead choose to perpetuate inaccurate information; it reflects poorly on you.

#2.2 Mr Fish on 17 May 2008 - 20:09

^ True. I wonder if AOL really does seem so "bad" in the eyes of their site's target audience. I remember the millions of cd's and AOL being the constant butt of every joke. All of which not so true these days.

#2.3 Airlink on 18 May 2008 - 20:36

(Mr Fish said @ #2.2)

People have long memories but not much patience. If they learn not to like a certain brand, it's very hard to get them to un-learn this.

#3 T.W. on 18 May 2008 - 06:21

More like LOL.

#4 winmoose on 18 May 2008 - 18:37

AOL?

eewwwwww

(1 reply) #5 toadeater on 18 May 2008 - 22:17

This is what MS should do.

#5.1 C_Guy on 20 May 2008 - 15:31

Except that in most of the markets they play in, Microsoft either leads or is a dominant player already. Any market they captured under a new brand would mostly be taken from their current brand.

Welcome to Marketing 101.

#6 C_Guy on 20 May 2008 - 15:32

"AOL currently implies ~~legacy~~ coasters-by-mail"

#7 seebaran on 21 May 2008 - 19:38

It seems both Yahoo and AOL share the same issue of seeming "old" and "outdated".

It'd be neat if those two got together, conjure up a new web identity, combine their best services, and take on MS and Google.

Commenting has either been disabled on this article or you are not logged in. Click here to login or register, its free!

Note: Anonymous commenting is disabled in order to keep the quality of responses to a high standard.

Neowin.net