Gibson: Picked Apart
The Gibson brand carries tremendous cachet in the music world—it is a name as synonymous with rock and roll as leather and teenage rebellion. Famous for guitar vintage stylings and intonations, this century old guitar brand is considered among the world's leading innovators in guitar manufacturing. A digital guitar, introduced in 2003, was cited by Time magazine as one of that year's coolest inventions. What makes people buy guitars are the musicians that play them, and accordingly, the Gibson brand was built on the endorsements of the world's most popular and respected guitarists. In the early fifties, Les Paul led this trend when he approached the company to develop his now legendary namesake guitar. Other devoted endorsees of the classic hollow and solid body models run the luminous gamut from blues legend B.B. King (Gibson is responsible for his "Lucille" hollow body) to Chet Atkins, Jimmy Page and Joe Perry.
On matters of the brand ID front, Gibson recently revamped its logo to achieve a better sense of consistency across all product lines, and it seems ready to stamp the new look on other venues as well. The redundantly named Universal Studios Universal Amphitheatre recently announced it is renaming as the Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal CityWalk.
That said, it's clear the Gibson brand conveys a sense of prestige that extends beyond guitars to the world of music in general. To successfully embody the brand, Gibson.comshould be positioned as more of a guitar expertise repository as opposed to a mere product promotion vehicle. We recently visited Gibson.com to see if it rocked online.
The site gives visitors instant access to product information from all angles, which is key for all practical purposes. Users can choose to view products by product line and get a vast amount of detailed information ranging from big picture to detailed product specs—important when it comes to big ticket items like a guitar. Gibson.com has no e-commerce function, but has a dealer locator function and offers enough research information to comprise a browsing experience, short of strumming a few chords. It even includes info about discontinued models and special guitar finishes.
Addressing international followers, Gibson.com is available in versions for enthusiasts in the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, France, Italy and English-speaking nations; all sites basically have the same content.
The home page is emblazoned with images from the latest ad campaign, peppered with clever bon mots like "Watch for Flying Panties," which work well for the brand's bad boy associations. Throughout, there is an omnipresence of the product catalog on the left navigation bar.
Once you dig in, the celebrity quotient is also a prominent component of the site's content, but not as much as one might expect. Users have to access it through various ways and means—one of which is the press releases on the News page, another being the newsletter page. The Artists page could be a lot more dynamic; it is merely a list of musicians and what Gibson guitar they play. The European home pages feature a lot more promo boxes that lure visitors with celebrity interviews and product promotions.
There are quite a few site elements that do succeed in furthering the Gibson mystique. Users can get a virtual factory tour. The Backstage Pass pages give users access to ad campaigns, artist information, guitar clinics, contests/promotions and a serious list of downloads. One basic but valuable content element is depicted in the How to Buy a Guitar page, which is a downloadable PDF. Displaying that page might be a nice way to demystify the experience for novice users and entice them to browse the product pages.
All in all, Gibson.com is rather static, but it does a pretty good job of providing a decent brand experience. It might be in the best interest of Gibson to fine tune the details to give the site a feel that reflects the premium quality and innovation the brand represents. Considering that guitar brands by their very nature inspire an inherent sense of community, Gibson could learn more about its online fan base by beefing up community sections to allow for an interchange of ideas between fans. We also find it strange that a website promoting musicianship has no audio element. By integrating more of the elements (such as celebrity, community and most of all, innovation) that intrinsically drives this brand in the first place, Gibson would look as good online as it sounds offline.