Internal - Brand Zone Population

What is a Brand Zone and Who Can Have One?

A Brand Zone (or Brand Profile) represents a 'brand', its offerings and showcases its' distribution network.

Brand Zones are a subscription product and represents one brand. A supplier (who is a manufacturer) may have multiple brand zones in addition to their supplier profile. For example, Datrex who is the brand owner of both 'Datrex' and 'Dalite' may have two brand zone subscriptions; one for 'Datrex' and one for 'Dalite'.

For a manufacturer to have a Brand Zone…:

1. The brand owner must be a registered tenant (supplier) on the platform

2. The brand must be in the brand 'master data'

3. The tenant must be flagged as the 'brand owner'

📘 Note: Brand Zones are designed to showcased distributor capabilities (i.e. other suppliers that sell the brand owners products). If a brand owner does not have any other suppliers on ShipServ that are authorised distributors they will not benefit from the Brand Zone.

How to Create a Brand Zone?

Brand Zones are non self-service. To create and manage content in a Brand Zone a request should be registered with Platform Service via the regular support process.

As Brand Zones will be low volume, we do not anticipate creating self-service management in the near term. Having brands work with AMs to populate their brand zone full will make for great Brand Zone.

Self-Service Brand Management

In later phases (see backlog) we will be adding in the capability for brand owners to manage their distribution network. This will allow brand owners to manage authorised distributors as well as approve and deny self-verified distributors.

What do you get in a Brand Zone?

When you subscribe to a Brand Zone you get…

1. Brand Zone

2. Brand Zone Banner in Search (Currently supplier search only)

3. Brand included in 'top brands' on the homepage

How do Brand Zones get Traffic?

Brand Zones will typically get traffic from two sources:

1. Google and other search engines

2. From search results pages in ShipServ

📘 Note: It takes Google (and other search engines) several weeks to recognise new pages. It can take months for a page to build a reputation which would make it appear highly ranked in Google. Working with the brands to ensure they have a well populated brand zone will increase the likelihood of receiving traffic from Google.

Is content for Brand Zones the same as the Supplier Profiles?

No. Brands have their own dedicated content. Supplier profile data belongs to the supplier, brand data belongs to the brand. There is one exception with respect to brand catalogues - click here for details.

Brand Banner

The brand banner gets displayed at the top of search results when the intent is for that brand. The brand may choose several keywords to make the brand banner display. If the keyword is matched to the search term of the user, the banner will show. For example, if the keyword is 'viking', search results that contain viking will be displayed.

🚨 IMPORTANT: Only brand related keywords may be used to promote the brand zones. Generic category keywords should never be used to promote a brand zone, in particular the high value keywords such as pumps, liferafts, etc…

🚨 IMPORTANT: Keywords that promote brand zones are unique for each brand zone. One keyword can promote one brand zone. I.e. only one brand zone can be promoted in the search results at a time

Brand Banner Content

A brand banner displays

• A promo image (configurable)*

• The brand logo (configurable)

• Brand name

• Number of authorised distributors

• A brand promo summary (configurable)

*It is highly recommended that the promo image does not display text 

Creating a Great Brand Logo

We always recommend SVG to ensure it's pixel perfect every time. No need to add a radius, this will get added when uploaded.

Brand Zone

The Brand Zone has 3 pages:

1. Overview page

2. Distributors

3. Catalogue

The top of the Brand Zone displays the cover image, brand logo and brand name. The cover image is optional. Details for creating the cover image can be found here.

The Overview Page

This is the main page to showcase the brand. Alongside content, it also hosts a message brand owner form and a link to the manufacturer supplier profile.

Overview Section

This section displays the brand description text. A good brand description text can help with being found on search engines. The brand owner may also display a downloadable brand eBrochure.


Featured Products

Brand owners with a catalogue can specify up to 5 products to feature on the overview page.

Certificates

Certificates are a great way to give buyers confidence in the brand, from sustainability certificates to trademarks and patents.


Downloadable Documents

Documents offer a repository to provide buyers with everything they need and something they can take offline with them. Documents can include everything from tech specs through to catalogue collections.

Specialities

Specialities are a way to showcase at a glance what a brand specialises in. Up to 15 can be selected but we recommend selecting no more than 5-6 to avoid overwhelming buyers. Clicking on a speciality leads to a search page for that speciality - this helps with search engine optimisation (i.e. visibility in Google).


Overview of Content

Distributors Page

The distributors page displays a list of authorised distributors and a map with all distributor branches and ports. This view is automatically populated, showing suppliers who are marked as authorised for that brand. Self-verified distributors will not display.


📘 Note: Work with the brand owner to review their authorised distributors and verify (or deny) self-verified distributors.

The list displays 'distributors' not branches. A distributor is represented as a 'supplier' (e.g. Alfa Laval - i.e. a supplier profile). The map displays he individual branches for each distributor. Hovering over branch on the map highlights all other branches that also belong to that supplier.

Brand Catalogue

The catalogue displays all brands products in one place. We have lots of plans to enhance catalogues in the near future!


🚨 IMPORTANT: The brand catalogue is not a separate catalogue to the one in the supplier profile. Products are displayed here only if the Manufacturer is populated for the products in the supplier catalogue. Some suppliers may need to update their catalogue. This is done to improve the quality of our product data and avoid suppliers having to maintain more than one catalogue.