What do Disney, Ford, Coke, MasterCard/Visa, and Nike have in common?  They’re all really, really big brands that most people in the world are probably familiar with.  But do you know what else they have in common?

They all invest in marketing and advertising.

In a post at Search Engine Guide called “Your Brand is Never Bigger Than Your Product“, Jennifer Laycock continues a thought started by Matt Bailey and blasts companies who think they’re “big enough” to be able to skip search engine optimization and other forms of online marketing:

Sure, you’re Sony and you are the most popular maker of digital cameras in the world. More than 23,000 people type “Sony digital camera” into search engines each day looking to learn more about your product.

But guess what? More than 10 times that many people type “digital camera” into search engines looking to learn more about you and your competitors.

Let’s say that you’ve decided that you are important enough that you can ignore those generic terms. Let’s say Canon and Kodak aren’t quite so confident and DO spend time focusing on those terms.

Who do you think is going to make more sales in the long run?

We’ve continued to stress the point at the Internet Marketing Monitor from day one.  No matter what your business is… no matter who you are… no matter the size of your organization… you’re never perfect.  There is no such thing as “done” when it comes to SEO and marketing.

As Laycock points out, big, dominant brands are such because they recognize this.  Who doesn’t know what MasterCard or Visa is?  They’re the universal currency acceptable all over the globe.  But we still see “For everything else… there’s MasterCard” and “Visa… it’s everywhere you want to be” commercials.  We still see ads in print.

And guess what?  When you go to Visa’s website… meta keywords.  Their site isn’t the most search engine friendly.  But they’re at least aware of the importance of some SEO.  Same story over at MasterCard’s website.  Neither site is perfect.  Truth be told, neither site holds a top spot in Google for a search on “credit card”.  But they’re on the front page and I’d be shocked if they weren’t working on SEO.

If MasterCard and Visa - undeniably bigger brands than you (unless you’re Coke) - are concerned with and continue to invest in branding… what makes you think you don’t need to?