Comments on: Branding & Social Media

By: Ed Roach

Ed Roach — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:23:52 +0000

I agree with Tom that the perception is reality in branding. You can never totally control the brand, Brand Managers do play a role in managing what they can. Helping the company be aware of it's brand and doing what they can to stay on course true to itself.

By: blackcoffee

blackcoffee — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 02:07:57 +0000

There is a world of difference between being consumer-informed and being consumer-led. The former builds brands the ladder builds ubiquity.

Mark Gallagher
Brand Expressionist®

By: Andrew F Stewart

Andrew F Stewart — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:13:16 +0000

"Surrender control without giving up leadership" Love this! Excellent read!

@1day1brand @andrewfstewart

By: @BWCookieCompany

@BWCookieCompany — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:38:45 +0000

Coming from the brand side, social media is a great and easy way to find your target audience and get feedback. Additionally, most active consumers are spending more and more time on social media sites.

By: Langston Richardson

Langston Richardson — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 16:26:02 +0000

Companies, their brands and how marketers planned them were once basically structured like the old medieval castles of old where they had total control over many factors of consumption.

With the rapid rise in technology which have changed and empowered people, we have a situation where companies are facing the growing change they need to become honest brokers in sharing what services and goods they offer to a community instead of "campaign" them or "advertise" them. Campaigns and ads are now being re-thought, though still small in scale, because the community is too savvy to be convinced by that alone. They alone do not build the trust that's important in building awareness, trial and advocacy.

Social media is redefining the terms of our relationships with 70 years of top-down branding. The older models of branding are being dragged along to this new day.

__________________________________________________________________
Langston Richardson | Creative Visionary – Direction – Strategy – Ideas – Execution
http://www.langstonrichardson.com | p. 202.905.2065 | e: langston@langstonrichardson.com

By: blackcoffee

blackcoffee — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 01:45:50 +0000

Jordan,

Agreed! Brands live in the minds of consumers and feedback from that community is essential. Your presentation is great. However, I personally have an issue with the term "control." I believe that it's somewhat misleading. I don't believe companies should "give up control" of their brands. They never had control.

The task of brand management revolves around managing consumers' expectations, not by consistently selling a promise but rather consistently delivering on one. This doesn't mean consumers don't have a say, as they have the final vote (their cash and credit cards.) Today, with the advent of social media, they now have their tweets, blogs and posts.

Our perspectives aren’t any more synonymous, than they are mutually exclusive.

Mark Gallagher
Brand Expressionist®

By: @thejordanrules

@thejordanrules — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 00:29:54 +0000

We should note that there is a substantial difference between product management and brand management. Brand control can be distributed without losing control of product development. Considering I've been giving talks about brands giving up control (http://www.slideshare.net/thejordanrules/giving-up-control) I feel like I should explain my perspective. I don't suggest creating user-generated brands, but suggest that a brand be fluid enough with its messaging and objectives that it can bend to accommodate feedback from the community. I suggest that a brand IS the public perception of a product, service, or organization. In that definition, brand managers are still essential in managing the brands communication - but it's also essential that they take their blinders off and realize their brand isn't what they say it is - their brand is what the community says it is.

By: @edwardboches

@edwardboches — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 00:29:22 +0000

Steve Jobs would agree that the consumer doesn't know what they want, but they talk about it anyway. Not so sure that anyone actually means releasing total control of a brand's product and marketing decisions to the consumer, but perhaps you should interpret those leading the discussion as suggesting that we embrace consumer participation, that we let them into our dialogue and that we join theirs. It's really all about building relationships and eliminating what used to be artificial barriers between those who created and dispatched the messages and those who received them.

By: Tom Asacker

Tom Asacker — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 00:06:10 +0000

Interesting post and discussion. Thanks. I think Jordan may have hit on the present day "branding" dilemma with this comment:

"I suggest that a brand IS the public perception of a product, service, or organization."

Pre-social media that assertion was easily made and defended, since mass media created a mass perception. Today, a brand is a "niche" or even an "individual" perception.

They only economical way to create a consensus "individual" perception, is to create something remarkable (think Apple). The accumulative individual perceptions, reinforced by actual experiences, create the "public" perception.

Today's consumer (and donor, voter, etc.) is, for the most part, simply too savvy and skeptical to have their collective perception "created" from a top-down, image and communication-driven approach.

By: Patrick King

Patrick King — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 22:00:49 +0000

I'm not sure that companies ever had a choice, either.

It's not a matter of whether or not the business drives the car, in my opinion. It's a matter of whether or not they lay the road in the right direction. To forgo a metaphor, the job of the business is not to lead the conversation, but to be aware of it and help generate positive buzz.

I whole-heartedly disagree that the "brand manager" is dead. They just have a new strategy.