It still echos in my mind. "I don't want to go out there on the Internet and let those people hijack my brand." Heard it, before? I'm sure you have. There is still a perception that companies still own their brand completely, and that if they stay in the controllable mediums for communication, they can continue to have complete control of "their" brand.
I've blogged about this before, but wanted to revisit and talk about the enabler aspect of this and get your feedback. We know that brands don't completely own their brand. But we also know that the social media world online hasn't taken the brand over, either. The "brand" becomes the culmination of how the consumer interprets the messages and experiences surrounding a particular product or service. The internet certainly broadens the scope of messages and experiences received, but it is just a larger pool of conversations that were going on about any brand anyway. It's just that now they are more public for people to find and read, and for companies to participate and engage if they so choose--where they couldn't before.
Now, this part about the enabler. It gets interesting here. CMOs may feel that the Internet in and of itself doesn't hijack the brand, but it does enable those that want to. But here is the question, is a negative blog post, a Chevy Tahoe mashup, or some foul language on the Skittles Twitter feed considered a hijacked brand? You could say that Chevy put the tools up there to allow people to say negative things about Chevy, or that Skittles put a spotlight on a tool that could have been used in a way that wasn't controlled by the company.
But the key here is that these are things that are being said anyway. The social media tools are an enabler. But not in the way that a CMO thinks. They are enabling tools to now bring those conversations in front of the company and allows them to engage and better the situation where they were helpless before. What's even more interesting is that recent studies show that the more adept at technology and the more comfortable a person is with consuming digital media, the broader their opinion spectrum and the more likely to be aware of all sides of an issue.
Any good PR pro will tell you that the more info you can give a reporter on a story, the more likely you are to show them your side of the story and can get a more balanced story. The same applies here. The more info a company can get out there, the more engaged they are with the medium, and the more they meld into the brand's conversation, the better chances they have of getting a fair and balanced brand perception.
So, social media does not hijack a brand, but it is an enabler. It enables the company to find the hot spots, engage and balance the conversation. At least, that's one opinion. Do you feel that the tools allow sophisticated users to hijack a brand? Who do you think has the power in the negotiation of who owns a brand--the company or the mass audience?
