Marketers often speak about controlling their brand, which by definition is out of their control. In the most layman of terms, a product's brand is the individual and collective thoughts and feelings of said product's customers --> the product's brand is what people think and how they feel about it.
The most marketers can hope to do is
influence what their customers may think of their brands. Marketing and advertising professionals have become experts in observation, research and human behavior, allowing them to give consumers what they want, when they want it and how they want it. On the other hand, consumer's believe they have the power to get companies to create, change or discontinue products through the use of or withholding of the almighty dollar. This begs the question, who controls a product's brand? The reality is closer to marketers and consumers share brands.
Social media is causing paradigm shifts (and some mild heart attacks) because of brand transparency. This phenomenon is causing fear and trepidation in the hearts of most traditional marketers and a false sense of bravado in consumers. For marketers, consumers used to call or write letters when they had complaints. Now they can blast brands on blogs, ravage products with scathing reviews and flog your flagship endeavors on
Facebook. Brands are at the mercy customers, and truth be told, they always have been. The difference is customers now have a way to express and disseminate their discontent to hundreds, thousands, even millions of others almost instantaneously. For consumers, brands can easily share their cases of consumer abuse, exaggeration and fabrication to self promotion and gain. Brands and products can now go the offensive, telling their side of the story, heading off the firestorm of consumer ire before the clouds even begin to form. And while the axiom of "
the customer is always right" may have been the governing principle for
20th century customer service, seemingly the pendulum is swinging back to center, where consumers and brands share responsibility for fulfilling the brand's promise.
As marketers learn to release their brands, they gain real time engagement, communication and recognition with their customers, all of which can improve the brand as its
advocates take part in its success. Companies, C-suites, agencies and
public relation firms should remember, consumers chose their products and services, they want brands to succeed, and working together, they can.
Additional resources:
What is a brand?What is a logo?
