Who Owns Your Brand?

A self-proclaimed social-media guru shared this advice with me: companies should pay close attention to what people are saying about their brand in social media so that they can recognize where the public has the wrong ideas about the brand, and use this information to drive brand messaging to rectify their errors.    It's an absurd notion, but one he seemed to take quite seriously, leading me to wonder about how widespread this misconception is.

The notion that a company dictates what its brand means to the public is so arrogant and wrong-headed as to be ludicrous.   Your brand exists in the mind of the market.   And if there is any disagreement between what you think of your own brand and what the market thinks of it, then you are the one who is wrong.   Granted, a firm may attempt to attempt to influence opinion of its brands and generally tries to spin it in a positive (and profitable) direction - but the brand exists in the market, not within the firm.

His statement, and the arrogant naivety with which he boldly made it, put me in mind of Gail Wynand, the (fictional) newspaper tycoon whose tragic flaw was believing that his newspaper dictated public opinion - but when he ran an unpopular editorial campaign, the public stopped buying his newspaper until the board of directors took control and reversed the paper's position.

There never was a way to control public opinion, and there likely never will be.  People come to their own conclusions, speak their own mind, and put greater trust in what their friends and neighbors have to say about a brand than the company who wishes to sell it, and whom they know to have an agenda to make others think positively about the brand no matter the truth.  I can understand how a company could delude itself into thinking its voice absolute during the age of mass-media where the voice of the customer was unheard - but especially in the age of social media, the customer's voice is out there for all to hear.

That is to say that the market owns brands - now more than ever.  You can label it "deluxe" and spend millions on an advertising campaign to promote the notion that it is high-quality.  But if your merchandise is poorly made, people will discover this and spread the news faster, further, and with a more credible voice than your marketing department and advertising agency.

They days when customers could be badgered and threatened into retracting negative remarks have also passed.  The old-school approach of silencing your critics when their criticism is entirely valid and warranted have also passed.   Companies that want to have customers say great things about a rotten product will find little success, and suffer an even worse reputation for having tried - whether proactively (by attempting to bribe or cajole) or reactively (by threatening and browbeating) - and their critics voices will gain all the more credibility when these tactics are discovered.

That is not to say that the voice of the public cannot be influenced or challenged - when there is a misperception, it can be corrected - but there's a stark difference between having an uninformed opinion and telling outright lies.   And for the most part, the public is spot on.   If a product is really great, people say good things about it; if it is truly rotten, they will say bad things about it; and if it's a matter of opinion, both sides will be heard - and others who listen to social media will weigh everything they hear and come to their own decision.

All of this boils own to a fundamental and inviolate truth: if you want public opinion of your product to be positive, then make a good product and provide good service - and the buzz will take care of itself.   Listen to the voice of the consumer as a matter of course, but when you find you're in disagreement, set aside your assumption that you're right and your critics are wrong.  It's usually exactly the opposite.