Brands aim at courtship via social media
Brands are experimenting with freedom, says Millward Brown Optimor in its BrandZ Top 100 report. That’s because while social media affords unprecedented intimacy between brand and customer, such a relationship requires dialogue, honesty and respect.
“Some brands are uncomfortable in this new world where customers can post thoughtful Valentines or crude graffiti,” says MBO. “Yet cultivating a relationship based on the slow revelations of courtship seems quaint and unrealistic as customers promiscuously speed date from website to website.”
Brands in certain categories, like apparel, have been quick to adopt social media because it fits with their youth orientation. But as the latest BrandZ data indicate, social media is not just the domain of young, fashionable brands.
“The definitive indicator of social media’s arrival is its adoption by tradition-bound categories such as banking, where customer relationships, like uneventful marriages, often survive on inertia.”
Many of the successful brands in this year’s BrandZ ranking attempted to engage customers and inspire advocates whose independent voices potentially speak more credibly about the brand than the brand could speak about itself, MBO says. But there are dangers – relying on advocates to develop a brand is equivalent to depending on the kindness of strangers.
So, how much to let go?
“Too much control almost guarantees a safe but tepid outcome, while too much freedom risks results that are memorable but disastrous. Brands are experimenting with this tension.”
More on social media and brands at out Buzz event at the IAB
