Comments on: You Don’t Control Your Brand. The Audience Does.

By: Are you in control of your brand? « Brandhabits

Are you in control of your brand? « Brandhabits — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:33:02 +0000

[...] freedom of social media you can’t control your brand anymore. In fact, you don’t even own it, your customers do. They decide what people think about it and what they should do with it. These are the new rules [...]

By: John

John — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:56:31 +0000

First off Pratt, what are you doing up??? West coast man, sleep!

Second, I completely agree with your point. Because culling the opinion of the internet is as easy as herding cats. And no amount of money thrown at it, will be quicker or more gelatinous than it is itself.

And I agree, once the audience perceives they’re being treated like audience 1.0, they turn on you, organize, and counter.

By: Steve Pratt

Steve Pratt — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:37:27 +0000

Absolutely! I’m not suggesting that companies don’t focus their content or products around a central idea of how they’d like to be perceived, but I am saying that the idea of the company ‘owning’ and ‘controlling’ the brand is a dying idea. I see a lot of places where ‘brand’ is something separate from the content or product – almost an entity in and of itself to be managed. There’s a perception that with enough money, you can brand yourself as whatever you want and I don’t think that’s the case anymore. The audience is too smart and savvy to be manipulated today.

By: John

John — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:21:29 +0000

While I agree that the audience in large part will be in control of how you ultimately will be perceived, don’t you think that paying attention to your brand and message is as important as following your audience’s perception?

In some respects if you know your brand well enough, and your audience better, in today’s playing field you shed thousands of dollars of advertising in lieu of letting your audience pass on the message for you.