BEST GLOBAL BRANDS 200100 / 3
TODAY’S BRANDS CAN’T HIDE ANYTHING FROM CONSUMERS
IT IS A RISKY LANDSCAPE FOR TODAY'S BRANDS
Even if they tried, brands can be named and shamed on sites like Smoking Gun, WikiLeaks or Breitbart in five minutes flat. In the age of real time, a disgruntled employee can film one all too revealing meeting – a discussion of safety measure cuts or massive layoffs – and post it on YouTube within seconds. Technologies built on open platforms have crumbled the wall between brands and their stakeholders.
The rules changed overnight, and even those with the most confident strategies are feeling the pressures of this new marketplace. Customers’ access to more information means that it is easier for them to detach. Just look at Facebook, the former star of social networking discussions. The once beloved brand received a huge backlash after it changed its privacy settings to open user information up to search engines and public examination. The move not only resulted in a large drop in new users (from 7.8 million in May to 320,800 in June) but the abandonment of thousands of once loyal users. Now, the brand has to work hard to reverse the damage that resulted from a failure to reflect on how an operational detail might alter its brand image.
NOW CUSTOMERS CAN LET THE WORLD KNOW HOW THEY FEEL Customers are not only more skeptical due to access to more details, but they can also talk back, providing feedback, criticism, and emotional reactions online, with the expectation that brands will be paying attention. The challenge for brands is to respond right away with relevance and sincerity, or else risk compromising the relationship.
And yet, just as customers are finding it easier to detach, for those brands that continue to value the customer relationship, the same evolutions in the marketplace also support deeper and more lasting attachments.
McDonald’s, for example, has seen profits climb since the recession. While this has much to do with its low prices and aggressive strategy, at heart it is also due to the enduring familiarity of the brand. When customers unwrap a Big Mac package, reminiscent of childhood for so many, they know what they are getting each and every time, and this influences their choice to purchase. The same is true for Campbell’s, which has seen its brand value grow organically by five percent. Its canned soups not only offer an appealing price point, but also a comfort that proves reassuring in tough times. Then there’s a brand like Apple, which only strengthens its user loyalty with every move due to the brand’s commitment to beauty, design and functionality. Even after its iPad faced heavy ridicule from blogs and social media, it went on to become one of the year’s biggest success stories – although with growing concern over iPhone 4’s reception issues and new reports that Apple compromised functionality for design, it is hard to say if the brand will be able to sustain this level of loyalty in the face of continual off-brand missteps.