Who owns the brand?
I was engaged in a rather lengthy debate the other day on how companies used to have control of their brands, and that the new tools of social media have stripped that ownership and placed the reigns in the hands of the audiences those brands once used to speak to in a command and control manner. We've all probably have heard Chris Anderson talk about The Long Tail, so I had to include this video here:
I've always enjoyed showing that video. However, I've recently been thinking a lot about the sociology behind what we do, and really looking into how communication works. And it struck me how dead on we were a few years ago at a previous company when we said: "It's not about message sent, it's about message received." (If only really really knew what we were saying!)
To bring this concept to the conversation of brand ownership, what people are really saying is that companies used to have control of the message being sent. NOT how the message is being received. They never had control of that. And if you think about it in terms of message sent, they still have all the control they ever had. What they are losing some control over is the monopoly of message channels. Companies controlled the message channels and therefore had a greater influence on message received. Now, audiences have access to some of those channels and voicing their thoughts on the companies and the brands. Thoughts they have always had -- even when the company thought they "owned" the brand.
What's interesting here is that this is not a loss of control. This is not that disruptive of a medium that needs to be feared. What it really is...is a free and easy way to get a glimpse of what your audiences and consumers have thought all along--a glimpse into how the message is being received. And how great is that? They are doing it without paying for a focus group.
So what does that mean for brand ownership?
Well, it's still a collaboration of audience perception and company messaging. But if used right, the social media tools that exist are a great barometer to test how messaging is being received. Heck, think of it as an umpire calling balls and strikes. If it's a little high and inside, change the tone of the conversation and see if you can get it back in the strike zone.
