Democracy of Branding

First blog-post ever. Intimidating to say the least. Well, here it goes.

The paradox: I'm blogging yet I hate social media. For the life of me, I cannot understand what people use Facebook for, why anyone would want to be the mayor of anything on foursquare or how they find the time or the energy to tweet ten times a day. Nevertheless, I cannot seem to make it go away, so I am trying to embrace the little things about it that I do like. For instance, I understand strategic positioning of brands and I can see the benefits of perceiving one self as a brand. And thus, I can see the benefits of e.g. blogging as a part of the strategic positioning of the brand Peter Vilsholm Therkildsen Schlegel (I'm pretty confident that a branding consultant would tell me to get a new name but that's not happening).

So - social media is probably going to stick around long enough for me to have to deal with it. Personally and professionally. This blogpost is about the professional aspect of it. Or the branding aspect to be more specific. I have a proud background with one of Europe’s leading branding consultancies, Kunde & Co, and have a firm belief that a brand needs to be a true reflection of a company’s core beliefs, values, characteristics and aspirations. And it needs to be articulated elegantly and consistently. Especially the latter caused great controversy in the agency sphere in Scandinavia as many creatives found to eliminate their artistic freedom and make campaigning boring as everything looked very much alike. However this – and the mass media – gave the brands the option of communicating their brand with a high degree of consistency. Now, everyone with an internet connection can be a brand spokesperson and destroy the consistency.

Social media evangelists have argued that brands are social constructions that have always been the sum of consumer perception anyway. True. But companies arguably had more control in the past. So what do we do, when this comforting level of control has been reduced or even eliminated? What is the strategic approach to the ‘democratisation of branding’?

Short answer: you develop consistency and control over the audience that you can, your employees. And then you set it free. Internal branding is the key to increasing influence of your brand. Forget about control – it’s gone. But you can influence it. You can ensure that your employees really and genuinely understand and believe in your brand values. You can exemplify how those values are executed in real life scenarios. You can encourage living the brand. And if you are doing a good job of it – creating what Jesper Kunde labeled a Corporate Religion – you set it free. You encourage your employees to engage with consumers on social media (and in real life!) and watch the positive effects of the brand democratisation. You watch people contributing to your brand equity because they have been exposed to your brand values. It’s not that everyone will suddenly start tweeting, blogging or updating about all the wonders of your company. But those that do share their opinion will be far more likely to share a positive opinion. And those that encounter other people’s negative opinions, will be far more likely to counter them with their own positive one.

Your brand has been democratized and there is little you can do about it. But you can work strategically with this new paradigm. Not by sitting back and giving up control, but by empowering your company’s key assets: your employees. Branding as a strategic discipline has shifted from being a marketing and communication discipline to being much more of an internal discipline. Democracy is all about putting power in the hands of the people. But no harm in guiding the people to the best of your abilities.

Is this ground-breaking news? Hardly. But is certainly means that the traditional ad agency will need to reinvent themselves to be the masters of branding strategy and implementation. Otherwise, HR consultancies will seize the opportunity.

Finally – it’s a blog. So comment. Please.