Brands and the Dark Side of Social Media

Sarah Palin can turn a phrase. Hers is not the style of Churchill or JFK; in fact, it’s quite the opposite. And that’s the point. Once we thought of political oratory as speech used to build community, unite people, and inflate the spirit, as in “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Instead, Palin has shown us how it can be used to deflate if not the spirit, then at least the opponent. “How’s that hopey, changey stuff working out for ya?” she asks, and in no time the line is on Twitter, the clip on YouTube, and Zazzle.com is selling it on bumper stickers. In the age of social networks, content evolves hand-in-hand with the mode of dissemination. What matters is pass-along potential, and nothing gets passed along like humor, particularly sarcasm or the thrill of the ‘gotcha’ moment. Sound bites have always been part of political communication, but decisions about which bites to air used to be in the hands of at least half-way responsible and accountable editors. Now everybody has a say in deciding what gets disseminated, and everybody seems to like passing along the put-down more than the uplift. My interest, as a marketing professor, is in the way this shift is playing out in the world of brands. Social media are making life difficult for mainstream marketers. Insurgents use so-called “earned” media in place of paid media, creating video ads passed from friend to friend that like to target the imperfections of national brands and the excesses of mass consumer culture. Parodies on YouTube have come to haunt companies. Consider the audience drawn to Greenpeace’s targeting Nestle over the destruction of rainforests to grow palm oil, publicity over the lawsuit that North Face brought against the college student who dreamed up the South Butt clothing line, and the tormenting of Toyota by myriad amateur parodists. Some of these skirmishes have come under the scrutiny of HBS case writers. One titled United Breaks Guitars, for example, analyzes the viral success of a Youtube-based customer complaint video released by an amateur musician when his guitar was damaged by the airline. Did the song really hurt the United brand, already weakened by bankruptcy and service cutbacks? British blogger Peter Cochrane recounted an incident that took place on a shuttle bus from his hotel to New York’s JFK airport: “Barely awake, I heard the driver call for airlines and terminals. Someone piped up ‘United’ and the immediate rejoinder from the rest of the passengers was a chorus of United Breaks Guitars.” So what is a big brand to do when it no longer controls its message, when its complaint anthems are better known than its jingles? Here are four possible options: First, understand that size now makes you vulnerable, not safe. If you make a wrong move, the parodists will come after you precisely because you are a recognizable target. Second, think more about authenticity than about how to position the brand. It’s a transparent world, so what you are is what they’ll see. Nestle, for example, has pledged to stop sourcing palm oil from companies that threaten the Indonesian rain forest, in part because of the Greenpeace effort. In today’s social media age, brands need to embrace authentic accountability themselves before others force it upon them. Third, keep in mind that it is more fun to be an insurgent than an incumbent. Find an opponent bigger than yourself, as Dove’s did in relation to the beauty industry with its “Campaign for Real Beauty.” Finally, don’t rule out the possibility that social media just aren’t for you. So far, much of what social media have done is quite mean-spirited. Could it be, one shudders to think, that these media are better at destroying value than creating it? John Deighton is the Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and an authority on consumer behavior and marketing, including direct and digital marketing.

Brands and the Dark Side of Social Media

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