In a recent article on brandingmagazine.com Bruce Levinson, Vice President, Client Engagement at SGK, looks at the pitfalls of “likes” on social media being used as a new benchmark to brand health.
“Simply being liked isn’t really the point of branding.”
There is a disturbingly misguided popularity contest among brands being hosted on Facebook these days. The frenzy among brand marketers looking to engage consumers in social dialogue has created an unhealthy new benchmark of brand health – the number of Likes they have. Social media is indeed revolutionizing the way brands and consumers interact. Marketers should be investing in new, better ways to listen, share, co-create and otherwise communicate with consumers. But the end goal cannot be to amass Likes, as if they are votes of brand equity, because they are not. In fact, I don’t know any good brand manager who wants everyone to “like” his or her brand. They should want a growing group to love their brand, even if that means another group doesn’t.
“Polarity can be good branding. Standing firmly for something
(like every brand should) also means not standing for something else. “
Simply being liked isn’t really the point of branding. From Harley-Davidson to Horizon Organic to GoDaddy.com, successful brands often appeal deeply to one consumer group – in some cases forming an identity with cult-like status – while completely turning off other consumers, who simply don’t get the point or even actively dislike the brand’s values. Polarity can be good branding. Standing firmly for something (like every brand should) also means not standing for something else. Having a strong purpose, set of values and beliefs is what builds genuine equity, not some quasi-measure of popularity. It’s too bad Facebook doesn’t offer a Love or Hate button, which might be more telling just how influential a brand really is.
Read the full article at http://www.brandingmagazine.com/2014/02/27/branding-popularity-contest/
