Branding.

It’s been the big buzzword whether you are talking about branding through social media or traditional media.  Your image is who you are right?  We ALL thought that about Tiger, and it turns out we thought wrong.  But that’s the power of branding. (I’m not slighting him, just using his image and branding as an example.)  But what does branding do for your company?  Or for yourself (if you are a public entity)?

In many ways branding is who you or who your company is.  For instance, Microsoft might be the more successful company, but Apple’s brand sentiment is stronger, especially in the social arena: (article).  Nike relies on its branding of the world’s most recognizable athletes wearing its shoes to dominate the saturated shoe market.  Geico uses about 18 different marketing campaigns to build their brand yet somehow, they are one of the most recognizable insurance companies.  So, branding builds a perception of what you think about a company.  For the longest time, traditional media was the only way to brand and build your perception.

In 2009 we saw corporations such as Gatorade, Radio Shack and Kentucky Fried Chicken continue to utilize traditional media to incorporate their new branding scheme. 

Gatorade failed miserably early on during the NFL playoffs when it began running commercials stating, “What’s G?”.  While the commercial was engaging and the viewer wanted to know, it failed to convey the message that G was the new Gatorade name.  Further, it took weeks for them to post search links to their site explaining the meaning behind “What’s G?”  Thus when a viewer Googled this question, the answer wasn’t  there.  A week after the first airing, finally someone had written a blog explaining his theory on it and it turns out his theory was right.  It wasn’t until about 2 weeks after the commercials started to air that Gatorade finally showed up in search results for “What’s G commercial”.  So while they attempted a great viral campaign they failed to deliver on the feasibility of delivering the customer into an actionable answer. (read more about this fiasco)

Radio Shack just flat out aired commercials stating that they were now to be called The Shack.  Easy breezy right?  Except for the fact that Shaquille O’Neal might have something to say about who is, “The Shack”.  He is of course @THE_REAL_SHAQ on Twitter.  Surprisingly, to my knowledge, he never did anything with it.  (too bad for both of them, could have been a fun little sparring campaign)  It’s not surprising that Radio Shack is changing their name, since radio is an outdated technology and implies that you can only get things for radio at said store.  The fact is Radio Shack today does a decent amount of business with wireless phones and other electronics.  Unfortunately for Radio Shack, both pieces of their name have a negative connotation.  We’ve discussed why radio is bad, but a shack is not really a place I want to go to buy electronics.  I want to go to a store.  Now all I can do is go to “The Shack” if I want to buy some crappy electronics that are overpriced (IMO).  I’m actually surprised Radio Shack has weathered the storm; they seem like one of those companies that should have faded out after 2000 or at least during the economic downturn of 2008/09.

Finally, there’s Kentucky Fried Chicken, or as they are trying to be known, Kentucky Grilled Chicken, ok technically they are still just KFC but they’ve definitely made a great attempt at rebranding who they are and what they sell.  I ask you, who seriously ever went to KFC because they wanted healthy food?  Not me.  So why the change?  Probably their numbers were dropping so they opted to go with the healthy fast food craze of the last few years (Subway, McDonalds, etc have all overly marketed fresh, healthy food recently).  I’ll admit, I’m on the bandwagon of healthy food.  If I go to a fast food place I look at the calorie chart and my decision is influenced by how many calories the Double Bacon Cheeseburger has.    The difference between a Subway/McDonald’s and KFC is that they have not had to change their name to convey their healthy connotation.  Subway found Jared and McDonald’s just bombarded us with their advertising.  I have to ask though, if companies continue to do this “healthy branding” trend, what’s a company like Burger King gonna do?  They’re screwed name wise.

On the flip side in 2009 we saw other corporations grasp at social media outlets to work on their brand (not necessarily trying to change their brand but to gain some market share and / or build their brand).

Skittles tried to grasp at social media branding when the term was young and hot in late spring early summer with their Twitter and Facebook page takeover of their site. The problem was that the Twitter takeover for Skittles backfired as the community started lots of negative tweets about Skittles.  Quickly Skittles changed the takeover to a Facebook takeover which eased the negativity.  Still the site was barely interactive and really didn’t do a whole lot to improve the Skittles brand.  Jack in the Box did a good job of utilizing traditional media to garner attention to their attempt at a social media brand.  Again though the site was fairly lame and didn’t do much to build their brand… seriously, a “dying CEO” campaign?  Might have been one of Jack’s worst ideas last year.

In contrast, Target used social media to increase brand awareness about their giving / donations and actually used social media to let their fans choose who to donate to (Bullseye Gives campaign).  As gruesome and morbid as this might be, Michael Jackson’s death might have turned out the biggest social media win of the year for TMZ and maybe for MJ himself.  TMZ earned a new reputation as “the first to break the story” and MJ’s legacy soared through Twitter, Blip.fm, imeem, Facebook, etc.  MJ was the top tweeted person of the year and his popularity possibly doubled through his death and resulting buzz.   Interestingly, Tiger made the list at #8, though his name probably popped up on Twitter during any of the major tournaments during the year and well before his “accident”.

Finally, and this stems into 2010, Pepsi announced that they would NOT air Superbowl Commercials during this year’s Superbowl.  Pepsi will instead utilize the money for its Project Refresh online cause marketing campaign. (article)  This is a huge coup for online / social media since the Superbowl has been the main stage for traditional media for the last 15-20 years.  As far as branding goes, it will be very interesting.  Pepsi has been one of the key participants in Superbowl ads so there will be buzz when their commercials are missed.  Hopefully they prep for this and utilize search links to their cause campaign and explain why they are devoted to this campaign over Superbowl ads.  They could become known as the company who changed how we advertise and brand ourselves. 

Social media has proven that it can definitely help or hurt your brand awareness, so use it wisely.  Traditional media is still the main outlet for getting viewership, but is definitely losing traction.  So whether you are building your personal brand or whether you are building your company’s brand, you will have to choose which outlet is more effective for you.  My best advice is that if you think your idea is “cute” you might want to rethink it.  Traditional media allows for cute since it’s much harder to have backlash against it (though not as hard as it used to be).  “Cute” will get you killed in social media if not done properly.  If you are building your brand, decide what you want to bring to the forefront.  Is it your causes; is it your workers; is it your product; are you better than your competition at something?  Figure it out, flesh it out, test it on a small group, re-do it, test again, perfect it, then go for it!