Branding, Culture, Politics, and Everything in Between

I had touched on this subject in a previous post where I argued against letting “the mob” take over the brand too much because the brand will become rudderless and a subject for groupthink, which I felt was a death-knell for a brand. I wrote that “When people are really fanatical about a brand, they will seek to take ownership of it. They see themselves as the only “worthy” chroniclers of the brand and its meaning.”

This subject has been rattling in my brain for over a year now, dating all the way to this post by David Armano. In it, he asks:

If brands let their communities define them—are they strong brands in the first place? The answer is yes. My voice is my voice. It will not change—I am who I am. But my thoughts and actions can be influenced by what you say and do. Are brands willing to do the same? Does this make them weak or strong?

I see myself as sort of centrist on this matter, but leaning slightly to the “community defined brands are weak” side, but with certain reservations. Given that I’ve written about brand meaning and its evolution in this blog a great deal, it would be quite implausible for me to argue that communities don’t define brands – even strong ones. Again, this is not an argument that brands shouldn’t reach out to consumers on Twitter or anything, quite the contrary. But brand managers would do well to keep their heads cool and not go overboard with reaching out.

Granted, a community-defined brand will be stronger than any mind-share branded brand that doles stale and unimaginative advertising and doesn’t make any effort to connect with its audience. That’s a given. But what I do feel is that really strong brands should and do take initiative in shaping the conversation around their brand. I’d even argue that the strongest of all brands aren’t afraid to challenge their communities and their perceptions – and they do so successfully. And this brings us to the inspiration to this post, the perfect metaphor I finally came up with for this kind of behavior: A strong brand acts like a statesman, but a weak brand acts like populist.

A statesman isn’t afraid to tell the people what they need to hear, to step above daily politics and do what’s “right”. The populist will say whatever is needed to please the public, often saying multiple things to different constituencies. The statesman is often polarizing, but respected nonetheless and can sometimes rise to become a symbol to a cause (like an iconic brand). The populist, on the other hand, in his attempt to be something for everybody, eventually stands for nothing. And above all, a statesman makes a mark in history, whereas a populist is a shooting star.