When Twitter started making a real impact, and especially when Tweets were first integrated into Google's search results, there was a 'flurry of worry' in the marketing world (or so it seemed to me). There were numerous posts, articles and comments all about how these Tweets could damage a brand and reduce sales.
Starbucks
The one I remember the best was from the marketing dept of Starbucks. They were worried that if someone used the net to find their local outlet (when visiting a new town) that they would see, just below the results a Tweet from a disgruntled customer and therefore decide to go elsewhere. Their 'brand protection' protocols were put on full alert it seems.
The idea of protecting your brand on the internet is of course nothing new, and just like in the old days (with press cuttings) some companies have a small army checking the 'web waves' for comments mentioning their brand in any way. Google alerts and the new Topsy (Twitter alert system) both help here of course.
Once detected, any 'bad' comment can be answered and combated in some way, be it to solve the issue or to simply draw people's attention away from it. Either way, this brand protection does at least limit any damage and, in the case of solving a problem, can actually boost a brand's image as it shows that they care.
To make matters even harder for the brand protectors, there are numerous 'Review' sites where anyone can tell of their experiences with a product or company. Just type in 'reviews + company name / product' into Google and you will more than likely be shown a whole list of sites.
Of course the answer to the problem is to have good products backed up with good supply and support, as that way you just won't get that many complaints and if you do they will be swamped by the good ones. Remember everyone knows that 'you can't please all the people all the time', so if you can please most of them you will be doing as well as can be expected...
As to why brand protection (both on and off line) is so important, well for the big companies of the world, like BT, Coca Cola, Ford etc the answer is obvious, but for the smaller businesses it must in the end come down to sales. After all if the world and his wife are continually slating you on the web, you are not likely to get much business via the web are you?
Crazycameras - and exception to the rule?
Well, it seems that however logical the above statement is, that our friends crazycameras, who have it seems been slated on the web for months, if not years, are still there selling online today.
True, they do not, I am told use any of price comparison sites (the many bad reviews), but they are still operating.
The complaints have also been for more than just poor service, or undelivered products, as they have included electrical safety issues, the equipment they supplied to one UK customer being unsuitable (and downright dangerous according to an electrical engineer) for use in the UK.
From this one can deduce that brand protection, whilst being a sacred subject for some, does it seem not matter to others (I have seen no efforts by Crazycameras to answer any of these criticisms).
I suppose the fact is that, if you, like a spider, spread your sticky web wide enough, that you will always catch enough unfortunates, even though if they had looked, they would have seen many many signs saying 'I'd turn back now if I was you'.
More tomorrow
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