Finally, not a tennis post! :) As I was reading Chapter 5 in
Groundswell by Charlene Li, a certain
section jumped out at me. The title of the section is “your brand is what your
customers say it is.” The more I thought about it, the more I realized I do not
agree.
Yes, the customers might have opinions on your brand, but
the company is the one that defines it. They have to figure out what the brand
will represent, and how it will portray that to the customers, the competition and the market as a whole. The company must conduct grueling research on the
logos, colors, taglines, packaging and a whole lot more.
In addition to originating the brand, the company must
maintain it. This is a monster of a task in itself. It involves coordinating
advertisements with the branding guidelines, creating new ways to use
marketing and keeping up with how the customers are responding to it.
The book says the groundswell is where the customers
communicate and decide/define the brand with each other (78). I do agree the groundswell is a place for the customers to communicate and discuss the
brand. I think that it is great that the customers are having conversations
about brands and voicing their opinions on social media and forums. However, I don’t
think this leads to defining what the brand is.
As the book says: “Marketers tell us they define and manage
brands” (78). And maybe because I am a
marketing major with a design minor that I feel this way. I am in an Identity
and Packaging Design class right now, and we are beginning to learn about
corporate identities. So, until I learn more about branding and how customers
relate to it, my opinion is unchanged.
So, what is your opinion? Do you think that the company or
the customers define the brand?
Kelly, I can definitely see your point of view, but I would have to argue against you. I still think that customers define who a company is and how they should be perceived. For example, take a look at Wal-Mart. The company’s logo is a yellow symbol that portrays a sun or a flower. Wal-Mart also creates commercials with middle-income families of four happily shopping inside the store. However, I don’t think their logos, commercials, or advertisements will ever make me think Wal-Mart is a clean, happy, and fun place to go shopping. In fact, I would argue that most Americans expect Wal-Mart to be dirty and the service to be unfriendly. No matter how much money and time Wal-Mart spends on it’s branding, people will never change their image of the corporation.
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