Social media means that people now have the technologies which enables them to talk to people without reference to traditional organisations. So people are happily sharing content with each other which includes a large amount of TV commercials and logos being mashed up, re-cut and distorted.
Are companies losing control of their brands online? Or were they never fully in control? And what protection do they have - if any? If you search on you tube for most brands you nearly always come up with spoof ads. Some can be very funny and entertaining. But they are not what the brand stands for or how the brand sees itself. I have lost count of the times I have asked marketing executives if they were responsible for a certain online video ad and frequently they were not. So who owns the brand now? And should marketeers perhaps be paying more attention to how brands are being reflected online? Probably most marketeers can't see what is happening to their precious brands because their IT department treats them like children and blocks access to the relevant sites. But marketeers surely cannot ignore the fact that brands are evolving online in ways they did not anticipate. This is not just a case of a viral campaign. This is brand butchery which would send the brand police into a rage if they saw what was happening to the commercials and images they spend millions carefully cultivating. Brand equity is taking a nose dive on certain social networks and no one seems to care. Many social media networks have APIs which enable outside developers to develop fresh applications such as on Facebook or Twitter. Maybe advertisers should accept that their influence will grow if they let people mess with their TV commericials and logos online. But it will be virtually impossible to control the messaging. Companies pay millions to put their logo on a football pitch and those same logos are being passed around and put anywhere online in social networks which have serious influence. It is pretty chaotic out there. But by listening and seeing what is going on with ads can present some interesting ideas. Stuck for an idea for a pitch for a brand? Why not log onto YouTube or surf photobucket and see what logo/ TV commercial pranks and ideas people are experimenting with and if they are popular, you never know it might be something to develop. What has happened online is that the editors have been shut out. We have the citizen journalists. Well just maybe advertisers are going to have to accept the role and increasing power of citizen advertisers. They mug your fine TV commercial, mess around with it, so it appeals to a totally different audience and broadcast it 24/7. What happens if a major brand sees a TV commercial that has been edited as the most watched you tube video? What's the impact of that going to be? How does that square with all the careful associations ads try to build around their products? It's a difficult area. I suppose if the ads are any good you could just hire the person who made them perhaps.
