You Brand

In 1999 Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger wrote ‘the cluetrain manifesto’, announcing ‘the end of business as usual’. Where do we stand 10 years later? Has everything changed? To be honest, I’m a bit disappointed.

Mahatma Gandhi said ‘You must be the change, you want to see in the world’ and that is exactly the point. I believe that we – the human race – are actually the major obstacle to fundamental change.

The technology is available and affordable. Are we exploiting the potential of the social web, are we leaving our comfort zone, are we liberating ourselves and really putting the pressure on? The answer is ‘no’. Many of us are happy to hitchhike down evolution alley.

2000 years ago, the Roman empire was built on several principles, one of which was ‘bread and games’. That still works for many of us today. Have you ever noticed that the party is always organized by the same people? The majority is waiting for the invitation and is happy to participate. The majority of the human race is not proactive. We wait for somebody to lead the way and take the decisions for us. This behavior has the added benefit that we always have somebody else to blame. We blame the politicians (who don’t usually elect themselves in democracies) and we blame the brands (who don’t usually force us to buy their products). Do we blame ourselves – of course not. We may change leaders and directions, but we’re happy to follow.

When asking people, why they are so passive, I usually hear ‘one person can’t make a difference’. People forget that ‘we’ is the sum of many I’s.

What are we waiting for?

‘Father knows best’ was a very successful US sitcom in the 50s. As the name suggests, moms were moms, kids were kids and father knew best. It reflected the paternalistic attitude that fathers – the kings of the respective castles – were wiser than mothers and kids. This empowered fathers to make decisions on their behalf, presumably for their own good. It resulted in the authority of the powerful over the less powerful, responsibility was not shared. Communication relied on commands and instructions rather than on conversation.

Many brands still have that attitude today: Consumers are consumers and brands know best. Social media have effectively proven that brands don’t know best, which is why many brands have a problem. They have to change their attitude, not just apply some new tools and technologies.

‘Father knows best’ was successful in the 50s and 60s. Times have changed dramatically since then. Brands are well advised to realize that. Prisoners of the past will not win their freedom in the future.

Who knows best?

A lot has been said and written about the relevance of Social Media, its tools and how to apply them. In my opinion one critical aspect has not been getting the attention it deserves so far and that is the organizational structure of the brands that are thinking about engaging in Social Media.

In many ‘old-economy’ brands we still find very hierarchic ‘command and control’ structures. The Social Media platforms are the exact opposite of ‘command and control’, they are about listening, sharing, supporting and facilitating conversations. They are about co-operation on equal footing.

If brands do decide to engage in Social Media, they have to review their corporate attitude and culture first. They have to engage with their employees the same way they intend to engage with their consumers. Companies have already lost the absolute control over their brands to the consumer thanks to Social Media. Trying to preserve that control internally is a futile mission.

The entire organization has to adapt, because Social Media potentially benefits all divisions. Think about the potential for R&D, production, purchasing, HR, sales, internal communications and of course marketing. Therefore it is only logical to conclude that Social Media shouldn’t be left to the marketing department.

As Gary Hamel put it ‘Organizations loose their relevance, when the internal rate of change is outpaced by the external change’. Markets and consumers are changing rapidly, brands need to catch up quickly.

CEO, COO, CFO, CIO, CTO, CMO, President, Vice President, Senior Vice President, Director, Executive Director, Senior Director, Junior Director, Vice Director, Managing Director, Senior Managing Director, Manager, Executive Manager, Senior Manager, Vice Manager, General Manager, Junior Manager, Marketing Manager, Head of Marketing, Head of Advertising,…. – the list is endless.

Not all of these functions and titles will be found in one single company, but one will most probably find a clearly defined hierarchy shaped like a pyramid, in which the job title expresses the position in the pyramid. What started as an organizational principle has unfortunately turned into an operational principle and in some case even into a governing principle.

The system conditions employees and wakens their hunting instincts. Unfortunately their prey is the next ‘higher’ title and not additional market share for example. Employees start focusing on managing their careers, their immediate environment becomes the frame of reference for their decisions and they procrastinate courageous, innovative decisions, because their positive effect is not immediate. In other words, they are out of touch with the market and the consumer sooner or later and fade out the fact that in reality it is the consumer that feeds them.

Herein lies their major problem with social media. They define listening to consumers, opening up the dialogue, crowdsourcing etc. as an attempt to include consumers in the pyramid. The consumer is perceived as another hunter for the next ‘higher’ title, as a competitor rather than an ally or friend.

Lack of metrics, insufficient ROI etc. are neither here nor there, in reality it is about the preservation of the status-quo. That is however impossible. If companies don’t realize that, they will be out of business sooner or later.

Changing the structure of the organization by developing an alternative to the pyramid and getting rid of the title inflation would be a good starting point. What do you think?

Let me first explain what this post is not: It is not another comment on his incredible performances in Berlin and won’t attempt to analyze his relationship with the brand that supplies his running shoes.

Rather it is a post about decision and resulting action.

When Usain Bolt got his first running shoes – I assume he still had to buy them back then – he knew beforehand that he wanted to become a runner and to do what it takes to become a successful one. In other words, he didn’t get the running shoes to perform a task he previously performed with other shoes (like going to school or to the beach or shopping or whatever). He got them to run as quickly as possible on the track. He also realized that it requires a special, different attitude (training, nutrition etc.) to be really good at that.

Looking at many corporations and the way the treat social media, we find that they are not acting like Usain Bolt: They treat social media just like another marketing tool (i.e. just like another normal shoe) and refuse to realize that it requires a change in attitude.

If they want to be successful in social media, they have to commit to it beforehand and adhere to the rules that apply there. As long as they don’t change, they won’t be successful. Just like Usain Bolt wouldn’t have been successful wearing his running shoes to go to the beach or wearing street shoes to run on the track