Brand democratisation an analysis of the paradigm shift that is the socialisation of brands

2. his paper gets to the heart of how and why the
branding environment has changed, and what that
means to organisations.
It clarifies how today’s social revolution affects brands
and repositions socialisation not as a channel, nor a
discipline-specific concept, but as a critical part of
business and marketing moving forward.
This paper outlines the characteristics, challenges, risks,
and opportunities of the current branding world, in
addition to providing deep insights into, and signposts of,
how the future branding landscape is being shaped, and
the ways in which organisations need to think, prepare
themselves, and behave to best capitalise on this new
order.
This paper is written for you: people who work within
brands, or agencies representing brands, who would find
it of value to know:
1. How and why the branding environment
looks fundamentally different today
2. Numerous examples of companies that
have handled these changes in the best
and worst ways
3. The pitfalls to avoid and the techniques
to survive and commercially succeed in a
fast moving world
T

3. In the last 100 years of
commercial mass media and
production, brands were mostly
created and launched by
companies and agencies without
a great deal of questioning or re-
purposing by the buyer or end
user. These organisations were
perceived as the specialists with
the tools to create and
communicate, and it was largely
accepted that the creators of
branded products and services
knew what was best for the
public.
Up until the proliferation of the
Internet, the act of purchasing,
and the subsequent discussions
about what had been purchased
or consumed tended to be
limited to retailers and
constrained by geography.
Customers and consumers were
only empowered to the extent of
purchase choice, yet even then
the choice of options for many
was limited.
Over a relatively short space of time,
this reality metamorphosed. The
main driver behind this change has
been the increased capability and
affordability of technology. Devices
available to us now are increasingly
able to do more, at a constantly
decreasing cost.
From the alternative use of products
to the creation and communication
of opinions, from email systems to
website and blog templates, from
phones with cameras to online
broadcasting tools, from Internet
video calls to file sharing clubs, a
level playing field has been
constructed and mass media creation
and exploitation is no longer the sole
privilege of established corporations.
This shift has enabled the general
public to create and shape their own
versions of brands and products, and
has empowered people to
communicate across borders with
the masses, including the creators
and guardians of brands, thus
affecting people’s opinions and
purchasing decisions.
How we got here

4. The reality of today is one where we see a shift in
control of brand creation, message, and perception
away from organisations to everyday citizens. This
re-distribution of hierarchies has democratised
brands whose parent companies are, intentionally
or otherwise, at the mercy of people who may not
necessarily follow the intended attitudes and
behaviours desired by the original brand owners.
The term used to describe this paradigm shift is
brand democratisation, which we define as such:
The transition to a more democratic
branding methodology from a previously
authoritarian approach; from a company
or agency that is perceivably in control to
one that intentionally, or unintentionally,
incorporates the views of external people.
There is no industry more or less likely to experience the
effect of brand democratisation, neither is there safety in size
nor longevity in the marketplace. There is not a level of
revenue or profit that can mitigate risk, and there are few
laws that can protect a traditional organisation from public
creation, editing or sharing.
A stark example of brand democratisation in action is the
events online following the horrific BP oil spill of 2010 off the
Gulf of Mexico. Approximately one month after the tragic
event occurred a first tweet from @BPGlobalPR’s appeared
stating, “We regretfully admit that something has happened
off of the Gulf Coast. More to come”. What was not
immediately clear was that @BPGlobalPR was a parody
twitter account. It quickly went viral across the web with
hundreds of thousands of people responding to
@BPGlobalPR's calls to action. People got involved in
unofficially re-purposing BP logos, creating and selling
merchandise, making billboards, music, graphic art and
videos, in addition a web code was created that graphically
covered the official BP website with black making it look like
oil was leaking. The scale and speed of public action was
larger and faster than any official response from BP, and the
general public's perception of BP as a brand became shaped
by the messages, activity and progression played out by
people unconnected to BP.
What this means
“
”

5. Typical traits
of brand
democratisation
hroughout our time assisting companies faced with the reality of
brand democratisation, we have observed four typical aspects in
which brand democratisation differs from any planned and
managed activities an organisation gets involved with:
 Immediacy
 Lack of control
 Extremity of sentiment
 Exponential growth
T

6. 1. Immediacy
The effect of most media activity happens after a
predictable period of time and can therefore be planned
around. A press release has a scheduled time and will
therefore spread fairly predictably, if at all. Similarly, a
banner ad campaign, or a TV commercial, will have a period
of time where awareness is built, consideration happens,
and conversion or purchase commences.
However, in circumstances where brands are being
democratised, activity tends to have a far more immediate
effect, one that may not be desired. This was the case for
Transport For London (TFL) when a member of the public
filmed one of its employees insulting an elderly passenger
claiming he should be ‘slung under a train’. The citizen
journalist tweeted about the event and posted the film on
his blog. In a short space of time the online community
reacted by commenting, retweeting and blogging. One of
the contributors was the Mayor of London who tweeted,
“Appalled by the video. Have asked TFL to investigate
urgently. Abuse by passenger or staff is never acceptable”1
.
In less than 24 hours there were 448,527 tweets about the
incident, within 30 hours 207,000 people had watched the
video on YouTube, at that time the blog audience added up
to 1.2 million, and 1577 blog comments had been written
about the event. Within 36 hours the distribution of the
story had reached 2.25 million people2
. A few days later the
main press joined in, including BBC news.
Throughout this social media frenzy, TFL’s involvement was
conspicuously absent, to the point of not even posting an
official response, or comment, on their own website.
This clearly illustrates the speed in which events online can
take off. This immediacy effect requires organisations to be
not only aware of what is going on, but to be prepared to
act on it, as and when action is required and appropriate.

7. “…attempting
to control this
is like trying
to stop waves
crashing on a
beach by
putting your
hand out.”
Lack of control
While organisations can control outbound messages like
press releases and hierarchical platforms of
communication like TV, the digital world is de-centralised
and can less feasibly be governed.
Due to the sheer volume of editing and publishing, in
addition to the low visibility and random areas where
information can exist and be shared on the internet,
attempting to control this is like trying to stop waves
crashing on a beach by putting your hand out.
There is little to stop someone screen grabbing an image
of a brand, editing it, then sharing it with the rest of the
world. There is also little stopping someone from creating
their own mass media through a blog, YouTube or twitter
account, a reality Qantas faced during a recent crisis. The
last thing the airline needed was for the engine failures of
one of its aircrafts to be made public in the same week its
whole fleet had been grounded amid a dispute with
striking staff. The event might have had minimal media
coverage had it not been immediately broadcasted by
the actor Stephen Fry, whose twitter follower volume at
the time placed him in the top 100 tweeters world-wide.
From the plane Mr Fry tweeted, ”Bugger. Forced to land
in Dubai. An engine has decided not to play". In the
second it took him to press send, over 3 million people
knew of the situation3
.

8. Extremity of sentiment
When a brand is democratised, the sentiment expressed
by the editors and sharers tends to be either very
positive or very negative. The main reason being that the
drivers behind people creating, editing, and sharing are
of an emotive nature.
People are likely to get involved if they a) care enough
about the entity in question, b) feel strongly about the
event or action taken/not taken, or c) see enough value
in being involved with the adjustment, or distribution, of
the entity in question.
United Airlines realised that extremity of sentiment leads
to extremity of effort and action when a Canadian
musician, Dave Carroll, had his acoustic guitar damaged
on a flight and found the airline to be unresponsive and
unwilling to compensate. Dave wrote and recorded a
song entitled 'United Break Guitars' that became a
YouTube hit. At the time of writing this, the video has
been viewed 11,272,705 times4
. To put this in context, in
roughly the same time frame Barack Obama’s acceptance
speech had been viewed 5,677,373 times on YouTube5
.

9. Exponential growth
Audience size and type in traditional marketing is relatively
predictable. An expected volume of people, from a certain
demographic, listen to a radio show, visit the cinema, or
drive past a poster at any given time. However, in an
empowered society where the public has access to multi-
directional, highly interactive, real-time communication
tools, there is no such thing as a predictable audience size.
The way information and content spreads is therefore
rarely linear, it is rather exponential, and so is its impact,
as illustrated by some of the examples we discussed
previously.
This exponential growth can, and will, have a direct impact
on a company’s bottom line. Let us look at a simplified
hypothetical, yet realistic, example where a product worth
£400 is spoken about negatively online by someone with
125 readers on their blog. With a traditional mindset one
would think the risk of the negative opinion spreading
would be limited to 125, a figure unlikely to threaten to an
organisation. However, if 1 of those 125 people has 35,000
twitter followers, and 20% of them retweet to an average
of 500 followers each, the negative opinion about the
brand can be visible to over 4 million people within
minutes. Imagine if 1% of these people change their
purchase decisions as a result of the negativity, this would
result in £1.7 million in lost sales.
Organisations often remain oblivious to the exponential
growth of communications until it is too late, and they may
forever remain unaware of the lost revenue caused by the
unsupported communication.

10. ow a company reacts following a brand being democratised
shapes public perception as much as any other stimuli and
communication managed by an organisation. It is as crucial
to the health of a brand to react and act in an appropriate
way to any events caused by this new reality, as it is to get
the broader communications and marketing mix right.
Organisations who create or represent brands tend to
behave in one of the following ways to uninitiated and/or
uncontrollable events.
 Stay silent/do nothing
 Seek to silence through censorship and/or litigation
 Get involved
Let us look at each of these in greater detail.
Likely reactions
H

11. Stay silent/do nothing
Staying silent, or doing nothing is the most common behaviour of all. This
was the case when an advertising campaign created by the English
Conservative party to reassure voters that there would be no national
health spending cuts backfired. It was not the campaign’s political message
that caught the public’s interest, but rather the party leader David
Cameron’s ‘unbelievable baby smooth’ skin. Rumours of airbrushing
started to circulate. Spoofs of the campaign were created, aided by
mydavidcameron.com, which provided the public with a template of the ad
allowing people to create different versions of the ad using their own
words. To this day the silence around the campaign stretches so far, it is
even unclear which agency actually created it6
.
No one knows why the English Conservative party remained silent;
however, an organisation’s decision to stay silent tends to be due to one,
or more, of the following factors.
 Lack of awareness of an event having taken place, and/or of
its importance
 Lack of preparation to ensure appropriate action is taken
 The belief that an event will blow over relatively quickly
 A strategic decision not to act

12. Lack of awareness
Being aware requires an organisation to accept the new paradigm
caused by socialisation, and to not underestimate the likelihood of
something happening, or the importance the event may have. In our
experience, organisations tend to place little significance on
uncontrolled external factors potentially affecting their brand
positively or negatively. These companies are also often unaware of,
not only what could happen, but of what is actually already happening
in the public space that presents opportunities or risks to their brand.
Lack of preparation
Lack of awareness and understanding is one of the key reasons for
organisations not being prepared to handle situations caused by brand
democratisation. Another key reason is lack of internal processes and
resources to act appropriately. We will discuss this, and how
organisations can prepare, later in this paper.
The belief that an event will blow over relatively quickly
As it is impossible to accurately predict the volatile nature of brand
democratisation, the belief that an event will blow over relatively
quickly can only be out of hope rather than reason. In fact the whole
view of events being linear and judged in terms of time-based damage
is concerning. The reality is that even if events do blow over quickly,
damage may still have been done, as we will see later in this paper.
Strategic decision not to act
There are cases when doing nothing and staying silent is the most
suitable behaviour for an organisation. One strong reason for silence is
to avoid litigation. We recently worked with a travel aggregator who
had no choice but to not respond to people criticising their partners,
such as hotels and airlines, even when such criticism had a negative
impact on their brand, in order to avoid legal retribution.
Another reason for staying silent is to avoid what are known as 'flame
wars'. These are essentially slanging matches that can’t be won.
Whatever an organisation does in a flame war will not be good enough
to satisfy those who a casting the flame, often known as 'trolls'.
Lack of action could also be due to the fact that an organisation does
not see the event in question as significant enough, thus not
warranting action. This is only acceptable if the entire outcome of
brand democratisation has been taken into consideration and been
understood.
It is important that an organisation’s decision not to act is a strategic one, as choosing
silence provides a space easily filled with public opinion, and is a lost opportunity to
balance lies with facts; negativity with positivity.

13. Seek to silence through censorship and/or litigation
It is tempting for an organisation, when faced with external disruption caused by brand democratisation, to
try to silence the people or organisations involved through censorship and/or litigation. These attempts,
however, are often fruitless, and in many cases result in damaging the brand and its credibility.
Nestlé chose the route of censorship
when one of their Facebook fan
pages received thousands of
complaints about the company's
alleged use of palm oil from
deforested areas in Indonesia. As the
page attracted a swarm of comments
accusing the multinational food giant
of unethical practices, an
administrator of The Nestlé page
attempted to address the influx by
writing, "We welcome your
comments, but please don't post
using an altered version of any of our
logos as your profile pic - they will be
deleted"7
. It is hard to imagine a less
suitable time to censor people’s
contributions, or to prioritise the
design of your own logo, than in the
middle of a social media crisis.
We have been present at several
meetings where litigation is the first
call to action proposed by senior
management to combat actions
against their brand from the online
public. And although we do not
condone criminal activity, we do feel
it necessary for organisations to
understand that people's opinions of
‘who owns what’ may differ from
legal fact, and thus may require a
different approach.
One could imagine that when
Jose Avila made furniture out of
FedEx boxes, he perceived
the boxes to belong to him.
Proud of his work Jose created a
website called ‘fedexfurniture.com’ to
show the public his creations. Instead
of recognising a true fan,
or the possibility to
use the event as a brand building
opportunity, FedEx attorneys used the
take down provisions of the
Digital Millennium Copyright
Act (DMCA) to force Avila to
take the site offline, accusing
him of ‘infringing on FedEx's
copyrights and trademarks, breaching
his contract with FedEx by using the
cartons for purposes other than
shipping, and potentially misleading
consumers into believing that FedEx
approved or endorsed Avila's
actions’8
. It is arguable that FedEx
could have chosen a somewhat more
harmonious approach. Perhaps
viewing his fanaticism as a positive
trait would have propelled others to
love FedEx more. They could have
given him more boxes and amplified
his creations. They could have run
competitions to see what other things
people could do with FedEx boxes.
They could have offered to pay for
him to go to furniture design classes,
in case he wanted to increase his
expertise in furniture design. UPS on
the other hand, a competitor to
FedEx, could have sensed FedEx’s
litigious leaning and provided Avila
with boxes instead, maybe even
running a campaign stating that “At
UPS we believe our customers have
the right to choose how to use our
boxes. We love them all the same.”
Litigation, although sometimes
necessary, is a time consuming and
expensive way to fight this paradigm
shift, and one that has often proven
unsuccessful. Despite the Recording
Industry Association of America
successfully suing Napster on the 7th
of December 1999, leading to
Bertelsmann agreeing to pay the
National Music Publishers Association
$130m in August 2007, digital
distribution of music online still
thrives today and legal action could
ultimately not stop the disruption of
the music industry’s traditional
business model9
.
“It is hard to imagine a less suitable time to
censor people’s contributions, or to prioritise
the design of your own logo, than in the middle
of a social media crisis.”

14. Get involved
As discussed previously, the choice of whether to
get involved or not is often based on an
organisation’s awareness, understanding, skills,
capabilities, and legal realities. The decision of how
to get involved is often driven by a company’s
corporate culture and the structures and processes
already in place.
A great example of how a corporate culture can
cause two significantly different responses to an
event is Coke and Mentos. In 2006 a group of
scientists experimented with putting Mentos mints
in Diet Coke and found that the chemical reaction
caused a geyser. Pete Healy, serving as vice-
president of marketing for Mentos at the time,
chose to get involved, and asked the scientists if
there was anything the company could do to help,
“Send Mentos,” they replied. This choice had a
positive impact on the brand. Since then, the
original video has been viewed 14,570,277 times
on YouTube and Mentos have expanded their
activity to encourage other experiments and mash-
ups, often promoting them on their digital
presences. Coke’s reaction, however, could not
have been more different. The brand decided to
join the conversation in a different way, via a Coke
spokeswoman saying: “We would hope people
want to drink [Diet Coke] more than try
experiments with it.” She added that the “craziness
with Mentos” didn’t ‘fit’ Diet Coke’s “brand
personality”10
. You can decide whether that
response in itself fits the Coke brand.
The decision of how to get involved has to take all
key stakeholders into consideration. And by
stakeholders we do not simply mean the CEO and
senior management of an organisation, but also
anyone who has expectations of how a company
gets involved in the public space, such as its
customers, consumes and people in general.
Existing methodologies and processes for how an
organisation gets involved with the public are a key
driver behind how a company responds to brand
democratisation. When an event occurs, it is
tempting to look at existing relationships for a
solution, such as the organisation’s PR agency or
advertising agency, or to look at established
channels to deal with the situation. The risk with
this is that it often leads to legacy based decisions
and behaviour.
Legacy behaviour is when traditional measurement
methodologies are used, without respecting the
modern context, relevance, and impact of an
event. For example, when a CEO responds to a
major social media crisis two weeks late because
the PR department responsible for
crisis management meets twice a month, or
when the response is through a traditional press
release and a press conference, and when the
outreach ignores the general public online.
Brand democratisation has a real impact on traditional business
marketing and communications, and creates new opportunities and
challenges. What is required to deal with this successfully is a hybrid
approach, one that merges traditional behaviours and existing
relationships, platforms, channels, and tools with ones that resonate in a
modern world.

15. W
Misconceptions when
engaging
e have identified three common misconceptions that influence company
behaviour when a decision has been taken to engage in this space.
1. The circumstance is seen as an advertising
or communication issue rather than a business
paradigm shift
This means that
i. the focus is on increasing the understanding amongst marketers by
putting the marketing department through a course in digital;
ii. tools, platforms and channels are seen as media channels;
iii. resources are allocated from the marketing budget for social media
activities; and
iv. involvement is planned around one-off campaigns, controlled by
the brand.
This siloed and controlling way of looking at the situation ignores the fact
that socialisation affects all part of business. However if you look at P&G and
their crowd sourced R&D innovation initiative ‘P&G Connect + Develop’, it is
clear that they do not limit the opportunity created by socialisation to solely
contain a communications focus. Or if you look at Ford, who use social
channels as a major sales generating activity, they would most certainly
disagree with social channels being purely a media issue. And finally, if you
look at Best Buy, with their twitter customer service initiative Twelpforce,
here too it is clear that social media is seen as more than simply a
communications channel.
These organisations have understood the fundamental paradigm shift
caused by socialisation. They are embracing social activity for the
all-encompassing being it is, and, because of this, are making social
engagement a critical part of how they manage their business as a whole,
including marketing initiatives.

16. 2. Tactical executions of campaigns, without a
direct link to the larger business goals, or brand
strategy
In 2009, Tourism Queensland promoted the Great Barrier Reef
as a global tourism destination with a campaign encouraging
people worldwide to apply to be a caretaker of one of the
Islands, a job they described as ‘The Best Job In The World’.
The campaign used an impressive mix of communications tools,
platforms and channels, including a campaign website, online
recruitment ads, interactive application submission, banners,
branded twitter, branded facebook, and a youtube channel. The
creative execution on each asset was strong, and the advertising
campaign was acknowledged as being very successful. By the
end of the campaign it had generated more than $200 million in
global publicity value for Tourism Queensland. Brisbane
advertising agency CumminsNitro was awarded three top
awards at theCannes International Advertising Festival, and in
2010 the advertising campaign was awarded two prestigious
D&AD Black Pencil Awards11 12
.
However, since the goal of the campaign was to promote the
Great Barrier Reef one can reasonably assume that a key success
criteria would have been an increase in ticket sales to the region.
This has, according to some sources, not been achieved, raising
the question of how successful the campaign actually was13
.
3. Misinterpretation of strategic ramifications as
tactical outcomes
It is tempting to see examples like ‘United breaks guitars’ as
merely a PR mishap, however in the case of United, their
stock at the time fell by 10% due to the event, amounting to a
loss of $180 million14
.
Qantas may see Stephen Fry tweeting, ”Bugger. Forced to land
in Dubai. An engine has decided not to play" to his 3 million
followers as a tactical outcome of a one-off activity that went
wrong. However, taking into consideration that Mr Fry’s tweet
was retweeted numerous times extending the media reach well
above his existing 3 million, it wouldn’t be unlikely to find people
choosing an alternative airline as a result.

17. Navigating ways forward
To avoid such misconceptions, and to ensure an organisation’s involvement is thought through and
planned in a way that ensures the greatest potential for success, we recommend a six-step process.
1. Fully understanding the business environment, sociological trends, and the
realities of operating in today’s world
Understanding the business environment requires deep knowledge of the full external arena an
organisation operates in, and the forces affecting that environment both today and tomorrow. This is
in addition, and in relation to, the internal business environment created by an organisation.
Understanding sociological trends requires explicit awareness of the ways that people interact, the
expectations people have in terms of experiences, and the perceptions people have in terms of
control, trust, and ownership.
Understanding the realities of operating in today’s business world also requires methodological
consideration of three key areas:
Competition: What we could
predict as competition is now
unpredictable. The barriers that
once were in place, limiting many
from entering markets, are now
easy to overcome due to the
capability and affordability of
technology, in conjunction with
the increasing growth of brand
new markets that do not respect
borders. A multi-national
organisation that trades
profitably in numerous countries
with a high net profit is now just
as likely to be a company without
expensive offices or thousands
of staff.
Speed: Change is happening now faster
than ever. What used to take 20 years to
change in business can now change in less
than one. Market leaders get replaced at
an extraordinary speed, product life cycles
can be as low as several months, and
whatever was planned a year ago is likely
to resonate less with consumers than an
organisation would hope.
Due to this, a company’s activities need to
be amended in real time, but the thinking
backing strategic decisions must be
stretched in terms of timescale due to the
unpredictable rate at which the
marketplace changes. Strategies need to
take into consideration likely and unlikely
future needs to be fulfilled, and for whom,
in addition to visible and less visible
competitors moving forward, and their
unpredictable behaviour. For example, if
you were an online retailer competing on
fast delivery and low postage prices, how
would you behave if you found out that in
the near future no online retailer will
charge for delivery, and many of them will
deliver within 24 hrs anywhere in the
world.
Control: Organisations need to
know what they can control as it
will determine the basis on which
they compete, and also if their
role is to lead, participate, or to
follow. None of these three is
more right than the other, but
choosing and accepting one’s role
is crucial. This requires constant
questioning of what your
company can control as the world
moves forward. Can you control
technological deployments? Can
you control the increasingly
variable cost bases in your value
chain? Are you able to reach
mutual agreement with a public
who continue to define your
brand? Can you control the
virtualisation of your products in
a profitable way? Do you have the
capability to create new
currencies?

18. 2. Creation of strategic & meaningful missions
The democratised landscape requires an organisation to
stand for and to do things people can care and believe in.
This is because people engage with, and advocate things,
they actually care about, rather than things they are told to
care about. The success and popularity of missions like
Wikipedia and Mozilla can be partially attributed to the
embracing and harnessing of this reality.
The challenge here is mainly for organisations that do not
naturally lend themselves to meaning something, such as
carbonated beverages, fast food chains, and jewellery
designers, to find a way to do so.
3. Preparation for action,
including protocols and
sign-off procedures
that suit the
context
As discussed previously
preparation is key. An
organisation needs to
know what to do, and
how to behave in a
way that suits the
context, when the
unpredictable
happens. What we
mean by context is
that if your PR plan, for
example, includes a four-
day sign off procedure, and
your brand is being
democratised, then this is
exactly 3 days 23 hours and 55
minutes too long. If a complaint for
your product or service takes place on
twitter, offering to answer on e-mail is using the wrong
platform. If an attack is expressed on one of your properties,
thinking that ‘ownership means a right to censor’ is not
correct.
No matter how an organisation acts in this space, it is unlikely
that a company will behave in a way that is appreciated by
everyone.
McDonald’s response to a hoax involving a false sign has
received both praise and criticism from the press15
. The
company found itself in the position of having to publically
deny a photograph that was spread showing a false
McDonald’s sign claiming the following 'PLEASE NOTE As an
insurance measure due in part to a recent string of robberies,
African-American customers are now required to pay an
additional fee of $1.50 per transaction'16. McDonald’s
responded to the hoax by tweeting ‘That pic is a senseless &
ignorant hoax. McD's values ALL our customers. Diversity runs
deep in our culture on both sides of the counter’17. Despite
McDonald's denial, the speed at which the picture was
spreading increased. McDonald's reiterated their earlier
message, tweeting ‘That Seriously McDonalds
picture is a hoax’. Despite McDonald's
acting quickly to deny the legitimacy of
the sign, it continued to trend on
Twitter under the hashtag
#SeriouslyMcDonalds for a
few days.
Linendoll, TV host,
producer, and CNN
technology expert,
praised the response
from McDonald's, saying
that, “If you're a big
corporation and
something viral ...
happens against you, you
have to formulate a plan
and respond quickly ... In
this case, McDonald's
handled it correctly; they used
the medium Twitter they were
accused on. Time is of the essence.
We're not going to the press in the
morning. We're going to the press in real
time, when it comes to social networking. You
have to respond and respond quickly. Well-handled”.
However, Christopher Barger, blogging for Forbes, was more
critical. He said that, “While McDonald's response ‘was a
textbook statement on how to respond to a rumor in 140
characters’, the firm should have been more willing to
personalise responses, and that they should have responded
in ways other than just Twitter” 18
.
Preparation is therefore not only crucial, but also complex,
and requires strategic planning and a real understanding of
this space. Organisations therefore need to choose a partner
carefully to guide them through this process successfully.
“…if your PR plan includes a
four-day sign off procedure,
and your brand is being
democratised, then this is
exactly 3 days 23 hours and
55 minutes too long…”

19. 4. Monitoring of activity to supplement
involvement in conversation
Monitoring the online environment is a necessity in
order to be aware of what may happen, is
happening, or in the worst case has already
happened online. It requires the appropriate
allocation of resources, but could in return give an
organisation the chance to act relatively quickly to
an event playing out online.
When Gap, the clothing retailer, changed their logo
in 2010 there was instant backlash across social
media platforms from commentators who strongly
disliked the new version. With the help of
monitoring Gap was, within one week, able to
announce that they would reinstate their original
logo. Mark Hansen, President of Gap North America
said "We've been listening to and watching all of the
comments this past week. We heard them say over
and over again they are passionate about our blue
box logo and they want it back"19
.
The most commonly used tools by organisations
tend to be Google Alerts, or software that monitors
sentiment. Although these tools prove helpful in
many situations such as the Gap example just
discussed, there are circumstances where
monitoring through off-the-shelf tools is not
optimal.
Monitoring can, in some instances, offer only a
partial picture of the reality. For example, many
digital interactions do not necessarily contain key
words that one can predict, or situations one could
imagine, and would therefore not show up in any
standard monitoring. A cereal bowl wall art being
sold online, for example, is unlikely to appear in a
Google Alert System managed by a cereal
manufacturer. Thus, a large food company who
denied that their brand of cereal was being
democratised were stunned when we showed them
etsy.com20
where dozens of people had made art
out of the company’s cereal, and were selling the
items at a profit.
Since September 2009, Coca-Cola has been testing a
system, developed by Netbase, which tracks
commentary covering 75m sources including
Facebook and Twitter, alongside blogs and
forums. According to a Coca-Cola spokesperson, it
provides “A ‘natural language processing engine’
delivering real-time analysis across market trends, hot
topics, brand health and other core metrics” 21
.
5. Implementation of action where required,
whilst monitoring continues
Correct action is entirely dependant on organisational
protocols. For example, in a situation where incorrect
information has been published about a company’s
technology, if the protocol says to correct facts in a polite
way, then this action must be implemented.
If the protocol in an organisation is that when a celebrity
publicly endorses a product the celebrity is to be
contacted by the CEO, then the celebrity endorsing the
product must be contacted by the CEO.
The role of monitoring at this stage is not only to highlight
areas requiring involvement, but also to assess the
perception of the brand’s involvement in the public space.
6. Learning from outcomes by ensuring they
are fed back into the process
The only correct definition of failure in the context of
brand democratisation is not having followed the pre-
agreed process and procedures.
Non-optimal action, or lack of action to something
unforeseen, is not to be seen as a failure, but as
something unpredictable that needs to be planned for as
much as possible moving forward.
It is crucial that all outcomes, despite their level of
negativity or positivity, are viewed as a result, and that all
results, however negative or positive, are seen as
learnings.
Whatever an organisation’s actions are when
facing brand democratisation, it is imperative that it
is generated from a position of understanding,
preparation and that it is part of a greater strategy.

20. There are many examples of brands that have
benefitted from embracing the concept of brand
democratisation.
Style Factory, a US based e-commerce site for furniture
design, uses social media to crowdsource opinions to
make decisions around what products should be made.
The ‘My Factory’ section on the site offers a mix of
renderings and finished products where community
members can vote ‘make it’ or ‘drop it’, and then share
their opinions via Facebook and Twitter22
. Only what
people commit to buying gets manufactured. In this
instance, brand democratisation plays the role of buyer.
Facebook recruited 300,000 users, free of charge, to
translate its site into 70 different languages. The
company was, for example, able to translate its site into
French in just one day. To this day this community
continues to translate updates and new modules. In this
instance, brand democratisation plays the role of
product development23
.
Apple benefits greatly from their fans promoting the
brand and their products online. Most of us remember
the hype around the launch of the first iPad. On January
28th, 2010, the day before the iPad was unveiled,
a Web search for ‘Apple tablet’ produced more than
17 million links24
. People’s anticipation for the product
was so high the buzz online started months before
anyone knew what Apple was launching. Before the
iPhone 4S was launched, the YouTube user account
‘iPhone5Website’ uploaded what was assumed to be an
iPhone 5 website leak on the Apple Germany website.
As we know the iPhone 5 never launched, and the site
was named by the press a ‘beautiful fake’. One look at
the fake site on ‘Gotta be mobile, ‘iPhone 5 Website
Leak is a Fake, a Beautiful Fake’, Josh Smith, 8/12/11’
highlights the level of fanaticism needed to take the
time to create such a site. Here, brand democratisation
plays the role of promoter.
In 2010 Hewlett Packard won a ‘Groundswell Award’
from Forrester for its efforts to engage customers
through the HP Consumer Support Forum, a free,
interactive global community where users exchange
tips, ideas and answer each other's questions. At the
end of 2010 WARC reported that, ‘An estimated 13m
people have solved problems via this platform thus far,
and some 460,000 posts are now available covering
topics from printers to laptops, equally supplying a rich
seam of insights’25
. In this instance, brand
democratisation plays the role of customer service.
These brands above have all fully accepted and
understood the paradigm shift caused by brand
democratisation, are pro-actively respecting the rules of
engagement in this space, and profiting as a result.
Get it right and the
benefits are many

21. If you found this paper to be valuable, or if
you would like to discuss ways in which we
can help you commercially succeed in this portrayed
environment, e-mail us info@thisfluidworld.com or visit
http://thisfluidworld.com
This work is licensed under
a Creative Commons Attribution, non-commercial,
non-derivative license. For details please follow this link:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Now, how do your
organisation and brand
measure up?

22. End Notes
1 Source: Mail Online, ‘Tube worker tells elderly passenger he will 'sling him under a train', 17/10/2009
2 Source: ABC distribution statistics of the newspapers covering the story
3 Source: guardian.co.uk, Stephen Fry's Qantas flight diverted to Dubai’, Haroon Siddique, 4/11/11
4 Source: Softpedia, ‘United Airlines Breaks Guitars, Loses $180 Million’, Elena Gorgan, 24/7/2009
5 Source: YouTube, BarackObamaDotCom channel, 30/12/2011
6 Source: Marketing, ‘Top 10 marketing mishaps of 2010’, Nicola Clark, 14/12/10
7 Source: guardian.co.uk, ‘Nestlé hit by Facebook "anti-social" media surge’, Elliott Fox, 19/3/10
8 Source: Wikipedia, FedEX Furniture
9 Source: Wired.com, Dec7 1999: RIAA sues Napster, David Kravels, 7/12/09
10 Source: ‘Book extract: Viral Loop’, By Adam L Penenberg, FT.com, 6/11/2009
11 Design and Art Direction is a British educational charity which exists to promote excellence in design and advertising
12 Source: Wikipedia, The Best Job In The World
13 Source: brisbanetimes.com.au ‘Queensland's GBR campaign judged a fail’, Marissa Calligeros, 7/12/2010
14 Source: Softpedia, ‘United Airlines Breaks Guitars, Loses $180 Million’, Elena Gorgan, 24/7/2009
15 Source: Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seriously_McDonalds
16 Source: Mashable, HOAX: McDonald’s Official Statement Condemns Racist sign, Charlie White, 6/13/11
17 Source: Mail Online, McDonald's issues Twitter denial after hoax poster saying blacks will be charged extra goes viral, 13/6/11
18 Source: Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seriously_McDonalds
19 Source: sitepoint, ‘Old Gap’s back! New logo is dropped, Jennifer Farley, 12/12/10
20 A social commerce website focused on handmade vintage items, as well as art and craft supplies
21 Source: WARC, ‘Brand owners search for insight’ 12/10/2010
22 Source: TNW Blog, ‘How To Effectively Crowdsource Product Design’, Courtney Boyd, Myers, 19/11/10
23 Source: http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=112671288743140&topic=158
24 Source: ‘Apple's Secret? It Tells Us What We Should Love’, HBR on-line, 28/1/10
25 Source: WARC, ‘Brands focus on service’, 24/11/2010