City & Gild: You can’t handle the truth!
I find a useful shorthand definition for ‘brand’ is the combination of product and reputation – where reputation is past performance and future promise. Which, if you read the press in any given day, should be the cause of sleepless nights for CEOs around the world. Because, in this day and age of social media, not even the NSA can keep its activities secret, so what hope do you have when you discover some fool has filled your pasta-bake with horse meat, or your priceless consumer data was lost in a bar downtown and is now being sold to the highest bidder, or simply that your best tracker rate is, well, not the best?
Chances are, the ostrich approach isn’t going to cut it because, before you know it, a teenager with a smartphone will be busy becoming an internet sensation by making a music video/film/blog campaign using said material to undermine your good reputation (and no doubt becoming a Bitcoin millionaire in the process). So, to a greater or lesser extent, Colonel Jessup in a Few Good Men was wrong, we don’t live in a world that has walls. And despite our best efforts to keep our confidential material, well, confidential (whether guarded by men with guns or not), our best kept secrets will have a nasty habit of biting us, often when we least expect/need it.
The question is, how should brand owners react – is it the consumer that can’t handle the truth, or the boardroom? Whilst I wouldn’t suggest any news could be made good news, a good rule of thumb is that if the data can be found on-line, it will be found. So why not be a little more proactive and control at least some of the message? I’m constantly staggered when my mortgage/insurance/heating/mobile contracts are up for renewal, my existing providers somehow think I live in the analogue world (even if they send all my bills on-line). It’s as though they don’t know that if Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t dream of booking a holiday without consulting Trip Advisor, or renewing my household utilities without looking at a comparison website. As for buying a car? It’s no wonder so many people don’t bother with test drives when you have a lifetime of review footage at your finger-tips. To pretend this doesn’t happen, or rely on a business model that was built off consumer ignorance and inertia, sounds like a brand strategy that has seen its last days.
Come on people, isn’t it time for a little honesty (after all, it’s unlikely you’re telling people something they either didn’t already know, or wouldn’t shortly find out). By thinking they somehow can’t handle the truth, we at best patronise them, at worst, look deliberately deceitful. And if that becomes the summary of your past performance, it’s likely to become the expectation of your future promise.
Andrew Mulholland is the managing director of strategic branding consultancy The Gild, www.the-gild.com.