BBH Labs offered some excellent perspective in a post titled ‘Mean Brands‘ a few days ago, which pointed out that when brands are asked to be more human online, we overlook the fact that humans are not nice online. Expanding on this, they showcased three scenarios – brand vs consumer, brand vs brand and brand vs organisation – with examples, and asked whether this was a good strategy to build stronger brand allegiance.
I was reminded of something I had tweeted earlier this year when Cleartrip was at the receiving end of some good old fashioned twitter outrage when putting an abrasive and stupid (non) customer in his place. I was convinced after going through the preceding tweets that Cleartrip had tried their hand at explanation before getting exasperated and reacting with sarcasm, just like a human. It was bold, but more importantly it also showed character and conviction.
Even as brands are trying to be human, humans are becoming (or are trying to become) brands. When they do get an audience, an increased sense of self-importance is inevitable. Most of the time, objectivity is minimal and the thrill of shaming/trolling a brand is too tempting. So perhaps a level playing field is only fair. Of course, it is always more fun when the knockout punch is delivered with a solid punchline. Richard Neill’s comedic rant and Bodyform’s hilarious response is an example. A few more here. (via @sunnysurya)
until next time, brands mean business!
[…] ‘Servile’ implies that brands place the consumer’s needs above its own. I’m really not sure of this. Social or not, brands are in business. I doubt if bending over backward on every service request that every consumer has is a viable strategy. The reason why I remembered the aforementioned OTA is because of their reaction to an incident I wrote about in ‘Mean Brands‘. […]
[…] think my first thoughts on the subject appeared in 2012 – Mean better than average, featuring Cleartrip, who had put a non-customer in place with sarcasm after a polite conversation […]