When You Don't Own Your Brand

Many marketers look at the big superbrands - Nike, Apple, Microsoft, and the like - as the pinnacle of achievement for our profession. These are brands that have so permeated American (and international) life that everyone knows them. People get swooshes tattooed on their bodies and put rainbow-shaded Apple stickers on their cars. These brands have followings of people who identify the brand as part of their personal lifestyle. There's no question that this has helped those companies sell a lot of products.

But is there a downside to a brand that's transcended marketing and become part of the cultural landscape? Read about the Volkswagen suicide bomber ad that's been circulating online. Volkswagen says they had nothing to do with it, and I believe them; the ad is in such horrible taste that I can't believe that it would ever make it out of a brainstorming session.

But it's there, and for a while people will be seeing it more often than Volkswagen's own spots. Certainly, a company in this position can try to fight back. But in an age where decent video production facilities live on a personal computer desktop, and the internet provides a way for a fake ad to percolate around the world in a day, it's bound to be a losing fight. It's hard to even find out where the ads come from unless their creators take credit.

Some will decide that the best approach is to let it happen - it's name recognition, it's a symbol of the brand's power, and as long as the brand owner vociferously denies involvement it should cause too much damage. But stop and think about, for example, a spot using the Nike or Reebok logo featuring footage of sweatshops. Think about a spot with an Osama bin Laden look-alike wearing Tommy gear. How about a pornographic Wal-Mart ad?

These spots are completely beyond marketer's control. I can't offer any advice on what to do, but I can offer an observation for marketers whose brands haven't reached iconic status: be carefuly what you wish for.

Appropriating cultural symbols has been commonplace among artists and activists as long as such symbols have existed. Sometimes it's meant to be clever; often there's a specific political or cultural agenda, which the brand owner likely doesn't share.

But no matter how carefully you trademark your brand, once you become part of the cultural landscape (rather than a mark used to identify products and services in advertising) you've set your brand free, and in a very real sense every you don't own it anymore. You're Kleenex insisting that it's a "facial tissue" or Xerox claiming the verb is "to photocopy." Or, for a more modern example, TiVo nagging journalists not to talk about "TiVo-ing" a television program. When you're having that kind of conversation, you've already lost.

My personal opinion: the superbrands are getting just what they've asked for. They've inserted their brand into our culture in an intrusive way, while at the same time building up a list of corporate misdeeds that almost no large business can avoid. They've made themselves the most visible targets in battles over culture and politics (everything from the decline of public space to trade and labor practices), while simultaneously creating a brand shorthand for their foes to use against them (or for those so inclined to simply play with).

Before you aspire to superbrand status, ask yourself if the loss of freedom and control is going to be worth it. And if you're in a more reflective mood, ask yourself if you really like having your community's culture replaced by brands. What's the price you pay - as a marketer, and as a citizen?