I remember as the brand management director for Lucent Technologies we worked hard to maintain a flexible yet consistent brand identity. The work from Landor won just about every creative branding award there was and the brand management team won the APQC Best-in-Class award. In those days, if a group misused the brand we said they "went rogue." We meant they deviated from the standard. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that corporate branding has gone rogue and the cause is social media. Here's why. Social media is not just another tactic to be tacked onto the proverbial backside of a corporate identity system.
I'm going to go out on a limb and propose that product crises aren't communications crises. Suggesting otherwise is like giving the play-by-play announcer credit for a sports score, or holding a translator responsible for presenting an untenable negotiating position. Our selective vision makes us focus on how issues are communicated at risk of losing sight of the business reality it narrates. Bad news doesn't influence or have an impact on brands as much as reveal them for what they are. CMOs need to see someone else's misfortune as the opportunity to review and perhaps change how you see your function before the inevitable spotlight finds you.
Every once in a while, it happens. An epiphany -- fully materialized and smacking you between the eyes. Mine came to me on a recent evening while lounging on the couch, recovering from another day of doing the due-diligence dance with my beloved clients. And this one was a paradigm-shifter: Just as video killed the radio star, metrics are killing creativity. When the economy takes a nosedive, marketers get nervous. And when sales follow suit, clients stop approving creative ideas and start staring at numbers. No client ever will tell you that the creative way you waded through the fantastically distorted worlds of online branding and social media is wrong.
Toyota executives are trying to stop the brand bleeding as they deal with safety recalls and attempt to jump-start sales with a new incentive program and a fresh TV-advertising campaign aimed at shoring up consumers’ overall confidence in the company. But at the same time, Toyota also has been launching an important new product, a completely made-over, 2011 version of the Sienna minivan. The long-derided minivan segment has been showing some signs of life lately, and Toyota still sees it as an important category for the long term, as its Generation X customers move through parenthood.
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I remember as the brand management director for Lucent Technologies we worked hard to maintain a flexible yet consistent brand identity. The work from Landor won just about every creative branding award there was and the brand management team won the APQC Best-in-Class award. In those days, if a group misused the brand we said they "went rogue." We meant they deviated from the standard. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that corporate branding has gone rogue and the cause is social media. Here's why. Social media is not just another tactic to be tacked onto the proverbial backside of a corporate identity system. 
I'm going to go out on a limb and propose that product crises aren't communications crises. Suggesting otherwise is like giving the play-by-play announcer credit for a sports score, or holding a translator responsible for presenting an untenable negotiating position. Our selective vision makes us focus on how issues are communicated at risk of losing sight of the business reality it narrates. Bad news doesn't influence or have an impact on brands as much as reveal them for what they are. CMOs need to see someone else's misfortune as the opportunity to review and perhaps change how you see your function before the inevitable spotlight finds you. 
Every once in a while, it happens. An epiphany -- fully materialized and smacking you between the eyes. Mine came to me on a recent evening while lounging on the couch, recovering from another day of doing the due-diligence dance with my beloved clients. And this one was a paradigm-shifter: Just as video killed the radio star, metrics are killing creativity. When the economy takes a nosedive, marketers get nervous. And when sales follow suit, clients stop approving creative ideas and start staring at numbers. No client ever will tell you that the creative way you waded through the fantastically distorted worlds of online branding and social media is wrong. 
Toyota executives are trying to stop the brand bleeding as they deal with safety recalls and attempt to jump-start sales with a new incentive program and a fresh TV-advertising campaign aimed at shoring up consumers’ overall confidence in the company. But at the same time, Toyota also has been launching an important new product, a completely made-over, 2011 version of the Sienna minivan. The long-derided minivan segment has been showing some signs of life lately, and Toyota still sees it as an important category for the long term, as its Generation X customers move through parenthood.
