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Branding in the age of digital connectivity

Chapter · January 2014

DOI: 10.4324/9780203103036.ch14

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 Branding in the Age of Digital Connectivity

Baskin Yenicioglu, Henley Business School, University of Reading

George Christodoulides, Birkbeck, University of London

1. Introduction

Brands have historically been the symbolic bearer of differentiation and quality in the human
production process of craftworks, commodities, and services (Perry 2003). In contemporary
consumer culture theory, brands and branding carry an elevated importance as not only terms,
signs and symbols that define certain goods or services but also as symbolic bearers of
meanings, emotions, history, and culture. Through this symbolic capacity, brands are
increasingly consumed for their non-utilitarian value as they enable consumers to create and
manage their personal identities and social relationships (Holt 2004). Advancements in
interactive communication technologies have been increasingly compressing time and space
around the globe. In this age of digital connectivity the significance of brands as the sign
system for meaning creation in consumers’ everyday social lives has also been proliferating
(Askegaard 2006). In fact, in this digitally connected world it would be difficult for
consumers to avoid brands and their symbolic aura. Not only because, almost every
commodity or service offered by the market is branded, but even counterfeit products feed off
from brand symbols and anti-branding movements exploit brand names and logos (e.g. the
UnSwoosher shoe with its Anti-Logo marketed by Adbusters organization ‘for kicking
corporate ass’). The age of digital connectivity we have been living in for the last decade or
so does not diminish this power of brands (as some early writers such as Dussart predicted)
but instead levitates it and simultaneously shifts it. Although now brands have the power to
be much more pervasive and ubiquitous than before on every possible (digital) channel, brand
managers may not even be aware of the discussions around their brands whilst consumers
may choose to ignore these conversations altogether. This chapter will discuss the digital
revolution that is taking place which connects consumers to companies and brands, but more
importantly to other consumers on a phenomenal scale and will explore the impact of this
connectivity on brands as well as on branding.

2. What is this thing we call a brand?

There are many definitions of a brand, from the point of view of different stakeholders. One
of the most commonly used in the branding literature is the American Marketing
Association’s as a “[n]ame, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one
seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.” This definition focuses on the
function of a brand as a tool of differentiation and identification, however a review of the
literature has shown that brand definitions can be organized into fourteen main topics
including, brand as : (1) legal instrument; (2) logo; (3) company; (4) shorthand; (5) risk
reducer; (6) identity system; (7) image in consumers’ minds; (8) value system; (9)
personality; (10) relationship; (11) adding value; and (12) evolving entity (de Chernatony and
Riley 1998, de Chernatony 2010). Brand is therefore a multidimensional construct that exists
in a continuous process of cyclical communication between the actions of the firm and the
interpretations and redefinitions of the consumers, through which the brand is imbued with
certain values and expectations. Holt (2004) parallels this continuous process of
communication as the construction of a brand story. Without this, he maintains, the markers
of the brand – names, logos, and designs – are empty and the brand does not really exist. The
brand is only fully formed after these markers are filled with ideas and meanings about brand.
According to Holt (2004), these ideas and meanings are authored not only by the firm and the
consumers but also by the culture industries and various intermediaries such as retailers or
pressure groups. Taken together these two views on the brand concept seem to provide the
most complex and encompassing definition of the brand as a multidimensional construct that
exists in a continuous process of communication and authoring of values, expectations,
meanings, and ideas by the firm, consumers, the culture industries, and intermediaries, which
fills the otherwise empty markers of the brand with a collection of consumer experiences.

The process of branding has been around since the cavemen first painted the walls in the
history of mankind. Some of the oldest paintings in history on the walls of the Lascaux Caves
in France date back to 15,000 B.C. and these bison paintings are marked also by handprints
as a form of ownership declaration. The marking of craftwork with seals for ownership and
quality claims was a common practice in ancient civilizations. Egyptian, Roman, Greek, and
Chinese consumers knew not only who to praise and make repeat purchases from, but also
who to blame if there was a problem with the product (Perry 2003). In 1266, in order to make
tax collection easier, England passed the Bakers Marking Law, which required bakers to
stamp bread loaves to indicate origin. This was also the time when spirit makers were
required by customs and excises to burn their oak barrels of Scotch whisky with a hot iron
symbol. These practices were considered to be among the first modern occurrences of
commercial branding (Perry 2003). According to Aaker (1991), the term brand originates
from these practices of using hot iron to burn marks on various goods as well as livestock to
identify ownership and declare quality. Historians often pinpoint the Wedgwood & Bentley
brand of luxury china in eighteenth century Britain as one of the first successful brand
creations during the era of industrialization (Arvidsson 2006). Wedgwood & Bentley, with
their catalogues and showrooms that are “designed to convey a sense of shopping
experience,” seemed to have foreseen the approach of contemporary brand management
(Arvidsson 2006, p. 66). After the industrial revolution altered the way of consumption by
introducing mass production which made available the products that were once unavailable to
the masses, branding became more important as it was the only way for the consumer to
differentiate between an ever increasing number of similar products. By the end of the
nineteenth century, sellers started to promote their branded products through full page
advertisements in newspapers (Strasser 1989). This was the start of the communication
between the firm and the consumer. Fast-forward a century and this one-way communication
has become a full-fledged orchestra, whereby the authors of brand stories continuously co-
create the brand, which became not only a product or service but also a vessel for
constructing and maintaining self-identity and social relationships (Smith 2011).

The symbolic meanings of consumption are transferred to brands through the accumulation of
brand stories which consumers then use to construct, maintain, and communicate their
personal narratives (Schembri, Merilees & Kristiansen 2010) and to make sense of their
relationships in social communities (Hirschman 2010). Brands loaded with brand stories and
with their identity values have become the essential vessel of self-expression for their
consumers. They have also become equally important for companies through a pressing need
to thrive on the basis of stories and myths co-narrated together with consumers as products
are becoming less important than their stories (Smith 2011).

The presence and importance of brands as a cultural and social institution has never been
greater than it is in today’s globalized world, where digital connectivity allows for a 360°
conversational space for consumers (Smith 2011). Brands, and their symbolic and cultural
narratives, have now become one of the most significant and powerful ideoscapes and
mediascapes of the world in the globalization process with their meaning creation and
dissemination role (Cayla and Arnould 2008; Askegaard 2006). Traditionally, the power to
create and disseminate meaning through brands was only granted to the forces of the market.
The brand manager was deemed to be the sole controller of the brand story developing and
delivering brand messages on a one-way street to unsuspecting passive consumers. Even the
very limited consumer agency was labeled as market sanctioned cultural experiments by
which the branding paradigm would seize these creative opportunities to rejuvenate itself
(Holt 2004). However the advancement of interactive communication technologies, which
were once seen as the ultimate tool for the brand manager to exploit the power of the brands
even more, backfired as it kicked the scale of power out of balance in favor of the consumer.
The lived experiences and meaning creation moments of consumers on an everyday basis can
now be communicated and shared with fellow consumers around the globe and these co-
created stories can easily influence brands and their stories on a global scale. Within the age
of digital connectivity, brands still retain their power to influence consumers’ personal
identities and social relationships, yet the power to create and disseminate these brand stories
lies increasingly in the hands of consumers.

3. The digital age is upon us

Only a few years ago researchers from McKinsey, based on a study of 20,000 customers from
various industries across the globe, demonstrated that the customer’s decision journey has
shifted phenomenally from the traditional passive and linear steps to a collaborative
continuous process where one-way push marketing no longer prevails (Court et al 2009). The
real digital revolution has occurred as interactive communication technologies helped Web
1.0 evolve into what was termed Web2.0 and as consumers started to flock to social media
platforms to collaborate, cooperate, communicate and co-create with each other at a
phenomenal rate.

Web 2.0 as a term was first coined in 2004 by O’Reilly to describe the new way in which
World Wide Web was used as a platform where content and applications are not only created
and published by individuals but are also modified and shared by networks of users in a
participatory and collaborative fashion (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010). O’Reilly coined the term
Web 2.0 and defined it as “a set of economic, social, and technology trends that collectively
form the basis for the next generation of the Internet – a more mature, distinctive medium
characterized by user participation, openness, and network effects (Musser and O’Reilly,
2006, p.4). However, since O’Reilly, there have been numerous attempts to define Web 2.0
and there is still a lack of consensus over what the term identifies. Most of these definitions
however, only describe the symptoms of Web 2.0 and do not incorporate its underlying
philosophy. The overarching use of the term and the lack of an accepted and agreed upon
definition resulted in an analysis of Web 2.0 that misses the details of cultures, contents,
agendas and infrastructures of different participants, leading to an oversimplified
understanding of its use, meaning, and value for its participants (Beer 2008). What is more,
some academics and practitioners alike have even moved to an era of Web 3.0 and to the
mobile social web and the advancements in interactive communication technologies do not
hint at slowing down. Therefore, rather than attempting to define what we will call Social
Web, we will explore its meaning and value in use for its participants as they create and co-
create brand meanings in the digitally connected world.

If social web is the new ideological and technological ways in which the World Wide Web is
now being utilized by networks of users, then social media can be defined as the group of
Internet-based applications that build on the foundations of social web and that allow the
creation and exchange of user generated content (Kaplan and Haenlein 2010). These open
source and interactive applications are aimed at expanding the experiences, knowledge and
market power of the users as participants in business and social processes, by allowing
generation, dissemination, and sharing of content (Constantinides and Fountain 2008). Social
media applications encompass a range of channels including forums such as blogs, consumer
rating/review websites, social networking websites, content sharing sites, virtual worlds,
business networking sites, and collaborative sites. In the midst of all this variety of tools,
sometimes the ‘media’ aspect of social media is heralded as having an overrated importance
(Drury 2008), yet it is the ‘social’ side of social media that makes it unique and valuable to
both consumers and businesses alike.

Today, over 1.2 billion people worldwide, 85% of the world’s Internet population over the
age of 15, log on to social media platforms (ComScore 2011). According to eMarketer (2012)
there will be 1.43 billion social network users by the end of 2012, which amounts to a
staggering 19.2% increase over 2011. The increase in Smartphone adoption has pushed the
number of mobile social media users to 650 million in 2011 and this number is expected to
grow to 1.6 billion in the next 5 years (Juniper Research, 2011). This uptake of social media
by consumers opens up new challenges as well as vast opportunities for industry and
marketers. Developments in mobile technology enable social media access to be anywhere
and at any time, making the efforts of brand managers to keep up even more important.
Social media enables brand managers to reach and interact with consumers with relatively
less cost and more impact than traditional media channels. However, it also poses serious
threats by taking the control over the creation and dissemination of brand messages away
from managers. In this Networked Information Economy (Benkler 2006) brand messages no
longer flow from a multitude of fragmented marketing communication channels towards the
consumer; they are rather communicated every way through an integrated network of online
and offline touch points, which are largely outside the brand manager’s control (Mulhern
2009). Communities of networked consumers as well as commercial and non-commercial
organizations accelerate the collaborative and co-creative processes throughout the consumer
journey. On the one hand, this networked economy redistributes the power of control over
content to the consumers, and, on the other hand, it fragments the notion of common
knowledge over brand meanings. These concepts are discussed in the following sections.

4. Implications for consumers

The architecture of the internet has changed from a collection of interconnected documents to
a web of interwoven relationships. Consumers are now more connected to one another than
ever before. Mobile phone penetration is over 100% in the US and Western Europe with the
majority of handsets being perpetually connected to the internet. In this context, consumers
are not only the chief content distributors of brand messages but also the chief creators of
brand related content (Christodoulides and Jevons 2011; Christodoulides, Jevons and
Bonhomme 2012) while the influence of social media in the consumer decision making
process is undeniable.

The aforementioned developments have significantly affected consumers’ expectations about

how to interact, experience and resonate with brands (Christodoulides 2009). The
expectation is now for a more intimate relationship similar to the relationships consumers
form with corner shop owners and friends. Consumers thus expect brands to exhibit honesty,
authenticity, transparency, openness and other features that we seek in individuals. Brands
need to be more human and more accessible (Vaynerchuk 2011). Consumers will be more
likely to resonate with brands which offer more transparency and admit their mistakes.
Consumers do not want to be “talked to” anymore. They want to interact, converse, buy, and
consume brands that care about them.

The opportunity for marketers does not lie in simply changing a company’s media or
communications strategy. A different mindset is required to build successful brands in this
digital era. Brands that do not have a social DNA will struggle to successfully deploy social
media and reap the benefits of social currency. The challenge for marketers is to create
brands that offer a storyline rather than a full-fledged script, allowing consumers, both
individually and collectively within communities, to interpret and construct their own brand
meaning. Building inspiring yet malleable brands empowers consumers to use brands as
vehicles to expressing and communicating their own personal stories.

Allowing consumers to imbue their own meaning to brands does not preclude the
development of shared brand meaning and/or brand knowledge. Whilst brand meaning was
traditionally shared by large social and cultural communities often created at the segment
level, brands are now construed by smaller, more fragmented, often ephemeral communities.
This means that brand knowledge per se, which is specific to members of these communities
is also more transient and varied.

According to Levy (1997) “no one knows everything, everyone knows something, all
knowledge resides in humanity” (Levy 1997). This collective intelligence can no longer be
ignored by marketers. Advances in communication technologies thankfully helped digitize
consumer research as well, providing opportunities for researchers to tap into this collective
intelligence easily. Researchers can now use new online research techniques, collect data
from previously inaccessible but valuable respondents, and achieve comprehensive sets of big
and rich data not to mention more efficient and reliable ways to analyze it (Johnson 2001).
The digital approach to consumer research fundamentally changes the way consumer related
knowledge is being generated and disseminated within the research community (Johnson
2001), whilst also empowering consumers who were previously regarded as passive
participants in the research process (Cooke and Buckley 2008) .Empowered as they now are,
consumers – more than ever before – demand to be consulted. In 2010 Gap™ unveiled a new
logo for its brand, but this was soon abandoned following a torrent of criticism from
Facebook™ and Twitter™ users. Smart brand marketers are those who hold their (big) ideas
in an open hand allowing them to be picked up by consumers and be evolved into great ideas
(Merchant 2012). Recognizing the importance of crowdsourcing a number of brands have
moved away from a traditional “command and control” approach to encouraging the creation
and dissemination of user-generated content (Christodoulides and Jevons 2011). Coca-
Cola™ has recently released a video openly communicating its advertising strategy until
2020, emphasizing the shift from creative excellence to content excellence. This involves
moving away from relying on traditional ad agencies for creative ideas to embracing a
collaborative approach to content creation and storytelling (Baker 2011).

The influence of reference or membership groups in consumer behavior, particularly in

relation to conspicuous consumption, is well established in consumer research (e.g. Childers
and Rao 1992). On the other hand, privately consumed products that are less conspicuous are
less likely to be purchased with a reference group in mind. What is an interesting
development is that now with social media and fast growing visual platforms such as
Pinterest™ and Instagram™ products traditionally used or consumed in private are now
publicly shared (e.g. underwear, holiday). In this context consumers increasingly accept/seek
comments from other consumers (friends/acquaintances/contacts) on brands they have bought
or are considering to buy. Potentially all consumption is now conspicuous consumption
depending on how consumers utilize social media.
Contrary to the brand funnel which assumes that consumers systematically narrow down their
choices until they make a purchase, research by McKinsey has shown that today’s consumers
add and subtract brands from their consideration set over an extended evaluation phase
(Court et al. 2009; Edelman 2010). Following their purchase, consumers often engage in an
open-ended relationship with the brand, sharing their experience with it online. Digital media
make the “evaluate” and “advocate” stages of this consumer journey increasingly important
(Court et al. 2009). Paradoxically and despite overwhelming evidence suggesting that word-
of-mouth/mouse-recommendation is consumers’ most trusted source of information (Nielsen
2012) as well as their strongest influence to buy, up to 90% of marketing spending still goes
to advertising and retail promotions (Edelman 2010). Managers of strong brands appreciate
the influence of consumer-driven marketing and invest in helping consumers navigate the
evaluation process and generate positive advocacy for their brands. This process often
involves accessing and mobilizing key influencers which are identified in the literature as
connectors, mavens and salesmen (Gladwell 2000).

5. Implications for Brand and Branding

As we move forward, “social” is expected to become an important constituent dimension for

a number of brands. In a previous paper on internet branding we argued that a brand is a
brand regardless of its context and that it is a cluster of rational and emotional values that
promise a certain type of experience (de Chernatony and Christodoulides 2004). We herein
propose that in light of the increasing importance of social value in the age of digital
connectivity the definition of a brand is augmented as a cluster of functional, emotional and
social value (emphasis added). This does not mean that all brands need to deliver all three
types of value to consumers. This is a decision that depends largely on a brand’s value
proposition and positioning. Figure 1.1 shows how a brand such as Facebook™ arguably lies
at the intersection of all three with functional (facilitates communication), emotional (allows
self-expression and self-presentation), and social value (keeps you connected with your
friends).
 Figure 1: Three-dimensional branding

As discussed above the process of branding was traditionally about creating a rigid brand
identity and communicating this to target consumers who were regarded passive recipients of
the intended image. In the age of connectivity branding is a collaborative exercise whereby
the values of the brand as well as brand equity are co-constructed between managers and
consumers/communities in a dialectical rather than unilateral process (Christodoulides et al.
2006). A brand is akin to an evolving story; not an unchanging gospel. Today’s successful
branding is not about reciting a story; it is rather about being a participant in the storytelling.
Strong brands in the age of digital connectivity will have open architectures that not only
allow but in fact encourage active consumer participation (Satell 2012).

With few exceptions (e.g. Berry 2000; Christodoulides et al. 2006), brand equity
conceptualizations and/or measures are predominantly sender-oriented, focusing on brand
managers’ activities as sources of brand equity. Under this paradigm brand managers are
regarded as “cultural engineers” who have the power to make consumers behave in ways
intended by brand owners (Holt 2002). This neglects consumers’ creation of brand meaning
through everyday consumption. When thinking about brand equity, brand managers need to
recognize the active role of consumers in co-constructing and sharing brand meanings with
various stakeholders (including with other consumers). As consumers become more
empowered, one-sided conceptualizations of brand equity become less appropriate, especially
in the democratic context of the internet where brands become “smart” by learning and
evolving with consumers. Berry (2000) identifies two constituent dimensions of brand
equity: brand awareness and brand meaning. Whist marketers are still largely responsible for
driving “share of mind” – a prerequisite for a consumer to buy a brand – we have also seen in
section 3 that unknown brands may also be included in the consideration set during the
“evaluate” stage of the consumer journey (see section 3) if recommended by others. The
control traditionally held by marketers over brand meaning belongs to the past; brand
meaning is now created through multiple conversations and managers are now only one party
in these conversations. A key challenge for brand managers is to socialize traditional media
touch points and integrate them with new media touch points in ways that meaningfully and
consistently connect consumers to the brand.

Before the advent of the social web, we argued there were three main strategies that brands
should follow in the digital space, i.e. building genuine relationships, offering better tailored
offerings and allowing greater interactivity (de Chernatony and Christodoulides 2004). In
today’s world of digital connectivity these strategies remain important, however the tools
required implementing the strategies may be different from those available in the e-commerce
era. Building genuine relationships now involves a series of consistent customer experiences
and interactions on various platforms on and offline. These interactions are not between
individual customers and the brand but also between the brand and various communities.
Offering better tailored offerings encompasses the creation of malleable brands and products
whose final form may be defined by consumers. Crowdsourcing is a method by which wired
consumers are involved in the development of different aspects of a brand’s marketing mix
(e.g. communication) resulting in higher levels of relevance and consumer satisfaction.
Greater consumer brand interactivity is now facilitated by social media now a key channel for
brands to engage with consumers. KLM™ offers 24/7 service on Twitter and Facebook and
promises to respond to customers’ queries within an hour.

6. Key lessons for brand managers

In section 5 we have shown how the traditional views on brands and branding such as the
command and control approach can no longer aid brand managers in their quest for building
strong brands. In today’s digital age of connectedness, brand meanings do not only flow
unidirectional from brand managers to consumers but are also created through various
interactions between a network (or networks even) of multiple agents. Brands are no longer
built by managers but they are rather crafted through these interactions and take shape and
reshape continuously. This section will provide insights into the new craft of brand
management in order for brands to be successful in this unchartered and rapidly advancing
digital era.

This is an era of collabranding

The most valuable resource for brand managers today in the digitally connected marketplace
is the willing, creative, inspired, and inspirational global know-how of consumers. In Section
4 we have demonstrated the importance of the collective intelligence of consumers for the
brand manager. This collective intelligence, which is made readily accessible in the age of
digital connectedness, should be harnessed by today’s smart brand manager (Christodoulides
and Jevons 2011). Brand managers should not ignore the vast innovative potential of this
open resource. The collective intelligence is inspired by a vast number of consumers having
continual experiences with brands accumulated over a long period of time and as such it
should also be inspiring for brand managers as they try to craft their brands. This is what we
call the era of collabranding, where successful brand managers craft social and interactive
brands in collaboration with the collective intelligence of their consumers. Collabranding is
about co-creating brand related content that is often experimental, experiential and relevant
together with consumers by tapping into their collective intelligence in the digital age of
connectedness. This is a new, demand based, pull branding where collabranding managers
should not market to but rather socialize and interact with the collective intelligence in order
for the consumers to be willing, creative and inspired about their brands.

Be there or be square

As discussed above, consumers are increasingly using a multitude of different channels

through their purchase journey and they expect brands to be present wherever they are and
whenever they are. This is an era of connectedness and in order to succeed in the new craft of
demand based collabranding brand managers should be able to identify and integrate the key
on and offline touch points where they can interact with consumers. According to a recent
survey on consumer perceptions of retail channels, 54% of consumers regularly employ two
or more channels before they make a purchase. And even during purchase consumers expect
an integration of multiple touch points. Although the store is still the preferred medium for
purchase, if the items are not in, 51% of consumers expect a store associate to find an out-of-
stock item online and have it shipped. Furthermore, 35% of those surveyed said they expect
to be able to redeem the same coupons and offers both online and in stores, 30% said they
expect to be able to return or exchange products in any channel regardless of where they
bought it, and 22% said they expect to be able to access their online shopping cart, past
purchases, wish list, loyalty points and status of orders no matter where they shop (Oracle
2011). Consumers not only require multiple channels when they make their purchases but
also, like to engage with other consumers as they shop. As we have noted before,
recommendations from friends and family are the most trusted source of brand information
for consumers around the world, above all other forms of advertising (Nielsen 2012). It is
therefore fundamentally important for brand managers to facilitate cross-platform shopping
as well as peer-to-peer interaction by ensuring logistics and systems compatibility. Levi's™
for example, integrates its online store with Facebook™, allowing customers to browse
through the products their friends had ‘liked,’ interact with them and create a collaborative
shopping experience. Facebook™’s Instant Personalization extends this level of integration
and enables users to have content their friends have liked or recommended highlighted on
partner websites. Macy’s™ in New York provides augmented reality mirrors in their
changing rooms for consumers to virtually try on clothes, share how they look with their
friends and get their feedback details in real-time.

Learn or burn
Being present at the multitude of these integrated touch points is not enough for brands to
succeed in the age of digital connectivity. A passive existence may even be more detrimental
for brands than an absence at a given touch point. Collabranding necessitates brand managers
to listen closely to the collective intelligence of their consumers and learn from these
interactions not only between the brand and the consumers but also among consumers
themselves. Listening can only be efficient and effective if clear and specific protocols and
systems exist about what and who to listen and how. Brand managers can only learn from
what they listen if these interactions are analyzed properly, which makes it necessary to
integrate appropriate quantitative and qualitative analytical tools into the collabranding
process. Lessons learnt should be internalized throughout the organization with the role of the
brand manager now involving coordinating the dissemination of knowledge generated
through customer connections. A true learning organization will also respond to the
knowledge generated and disseminated throughout the organization in a timely and
appropriate manner in order to close the collabranding loop. Dell™’s social media listening
command center is a prime example of how brands can listen and learn from their consumers.
The Centre, which was established in 2010, is now listening to their consumers in 11
different languages and aims to respond to the 25,000 comments, critiques, suggestions they
post online daily in the space of four hours.

Be flexible and be faster

The need for learning from and responding to the collective intelligence of digitally
connected consumers may pose organizations with structural and procedural challenges.
Collabranding managers should decentralize responsibility to allow their brands to learn and
respond effectively in a timely manner. As we discussed in Section 4 the digitally connected
consumers are impatient and would like to act (and share) whenever they want, wherever
they want throughout their consumer journey. Some of the responsibility to listen to the
conversations around the brand, the routine analysis of this chatter, and an appropriate
response to it should be deployed to the employees at the touch points there and then at the
time of interactions. There should be clear and comprehensive procedures explaining the
roles and expectations across the organization. The organization itself should be digitally
connected to avoid any inconsistencies as the brand collaborates with the outside world. This
flexible and fast response to consumer experiences is a great source of competitive advantage
especially in the fast moving fashion industry. For example, Zara™, the Spanish retail chain,
achieves this by equipping store managers with handheld devices which links them directly to
its design department at headquarters. Customer feedback and preferences therefore are
analyzed daily and the brand can adjust to changing customer tastes very quickly. The
eruption of the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, in April 2010 resulted in air traffic across
Europe to come to a stall for a period of 6 days, during which KLM™ experienced a
staggering number of customer queries jamming their call centers. So KLM™ turned to
social media and their efforts on Facebook and Twitter received a lot of positive publicity
which resulted in a decision to heavily invest in an ongoing social media strategy. As a result
KLM™ established a company-wide social customer service policy that involves a front line
social media management team and the cooperation of multiple departments.
Freshen up
We have identified another key element of collabranding as being relevant to the changing
needs and wants of the digitally connected consumers in today’s increasingly agile
marketplace. Brands need to be relevant to keep the collective intelligence engaged so that
they keep on collaborating to create and share content around the brand. The attention span of
consumers today is getting shorter and shorter and they are more willing to try out new
products and services but can also abandon them as easily as they try them out. Collabranding
managers can keep consumers’ interest at a high if they can keep the brand afresh by always
being innovative with the ways they interact with consumers. We call this constant strive to
be fresh and innovative the brand-new branding philosophy, without which a long term
sustainable collabranding effort would be futile. Muji™, the Japanese clothing and furniture
retailer, pursue innovative ideas from online social communities, where its half a million
member customers regularly evaluate and rank new designs. Professional designers then
develop production-grade specifications for manufacturing the shortlisted new ideas. Other
companies, such as Starbucks™, use open innovation platforms to generate ideas from their
consumers. Through its My Starbucks Idea platform, the coffee chain has developed many
new products and services, including its mobile app payments and its instant coffee brand
VIA™ Ready Brew and eGifting.

Be exclusive to the masses

As we mentioned above, collabranding needs to be experiential and provide customers with
opportunities for personal involvements, competencies, and sentiments. Whilst exclusivity
used to be the key to being a strong brand for the individualized consumer, for the collective
intelligence of the digitally connected consumer, collabranding should be massclusive, or
exclusive to the masses. The digital era allows the collabranding manager to craft brands that
provide individualized experiences to a multitude of consumers. Not only can consumers now
enjoy the feeling of personal and personalized experiences through their brands, but also they
can share these exclusive experiences with their collabranding partners. Massclusive
branding provides consumers with the feeling of standing apart from the masses whilst at the
same time lets them be a part of an ‘exclusive’ club on a daily basis. American Express™
membership will get the consumers into VIP lounges at airports, provide them with car and
concierge service in international cities, offer them pre-booking in popular shows and
concerts and even book them tables in hard to get restaurants. Luis Vuitton™ consumers will
get personalized invites to members only launch events, special viewing of art shows in
galleries and museums.

Embrace failure
We identified above the element of experimentation required for collabranding to be
sustainable and relevant for the ongoing interactions between the brand and consumers.
Experimentation is also an integral part of brand-new branding where there is a continuous
strive for remaining relevant and producing engaging content. However, collabranding
managers should appreciate and embrace the fact that experimentation is inherently failure
prone. Being risk averse can leave the brand stale and keep the collective intelligence away.
Collabranding managers should therefore encourage and reward accordingly in order to craft
an experimental brand in the digitally connected era. Collabranding tolerates brands to be
flawsome in their attempts to engage and interact with consumers. Being flawsome is not
only about encouraging and embracing experimentation by the brand but also about
acknowledging and accepting that brands can make mistakes and taking ownership of these
mistakes. Brand experiences can sometimes be unpleasant and the digitally connected
consumers have the ability to talk about and share all their experiences. Denying or fighting
against these conversations can be detrimental for brands. Alternatively, acknowledging these
mishaps and addressing them in a constructive and communicative manner would humanize
brands and establish them as more credible collaborating partners for consumers. Accepting
the fact that brands should be flawsome, Domino’s™ hired a huge billboard in New York’s
Times Square and live streamed good and bad customer feedback posted on their Twitter for
a month. FedEx™, after a video of one their employees throwing a customer’s monitor over a
wall has been viewed over 3,000,000 times in 48 hours on YouTube™, apologized to their
customers with a blog post entitled Absolutely, Positively, Unacceptable and noted that the
video is now being used in training of their employees on what not to do. Innocent Drinks™
in the UK, after sending out a Christmas email with a faulty voucher, sent out an apology and
a working voucher with a note to invite consumers to keep the faulty voucher “as a memento
of our stupidity.”

What skills are required for today’s brand managers?

Throughout the chapter we have argued that the power traditionally rested with the manager
is shifting towards consumer networks. This does not mean that the role of the brand manager
is contracting; on the contrary, the new brand manager now has to manage a much more
complex set of relationships both internally and externally. As we have noted above, in order
to co-craft the brand with the collective intelligence of consumer networks, organizations
need to evolve and be more flexible with decentralized responsibilities towards the frontline
touch points. Together with the organization, the new brand manager as well needs to evolve
and integrate an internal and an external role.

Internally the brand manager should be the Kapellmeister (the conductor) of the organization
as he/she strives to craft brand experiences together with the digitally connected consumers.
As we discussed throughout this chapter, there are multiple on and offline touch points where
the brand now interacts with the collective intelligence, and by which the brand stories are
crafted. If there is no consistency amongst these touch points then the brand stories would
become a cacophony for the consumers and the brand can easily loose its collaborating
partner. The multitude of interactions between the brand and the consumer should be
integrated so that what the brand communicates with the consumers, how it communicates
with them, where, and when can be in harmony. The new collabranding manager, in this
sense, has the responsibility to bring together all the internal touch points, set the tone of
voice for all the different brand interactions with the outside world, prepare and communicate
clear and specific procedures for brand interactions, attend and frame the composition of
brand stories from an internal point of view.
Yet, we now know that brand stories are not only composed internally but are rather crafted
through collaboration with the collective intelligence of consumers. Therefore, the second
and equally important role for the new collabranding manager is externally focused. We
defined collabranding as always and already being experimental, experiential and relevant for
consumers. In order to establish and manage these crucial characteristics, the new brand
manager has three different but integrated external roles. First of all, the new brand manager
should be an intelligence officer by acting as the channel through which consumer insight is
brought into the organization (Edelman 2010). Only by continuously searching for and
feeding in uncharted information about the consumer, as well as distilling and synthesizing
this information into strategic innovations can managers keep the brand new, fresh, and
experimental. This information officer role is therefore crucial for what we call the brand-
new branding approach and moreover for managing what we have identified as the flawsome
brand. In their capacity as information officers, brand managers should have the overall
responsibility to monitor the negative experiences of consumers, evaluate their impact and
respond to them accordingly at a strategic level.

This first new role for the brand manager is an outside-in role bringing timely and relevant
information about the collective intelligence of the consumer into the organization. The
second new role involves an inside-out approach where the brand manager becomes an editor
and publisher of content. In order to provide consumer networks with the brand experiences
they seek, the brand manager has to surround the brand with content. Through this content
the collective intelligence will interact and collaborate with the brand to craft brand stories.
The new brand manager should be able to create as well as collate interesting and inspiring
content which would bring the consumer into the realm of the brand at every stage of their
consumer journey. This external role is again inseparably linked to the internal role of
conducting as the content should not only be engaging but also consistent amongst the
multitude of integrated on and offline communication channels so that consumers would have
seamless experiences with the brand through their consumer journey.

The final and probably most challenging and yet important new role for the brand manager
involves distancing away from the brand by being an authentic, and trustworthy collaborator
with the collective intelligence of consumers. The collaborator role requires the brand
manager to be emphatic to the constantly changing needs and wants of consumers in order for
the brand to stay relevant for the collective intelligence. In the era of digital connectivity,
where the ways in which to connect and collaborate with the collective intelligence is in a
constant state of flux, the new brand manager also has to evolve and adapt. In order to be a
true collaborator, the brand manager has to go out of his/her comfort zone and take a step
away from the business as usual to challenge the accepted branding practices in the company
by stepping into the shoes of consumers.

In spite of all the changes happening in the brandsphere and the new fascinations the digital
era presents to consumers along their decision journeys, the core of what the brand manager
does is largely the same. The name of the game is still about establishing strong brand equity.
However, the way brand managers go about developing brand equity has changed, with the
sources of brand equity being increasingly co-created by other consumers through a
collaborative effort we have identified above as collabranding. In the era of digital
connectivity managers need to consider and enact not only the functional and emotional value
of their brands but also the social value thereof. In order to achieve a sustainable brand
equity, brand managers need to orchestrate collabranding activities within the company;
bridge the information gap between the company and the collective intelligence; collect,
create and publish relevant and engaging content around the brand; and collaborate with
consumers in an authentic and honest manner to co-narrate brand stories. Otherwise, there is
a caveat that single (i.e. company) authored brand stories will stop resonating with the
collective intelligence and the brand will eventually lose its role in meaning creation leading
to the brand’s ultimate demise.
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Further Reading:

Christodoulides, G. (2009) “Branding in the Post-internet Era” Marketing Theory 9(1), 141-
144. (A conceptual paper that discusses the implications of web2.0 on branding)

Edelman, D.C. (2010) “Branding in the Digital Age” Harvard Business Review, 88, 62-69.
(A call-to-action for managers to reconsider the allocation of marketing budgets in light of
the new consumer decision journey)

Biographical Notes:

Baskin Yenicioglu is a Lecturer and the Subject Area Leader of Marketing at Henley
Business School, University of Reading. He is interested in exploring the interactions and
integrations between consumer cultures and the branding paradigm. Currently, he is looking
into these interactions/integrations within the context of brand communities and social media
marketing.
 George Christodoulides is a Professor of Marketing at Birkbeck, University of London. His
research interests lie in the areas of brand management and e-marketing, particularly
consumer-based brand equity conceptualization and measurement and the impact of
interactive/social media on consumer-brand relationships. He is a regular presenter and
invited speaker at international conferences and his research has appeared in leading
scientific journals.

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