Brandjacking

In the age of transparent conversation, knowing who you are talking with is increasingly important.

Both as consumers and marketers, we have been quick to state that humanizing a brand makes it more likely we will engage with the company, product or service. And we have demonstrated that is the case in many public instances. We pay attention to brands and that is reflected in brand rankings.

Is brand impersonation a form of brandjacking?

It could happen to you, but is it likely to? This is an open question to each one of us.

A little over a week ago, the Houston Chronicle reported that Exxon Mobil stated it was not behind the Twitter account by Janet at ExxonMobilCorp. This is not the first instance when someone took on an identity that was not theirs on Twitter.

Seth Godin came forward a couple of months earlier to clarify that he had not created the account in his own name.

In both cases, the person behind the other's identity was up to something fairly innocuous. One might have called it a case of customer evangelism - the use of a company's or person's name to spread useful information. 

In the Exxon Mobil case it was messages about the oil giant's philanthropic efforts, answers to questions about the company's policies and even a few human laments for a shortage of caramel apple sugar babies at one Exxon retail outlet. The Seth Godin's account was a stream of posts from the author's blog, one not created by the author himself.

ZDNet reported on some lessons that can be learned from the Exxon Mobil case. Some of the issues are fairly easy to address with increased awareness - hint, sticking your head in the sand about social media may not be an option for a company anymore, especially when you have an established and visible brand.

Forrester's Owyang outlines a few points for consideration (in bold):

• Lack of identity confirmation continues to plague the Web - if you think this can happen only to big companies, think again. Anyone can buy a domain name similar to yours and try to piggyback on your brand. 

• Companies must monitor their brands - the first step is always awareness. Chances are that if you are a company or business that is active in the customer community, your customers or partners will be the first ones to let you know that a brand exists in your name (or a cunningly similar one) somewhere.

• An opportunity for the real brand to step forward - while there may be little you can do outside legal action to discourage someone who is determined to confuse the marketplace with a similar or identical mark to yours, there is a lot you can do to establish your voice and persona. Communicate about your business, let customers and partners see and experience the real you by participating, being active, and present to them. I can assure you that the experience of the "other", the brandjacker, will be very different.

• There is a need to validate identities first - are you who you say you are? This is not very dissimilar from all the problems created by spam emails. If you think this applies only to account identities, consider comments to blog posts, in online forums, and social networks.

• Legal and trademark issues complicate the matter - see Owyang's advice here. I wrote a post at Marketing Profs Daily Fix about why trademarks are important back in February. 

Regardless of the social channel, when a company or business does not speak for itself, it creates an opportunity for someone else to use their voice. Call it image or reputation, a brand is an asset, it matters to your bottom line. The digital space is still very much like the wild, wild, west - a lot of unclaimed territory exists.

Look at it as an opportunity to invest in re-energizing your brand through customer conversations. Worry less about selling, start telling, sharing, being present - step forward and own your brand, or someone else may take it for a spin.

[image from Interbrand Best Canadian Brands, 2008 report]

Comments

[Philippe]

Hi Valeria,

The godfathers of brandjacking are the 'yes men' who managed to hijack "brands" like Exxon, Dow Chemicals and the World Trade Organisation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_men

[PRJack]

This is a great article Valeria! This really does underscore the need to take 'web vigilance' seriously from a communications standpoint is. It's rather easy for someone to create malicious and/or disparaging comments about an organization (or individual) and significant damage can be done before things are set right.

[Adam Green]

The threat is clear, Valeria, but the solution is not. Should a company try to claim its brand on each new social site as it opens its doors? It sounds like a great consulting gig: Brand Cop. Wait a minute. Yep, BrandCop.com is already taken. And of course, it is parked. :)

Seriously, what are the proper strategies and tactics for policing this? I don't think any monitoring products track user names on sites. Does Google even do so?

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Philippe - thank you for pointing out the Yes Men. Indeed if brands are like personas, it is quite easy to see how they would be imitated.

@Jack - being aware is a first step as is having the information. What you do with it makes the difference between success and failure.

@Adam - As I elaborated a little in my post, I think that awareness and monitoring is one action item. The more important piece to me is proactive participation, establishing a presence, being involved to the degree that the individuals representing the company feel comfortable. In many instances, when you are in the conversation, it will be other participants who will alert you when you are being talked about.