Brands and social media tools are being impacted by changing social mood. If the pace of social change is to pick up considerably then these two are worth considering together for a few minutes.
An old thread not addressed here lately revolves around brands...specifically, brands in crisis during a social correction. The subject has been sitting out this cycle of expanding (positive) mood. Moreover, I have backed off the Toyota brand issue for what are dual reasons of both timing and respect. I did see this week that a key trial (related to the unintended acceleration issue) has been scheduled for 2013. That timing is more than a little suggestive though not surprising as armies of lawyers prepare for war.
What is not lost on me is how this general idea about brands might seem specific to a few. Yes, a few brands are likely to be eviscerated by a prolonged social correction. Likewise, this view is a heads up from a broader place to suggest how the social utility of brand images may shift again in a deep social correction.
In a world increasingly influenced by highly efficient text messaging and tweets of 140 characters, the value of branding references is being extended as a social tool. And like all behaviors of increasing frequency and overall participation, the benefits may cut sharper as well as the drawbacks. Moreover, the resumption of a corrective mood trend will magnify the need for caution if you care for a brand because of changing perceptions. When you skip beyond present speculation regarding recovery and double dips, bear market or bull market, you can look around and see evidence of many corrective social trends that are expressed in polarities over very long periods of time...much longer than this current 28 month social rally. The implication is that even though many social trending dynamics we see are lagging indications of present mood, the positive swing we are (collectively) creating now is not likely to completely reverse these individual (longer) trending expressions of corrective mood. Of course, observations about smaller social expressions (trends) do not guarantee a larger period of social correction. The point here is not to use circular reasoning. The goal we should aim for is to organize a hierarchy of social expressions and compare them and note critical contrasts.
During a prolonged social correction where smaller units of association are increasingly expressed in diverse ways, many brands will undergo a transformation reflective of our larger social correction. Like the twists and turns in business, most of these will not be about endings or beginnings. It is about adaptation to changing social circumstances that provide for both opportunity and setbacks because how we value things changes as social mood changes. Language and money both offer excellent tools for various estimations of changing social value but can these newer media (listening) tools be used to distinguish important structural shifts in shared values? What might help us see specific geographic challenges approaching? How can these new social listening tools be adapted to distinguish signal and noise in a time of rapid social change?
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