Question & Answer: Discuss the following statement and what are the pros and cons .Branding has changed with the use of…

Expert Answer

Branding has evolved in the age of social media wherein it is not only the marketing department who are responsible for the branding of a company or a product, instead all those associated with the company and are savvy in using the social media as an influencing platform are responsible for projecting the positive aspects of the company to outside world.

Nowadays most companies or products have dedicated pages or “walls” dedicated to them wherein consumers can come and post their reviews. A trend has emerged where some consumers post positive feedback and act as strong protectors for the brand and play a key role in brand advocacy. Employees of the company are also actively involved in propagating the brand while there are also instances where consumers have punished companies for failing their promised performance and the bad reputation has really quickly propagated in the social media.

The major advantages for such brand advocacy are:-

• Honest opinions by employees and consumers provide a sense of trust to new adopters.
• Very efficient and effective form of communication to directly address the concern of the consumers.
• “Word of mouth” recommendations work a lot better in building brand image and loyalty.

The disadvantages arising out of this are:-

• This can take the shape of a propaganda by certain companies which distort the signal and communication.
• Ambush marketing can prevail where competitors try to belittle each others product and brand without focussing on the needs of the customer and presence of a regulator.
• It is difficult to segregate between genuine and fake reviews and require a large effort on the part of companies and consumers to monitor the social media and gain insight out of these posts.