Mark Twain is credited with the quote, “Never pick a fight with a man who buys his ink by the barrel.” This is an allusion to 19th century technology. Today we can make a similar 21st century parallel. As was pointed out in the Ad Age article entitled, “Comcast Must Die,” today we would say, don’t get in a dispute with someone who has access to a computer and who is mad and persistent because he can make your life a living hell.
This idea of making someone’s life a living hell reminds me of an old episode from the 80s series, Miami Vice. In that episode, the main character, Sonny Crockett a police vice detective, was questioning a reluctant source of information. The source was not as forthcoming as Sonny would have preferred so Sonny said to the source that he (Sonny) would “clear my desk of all my other cases and make your life a living hell.” Sonny would be mad enough and persistent enough to get what he wanted. If he had had a blog, he probably could have cut in half the time required for that task. Or maybe not, Sonny could be pretty persuasive with just a scowled countenance and a .45 hanging from his underarm.
The same ideas apply to today’s social media participants. They don’t have .45s hanging from their underarms. Well, maybe some do, but I hope that most don’t. But, if mad enough, persistent enough, net-savvy even somewhat enough, individuals can while boosted by the crowd-inspired power present in social media, electrified by the resulting contagion, driven by instinct, and augmented by the anonymity in the social media crowd, turn their instinctual dislike of institutional power into a nightmare for any given company. They can “clear their desks of all their other cases” and make the life of an institution, and those who work there, a living hell.
If that’s doesn’t qualify as a threat against corporate brand equity management, then I don’t know what does. And if brand equity management is threatened, and if the brand identity is the basis upon which the company operates, then truly all companies are being threatened.
So what are you going to do about it?
