Building a Leading Brand: Pay Attention to Customer Experience and Safeguarding Brand Reputation
In reality, alongside fundamental brand-building activities, leading brands also need to find ways to differentiate themselves from competing rivals, provide the best experience for customers, and manage reputation risks effectively. More precisely, to build a leading brand, we need to safeguard the brand reputation.
Transform customers into followers, enthusiasts, and supporters
Today, consumers can distinguish between authentic brands and untrustworthy ones, between empty promises and truly effective initiatives.
A current prominent example of building an inauthentic brand resulting in severe consequences is Pepsi’s “Jump In” advertisement in 2017. The advertisement, named “Jump In,” featured model Kendall Jenner handing a can of Pepsi to a police officer during a protest, making everyone happy and friendly towards each other.
After receiving substantial criticism for trivializing the Black Lives Matter movement, Pepsi pulled the ad and issued an apology stating that the ad had missed the mark.
However, the damage had been done. Right after the ad was released, Pepsi experienced its lowest consumer perception in 10 years, especially losing support from the Millennial generation. What was the issue with the “Jump In” ad? Countless tweets and online articles described the same issue: a tone-deaf ad, representing the company’s intentions and trivializing the Black Lives Matter protest.
With this misstep in the advertisement, Pepsi demonstrated how challenging it is for a brand aiming for high interaction levels. They took a risk by targeting a broad audience and combining a cheerful, nostalgic tune with a firm stance on a polarizing social movement. Pepsi didn’t prepare for the intense public backlash. Moreover, the subsequent decline in sales also indicated that even the most popular brands can make branding mistakes.
To avoid such pitfalls in the process of building a leading brand, businesses must know who their target customers are and how they will react to the message and overall brand. Segment the business’s message to different target groups and personalize campaigns. This will ensure that the brand avoids widespread negative reactions.
Ultimately, focus on three core principles: establishing core values, prioritizing customer experience, and personalizing this experience while respecting consumer privacy.
Actions to protect the reputation of a leading brand
In the digital age, social media acts as an amplifier for negative content. Existing in this digital atmosphere means businesses must confront inevitable risks. Not every company can satisfy all customers and the public at all times. Facing negative reviews has become commonplace for leading brands. To maintain a lead, companies must proactively manage their reputation.
Social Listening
Today, many companies see positive changes due to listening to comments on social media, known as social listening. When a company makes a significant mistake or “loses points” like Pepsi did with Kendall Jenner’s ad, online criticism can guide a brand’s subsequent marketing campaigns in the right direction.
However, not all comments on social media are constructive. Social media can magnify individuals’ feelings and exaggerate negative experiences with a brand. This also offers competitors an opportunity to gain an advantage.
Hence, every business needs to understand the power of social media. By actively monitoring social media and other online channels, a business can have a contingency plan to appropriately address negative content based on the reality of the situation.
Monitoring Brand Reputation
Positive reputation monitoring enables a business to identify issues before they escalate into full-scale media crises. Brands can discover potentially damaging content by reviewing channels that customers use to search, including Google search and social media.
Monitoring a brand’s online reputation requires dedicated internal resources with the expertise to determine user sentiment and track related keyword searches.
Additionally, businesses can integrate online reviews with data from internal Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. CRM allows businesses to track customers’ journeys from initial contact to sales. Businesses can use this information to address specific customer concerns and avoid similar reviews in the future.
Swift Action
If you identify that your brand is receiving negative content on online platforms, you need to act quickly. Besides mitigating the situation with a public statement or addressing the issue with relevant customers, leading brands should have a plan to counteract negative content and produce positive content.
Managing Positive Reputation
Building a leading brand entails reputation management, requiring a proactive defensive strategy. This means not only removing negative content but also actively publishing positive content to rank higher than negative content on Google search.
To achieve this, a consistent schedule for publishing positive content should be established. The content should address relevant industry topics tailored to different brand target audiences. Utilize methods such as SEO optimization to push keywords to the top of Google, competitive analysis, and expert content creation. These strategies will help new content rise to the top of relevant Google search results and push down negative results.
Reputation Risk Management
Sincere efforts to build a leading brand create customers, fans, and advocates who spread information about the company, products, and services. The reward for actively managing a brand’s reputation accumulates over time, leading to financial growth, widespread brand awareness, and a competitive advantage.
However, whether leading or not, businesses face the risk of controversy, including baseless rumors and genuine mistakes. To build a leading brand and stay ahead, companies need to continually monitor their brand. Reputation risk management cannot be considered a sideline activity; it is an essential part of brand-building.
In the context of businesses relying on Google search to drive sales, monitoring and managing reputation can’t be overlooked. Without it, all businesses will face competitors launching campaigns with fake reviews or customer dissatisfaction comments to diminish the brand.
And of course, building a leading brand isn’t solely about this. There are many other strategic and well-planned activities that businesses need to execute to ensure worthy outcomes relative to the invested resources. With Metta, there’s no weak brand, only brands that aren’t yet resource-ready to become stronger. Metta will be the companion for businesses to build leading brands. Contact phung.metta@metta.com.vn for the best support and advice.
Metta Marketing
Leading Brand Strategy Consultant
