Are companies dealing in intangibles even more susceptible to brand reputation damage than those dealing in tangible products?

We know that stock markets seem to often defy logic. The financial sector which we might expect to be grounded in figures and statistics depends heavily upon reputation, legacy and history.  Yet over recent weeks and months we have seen tremors in world markets make financial companies appear incredibly fragile – brands which were surrounded by reputation and history can crumble on flimsy rumour and Chinese whispers. Perhaps the very fact that their real expertise and stability is so intangible makes them far more vulnerable than a smokestack brand that has tangible assets and visible products.

The internet effect

I have often looked at how internet marketing and digital media affect branding and brand strategies. But one obvious effect I overlooked is the development of new brand names where digital media is of critical importance. Anyone who is even a little SEO savvy knows if you can get search terms into urls you are ahead of the game. So now we see brands developing that are scarily descriptive of what the brand does. Online only brands have long used this approach, from lastminute.com onwards, but now we are seeing brands that exist in the normal retail and commercial worlds being named literally – doing ‘just what it says on the tin’.

I would love to know people’s favourite literal brand names.

Managing multiple personalities

There was a recent article in the New York Times, discussing how individuals present themselves in virtual worlds and the social internet. The author referred to the work of psychologist and sociologist, Erving Goffman who used the analogy of theatrical performance for the way we present ourselves to others in the world.

We all have multiple identities in this life – parent, child, workmate, lover, friend, enemy, teacher, pupil etc.  In the virtual world of social internet we present ourselves in various ways and manage out identities by subtle means. We choose or usernames or screen names to convey meaning; the interests we choose to list, the books and the music – out of all the things we could list, we are very selective to create subtle impressions, even though we often do this partly subconsciously.

Brands to do this: there are the explicit and overt things they do – the copy, the selection of images, the clients they choose to list. If we follow the brand as person model, it is like a person choosing to list Wittgenstein and Dickens in their book list rather than Jeffrey Archer and Harry Potter, where a brand might select multinationals with spotless records rather than dodgy arms dealers or polluting manufacturers.