In an article published in AdAge last week, Jack Neff featured a statement made at the recent ANA Conference in Phoenix by Brad Casper, CEO of the U.S. division of Henkel: “New media—social media and digital—has been the great equalizer.” (Henkel, a major manufacture of household products in Europe, has a relatively small presence in the U.S. through brands such as SoftScrub, Dial, and Tone). Neff took Casper’s statement a step further and asked “Have digital and social media leveled the marketing playing field so much that scale is losing its power?”  My answer: I doubt it.

Scale brings advantages and disadvantages, and it always has. Increased scale typically allows better distribution, wider reach, and improved loyalty (see my post on Double Jeopardy). But large-scale operations can also be plagued by a lack of focus, ineffective internal communication, and slow response. Could these issues limit the ability of big brands to operate effectively in the world of social media?

Many people believe that big brands can do little right in that area. A couple of months ago, Bill Hunt asked, “Will big brands be the death of social media?” The concern he expressed in his blog post was that big brands will enter the social arena without any real understanding of how or why it works. He suggested that this would result in “unsuccessful programs and frustration leading to the ultimate downfall of social media marketing.”

This commentary is symptomatic of the current attitude that prevails in the marketing and media press, which is “Big brands are guilty until proven innocent.” For instance, commentators on another AdAge article were quick to take Coca-Cola to task over its Expedition 206 project, the global search for happiness. (Click here for story.) They felt that instead of being limited to answering questions and submitting ideas, fans should be able to engage in open debate. But is that really essential to the success of the project, or is it just a knee-jerk assumption on the part of social media buffs?

According to Jack Neff, the cleaning brand Method, along with its founder Eric Ryan, got a lot of attention at the ANA conference for its success in taking on the behemoths of household packaged goods. Referring to the need to focus his company’s employees on social media, General Mills CMO Mark Addicks said “If we can’t leverage our scale, then we’re vulnerable to a bunch of Eric Ryans.”

But I would take issue with the implication that the giant brands are vulnerable to brands like Method if they cannot use their scale effectively in social media. That is because I don’t think that Method’s success is due to the brand’s use of new media. Rather, everything I know about Method suggests that its success is entirely due to the successful challenger strategy they adopted. Their effective use of new media is simply the icing on the cake.

Method succeeded by moving into an established category, where the big incumbents were hostages to their own success, and turning their advantages against them. The video for Method, below, is a classic execution of this strategy. It shows a woman first entranced by her “Shiny Suds” cleaner, and later repelled by it, when she becomes aware of the chemical residue it leaves behind. A shiny tub is no longer an advantage when people are focused on how it got that way.

Last year I addressed the question “Can a brand become so big that it goes bad?” I suggested that there is a subtle shift in the growth drivers between small and large brands. To succeed and grow, smaller brands depend more on factors like discovery, identity, and trendiness. When a brand puts these factors to work behind an innovative product line that addresses an emerging need, social success is the likely result, whether communication takes place online or off. That’s what happened with Method. And having achieved considerable success, Method still has the clarity of purpose to engage people in open discussion online, putting its viewpoint forward and responding appropriately to consumer comment.

Larger brands rely more on perceived popularity and people’s desire to go with the mainstream, to stick with something proven. In that context, maybe Coca-Cola’s Expedition 206 is just right after all. It is the online equivalent of a reality TV show. People can follow the progress of three ambassadors and vote in a similar fashion to Big Brother or the host of other reality shows out there. It is a familiar format and well suited to a brand like Coca-Cola.

In my opinion, new media is neither leveling the playing field nor undermining the power of scale. Great strategy and creativity are critical whether your brand is big or small. Get out of step with people’s needs and mindsets, and your brand will be vulnerable no matter how big you are.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 at 10:31 pm and is filed under Brands, Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Print this Page