Another face in the currency

This text is an article published in El Diario Levante and can be read here

A few days ago, the popular American clothing brand "Gap" decided to change its logo in order to add a touch of sophistication to the firm, changing the shape of the letters and the background color. This change was announced on the website of the mark and the signature page has on Facebook, which has over 725 000 fans and received 1,080 comments opposing the measure. In much the same thing happened Twitter was the subject of debate for a long time.

Given this unprecedented protest campaign, the brand invited fans to submit new proposals for designs for logos, together, get a better picture. But they were clear what, they wanted the old logo, which takes in the canopies of the shops and in the stock over 20 years. Finally, after a week of frenzied debate on the network, the company returned to the classic version of its logo, but not before promising their fans that next steps would learn from their mistakes.

All these reactions do suspect that it is a marketing campaign orchestrated by the company. If so, it would be to congratulate the inventor of such a strategy, because the brand has been the talk of thousands of people, within a week.

Such is the power exerted by social networks for immediacy in issuing opinions that are able to get a clothing company to rectify a decision that involves a re-branding and innovation investment to the brand itself. If all the opinions expressed through the network, about a product or brand are taken into account in this measure by managers and entrepreneurs would be facing a new form of market control from the hands of the user. To continue, the demand for a product by the consumer does not know the volume of such sales, but by the number of comments received through the network, even before it on the market. And that's a problem.

The network users project their desire to convert your favorite brands in goods from his property, rebelled against them when making decisions and taking advantage of existing innovative hand in the use of feedback. The mark should be accepted by the user as it is: a service or product offered by a company that is owned by others, not the user.

Social networks should be a tool, a support point for brands, targeted assistance to improve the product, but not an obligation, it would be a total loss of brand identity.

Until now companies have used social networks as advertising system, an immediate information exchange between user and company, very useful for both, but had not considered the possibility that there was another side to the coin.

Tags: marketing campaign , facebook , gap logo , brand , social networks , twitter