Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Chipotle was the latest brand to engage in a “fake Twitter hack” marketing stunt, following in the footsteps of MTV and BET a few months ago. The intention behind these stunts is to clearly boost fans and followers for their brands, but, unfortunately, exposes a major flaw in how brand see their customers and how their perception of social is flawed. Furthermore, these types of theatrics deter from the game-change possibilities of how brands and customers can build mutually beneficial and long lasting relationships through these platforms...

...Great brands, however, avoid this mistake by conceiving of their brands as strategic platforms. Their brands comprise the values and attributes that define and distinguish the value they deliver to people through entire customer experiences and the way they do business. They use their brands as management tools to fuel, align, and guide everything they do....

The Starbucks Coffee marketing research department is kept busy providing oodles and oodles of insights into the Starbucks brand through yearly brand audits. And take it from this former long-time Starbucks marketer: The company learns a lot from these studies.

However, when it comes to measuring and managing the Starbucks brand on a daily basis, the Starbucks marketing department generally relies on a much simpler method—a brand checkbook.

Just as your personal checkbook has credits and debits, a brand checkbook has credits and debits in the form of brand credits and brand debits. "Brand credits" are business activities that enhance the reputation and perception people have of a brand, and "brand debits" are those that detract from the reputation and perception of the brand....