Arthur Germain from the Communications Strategy Group posted a piece called “Does your brand have a front man”. It’s well thought out and he makes the argument that brands should encourage a strong personality within the company to be tightly associated to the brand, a front man if you will. You can find his post here.
I disagree. Making one person a core element of a brand is very risky. It can be powerful, yes. People love to connect with other people, especially those they admire. But what happens when the person falters, has health problems, dies, retires, acts like a jerk, or screws up? Martha Stewart comes to mind. Arthur mentions Jobs and his health problems. GE struggled when Welch retired.
In the past when most, if not all, communications were one way, the notion of a single person as the core element of a brand were few and far between. For every Jobs there are thousands of nameless CEO’s.
Social Media is changing that. Social media is a two way conversation and increasingly, individuals are becoming the know entity for a brand. Frank from Comcast. Jeffrey W. Hayzlett is the strongest voice on twitter for Kodak, @JeffreyHayzlett. More and more companies are placing incredible power in the hands of one individual. Big mistake.
Barry Judge is the
CMO of Best Buy and has become a strong voice of that company in twitter. His twitter name is @bestbuycmo. He had an exchange with an influential blogger in twitter and he came off like a real jerk.
That hurt the brand. I watched it unfold, made a judgment (Barry is a real jerk) and then my judgment and perception transferred over to Best Buy… what kind of company hires jerks like that to run things?
This will become a larger problem as more and more companies empower an individual with the power of being the brand through conversation in social media.
What my company recommends is that a well thought out engagement manual is created that clearly spells out the dos and donts and establishes the brand voice. We also recommend that several people represent the brand in social media. A cross functional team is best. Brands are much too important to leave in the hands of one person, even if that person is Barry Judge, Steve Jobs or Jack Welch.
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