Worthwhile Reading — Brands Imposing Their Will

Here are some topics of interest I’ve read recently. Definitely worth your time to read.

• Man’s ‘pants’ password is changed — Interesting issue. If your customer refers to your brand in a disparaging way, do you have the ‘right’ to make unauthorized changes to the customer’s account? I’d say no.
• AMC Asks Twitter to Remove ‘Mad Men’ Accounts — Over the past month I started getting followed on Twitter by Don Draper, Joan Holloway, Peggy Olson and other characters from the great AMC show Mad Men. I explored their profiles, they were having fun banter between them. Seems that AMC didn’t take kindly to fans of the show posing as characters. Sure lawyers must always advise that you protect your copyrights. But putting your foot down on fans leads to damaging your valuable relationship with them.

Brands must proactively recognize the long term harm of their actions. A disagreement with a single person can easily become a PR headache.

There’s a definite message in these examples.

• Do you have a specific policy in place to handle interactions with customers and fans? If so, does your staff/vendors know the course of action to take?
• Decide clearly on what is acceptable use versus infringement.
• Embrace fans who want to promote your message.
• Open dialogue with customers who have are expressing negative opinions.

I hope you find this useful. Please feel free to send me links to relevant articles.

Have a great week!
-Roland