A clear consumer choice is apathy, ignoring a brand. Sellers have to put a lot of energy into capitalizing buyers’ attention, and brands are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Brands are more present in our lives today than they were in the 90s, 30 years ago, but as consumers we still want to believe that they do not influence us and that, in any case, we are free to choose between competing brands .
That consumers criticize the big brands is nothing new. Since at least the 1960s, people have worn T-shirts with modified versions of famous logos. Some organizations such as adbusters.org have modified and altered billboards to turn a brand’s message around.
In 2000, anti-capitalism reached its peak with the publication of the Book
No logoby Naomi Klein, who curiously used a logo on the cover of her book. His attack on the marketing and labor practices of the companies responsible for some of the world’s biggest brands sparked a storm. The book was refuted by The economist, which pointed out that, rather than exploiting consumers, brands are required to earn their trust and, therefore, are an instrument through which consumers can hold corporations responsible and above all, take action. Large companies that have been singled out year after year for generating garbage and pollution, have focused on generating packaging that is biodegradable or used by other companies to create tennis from recycled bottles, this in order not to alter their reputation.
On the other hand, and with the arrival of social networks, “consumer tyranny” has increased. Chris Anderson, founder of Wired magazine, mentioned: “Your brand is what Google says it is, not what you say. what it is “, which was intended to imply that any disgruntled and resentful consumer can use the networks to destroy years of good reason.
Undoubtedly, shopping habits are still based on emotion, which makes us feel a brand, not necessarily the functional benefit of the product.
Consumers can influence brand meaning with both negative and positive actions. Technology, social networks, have given consumers great power to react to producers or brands, we are in a time when the most successful and durable brands will be those that take advantage of consumers’ ideas and turn them into a pillar permanent brand development.