Message to Brand: Stop Trying to Be My Friend and Just Leave Me Alone

Posted Apr 19 in Opinion, Uncategorized tagged

I’ve noticed a lot of social media twits talking about brands needing to treat people ‘like a friend’. Unfairly, I’ve picked one here as an example. Why is this concept so silly?

And so on….

Now not only do I not want brands to try and be my friend, normally I want them to leave me completely alone. OK sometimes I want brands to entertain me, or shock me, or educate me, or even liberate me. But mostly I want brands to leave me the hell alone (don’t we all??)

The exception to this is when a brand gives me more than it takes – this is normally at the point of consumption. That bowl of Corn Flakes gives me a tasty breaky – and doesn’t ask to much for the privilege (unlike a friend it doesn’t demand that I talk to them, or make them breakfast in return). However, what about when communicating with me. How does a brand give more than it takes. It simply either useful, informative or entertaining to such a level that I feel the attention I gave / it took was (more than) worth it. The value exchange was in my favour.

If I were a brand – and I was desperate to make friends – I would leave the poor consumer alone (face it chances are you’re an inanimate object) and instead make friends with other brands. Realise that people don’t consume brands in isolation – they consume brands as little brand collectives (with my Kellogg’s Corn Flakes I enjoy Pura Milk, CSR Brown Sugar, and a copy of the Sydney Morning Herald). As far as I am concerned none of these obviously synergistic brands has ever tried to be friends with each other – yet they’ve all screamed their respective merits of friendship at me.

If I were a ‘social media expert’ I would limit my advice to how brands can best utilise the social media space – and ground this in carefully considered insights not random opinion.

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Comments

  1. Tannie

    Apr 19th, 2009

    I actually heard a similar point on the gen y podcast. They didn’t go into so much detail or explain a solution but I found it quite interesting when they did it so much so that I made a video in reply.

    You’ve made some very good points here and if you want to hear my take you can find it at.

    http://gruentransfer.blogspot.com/2009/04/aniblog-skittles-are-my-bff-reply-to.html

  2. Matt Moore

    Apr 19th, 2009

    This is exactly why I’m a little suspicious of the sudden interest by companies in “online communities”.

    Do I want brands to be my friends? No but I do want a commercial relationship based on mutual respect – as emerged in this discussion on Nathan’s blog – http://anotheradvertisingwanker.blogspot.com/2009/01/its-not-love.htmlFor example I would like to have a better relationship with my bank, I would like that relationship to have an online component and I would like that to be personalised (i.e. I would like a relationship with a small # of named staff at said bank rather than with “the bank”). They are not currently set up to provide that tho.

    “Frenemy” is the word that seems to describe most of my b**** relationships.

  3. Daniel Oyston

    Apr 19th, 2009

    I don’t like the analogy of friend either. However, following your thought on brands becoming friends with each other, and risking strengthening the analogy …

    If a whole lot of people you liked started hanging out together, and you knew them but wasn’t really “in the gang”, but wanted to, then I would hazard a guess that you would be pretty receptive (and influenced by) what that group would have to say.

    And also jump at the chance to be part of the group.

    Push vs Pull?

    When you meet someone in person for the first time you don’t automatically become friends just because you know “of” someone/a brand. For example, you and I leave comments on each others blogs but if/when we finally meet for coffee we won’t automatically be “best friends”. Instead, friendship is built over time and may or may not even happen.

    I think brands sometimes forget about this and/or try to skip to the friend part

  4. Eloise

    Apr 20th, 2009

    i predict the comments left on this post will cover most active marketing cliches that people who don’t actually work in advertising like to use to generate new business.

    we have enough experts who can solve all the worlds complex problems and weekend sociologists in advertising, we don’t need more

  5. Ben Shepherd

    Apr 20th, 2009

    btw the above was from me not my fiancee

  6. Dennis Price

    Apr 20th, 2009

    You are asking too much ;-0

    And, BTW: the captcha code below reads ‘pooflose’ – that is a work begging for a meaning…

  7. Zac Martin

    Apr 20th, 2009

    Basic marketing, exchange value, blah blah.

    If the brand is annoying you with their social media strategy then they are clearly not providing you with more value than they’re taking.

    But as you said, “sometimes I want brands to entertain me, or shock me, or educate me, or even liberate me”, that’s when brands need to be entertaining, shocking, educating or even liberating you. This might even mean they do it through social media.

    I don’t want to talk to all of my friends all the time. But I suppose analogies aren’t meant to be taken beyond a certain point. ;]

  8. Fritz Bachen

    Apr 20th, 2009

    Ben I didnt quite understand your comment.

    Zac – check out passiveagressivenotes.com – Im not sure if ending sentances where you disagree with someone and leaving a smiley face is listed as passive aggressive – but there is an argument for it to be. Also, I love brands playing in social media – we do it a lot. I think the analogy of a brand acting like a friend is a limited anolgy – it’s plain wrong.

    Thanks to contributing to those that did.

  9. Kate Richardson

    Apr 21st, 2009

    You eat cornflakes for breakfast? It ain’t right

  10. Jye Smith

    Apr 21st, 2009

    Hey Fritz,

    Thanks for the shout out. Always good to get a mention.

    I think you’ve got some great points here, but I really want to reiterate my first couple of lines of my post:

    “We all like visualising our brands as people with attributes and traits. But I want you to go further — I want you to imagine your brand as a friend.”

    I wasn’t trying to be prescriptive, but rather just get people to start thinking about this, simply because I was and wanted to get some more opinions on the matter.

    I really take on some of your points, and sure, this mightn’t work for a toothpaste, but as outlined in my comments, I was looking for a one-size fits all approach.

    Echoing Zac’s comments, if it’s really bothering a person, then it’s probably not the right brand or not the right approach. Definitely in social media anyway.

    And yeah, probably didn’t mean for my quick analogy to be so definite, but will disagree that it was a random opinion.

    Thanks for your comments.

  11. Daniel Oyston

    Apr 21st, 2009

    @Kate, it is worse that he lives in Melbourne but reads the SMH in the mornings :)

  12. Ben Shepherd

    Apr 21st, 2009

    Hi Fritz – I was just saying I predict the comments around this post will be lively and will no doubt include many current marketing cliches around ‘brands as friends’ and ‘social currency’ and ‘dialogue’ and other nice words.

    BTW Good point around brands making friends with other similar/complimentary brands. That’s what I thought all the global networks most of us are employed by set out to achieve but it doesn’t seem to be the way.

  13. Fritz Bachen

    Apr 21st, 2009

    Hi Jye, your comments make a lot of sense. Thanks for your measured reply. Daniel thanks for pointing that out – but there really is no difference between The Age and SMH – is there??

    Ben – arhhh I understand – and you’re right. There are a load of communications hsortcuts used in marketing where we can all bluff our way through from time to time!!

  14. Zac Martin

    Apr 21st, 2009

    Damn psychologists, analysing my comments.

  15. Simon

    Apr 22nd, 2009

    I really liked this post. I’ve been perplexed by the brand love brigade and most of it has been driven by the plethora of social media experts. A brand is a way of differentiating an otherwise generic product. I have friends who sell sporting gear from China. It costs $5 a shirt from the factory. They have 2 brands theirs which sell at $50 and the same shirt with a brand at $120. The person who buys the brand buys it because it communicates status, quality style etc. It’s a beacon to facilitate the transaction. I’m with you I don’t need brands to be my friend. When I’m ready to buy I’ll make the call on a category by category case as to whether I’ll share the love and go for a brand.

  16. Ian

    Apr 22nd, 2009

    Agree totally. Brands must be very careful how they use new media. Too many companies are applying old logics/models/metrics to the new social media because they feel they need to do something. Also how twitter and youtube get captured as the same is a mystery to me. Recent forrester article on ‘connected’ agencies is an eye opener, the need to work on a micro level with real insight and understanding..sounds like naked creds, better stop.

  17. Daniel Oyston

    Jun 30th, 2009

    Saw this comment on The Ad Contrarian blog that I thought you'd like 9and it reminded me of this post).

    By bloke called Josh

    I really wish brands would stop pretending to be my friend and just stick to selling me stuff. It's like that rich guy at Yankee Stadium that comes out of his suite for an inning and sits in the cheap seats and has a dog and a beer and thinks that he's connecting and getting to know the "regular guy".

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    Dec 14th, 2011

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