Hi. Let's talk about second digital product concept, the doppelganger brand image. First of all, what's a doppelganger? It's kind of an unusual word. It's a German word so you German speakers can correct my pronunciation which I'm sure is incorrect. My understanding is the word doppelganger is actually a combination of two words. Doppel which in German means double. And ganger which means someone who is walking. So in essence a doppelganger is a double walker or, as we say in America, an alter ego. And this concept was derived in Germany in the 1500s with the idea that there was this myth that all of us had a doppelganger or an alter ego. And that if you or your friends saw the doppelganger that bad things would happen. So that's what we're talking about here is an alternative image, in this case of a brand, which is negative in fashion. So that's the basic idea. It's a long term so I think I'll just use the abbreviation DBI for most of this talk. So here's the basic idea.
Developing an appealing and distinctive brand image is an important part of any firm's product strategy. This strong brand image, which leads to brand equity, helps differentiate one firm's product offerings from those of its competitors. However since very few products have really large tangible differences in terms of product features, most branding efforts focus on intangible features and try to give their brands an emotional appeal.
Now while these appeals are attractive to some customers, many just ignore them, and a few may actually dislike them. In the past if you disliked a brand image you'd probably try to avoid the brand or you might share your dislike with your friends and your family over a dinner conversation. However today with the democratization of new digital tools such as the internet and blogs, you can do a lot more. For example, you could use digital design software. Digital cameras that you can buy very inexpensively, and digital editing programs, which often are free, combined with the internet allow you to actually remix or create your own version of a brand that you find offensive. This is the basic idea behind a doppelganger brand image or a DBI. And it happens all around us. Let me give you a few examples. Take, for example, the new Pepsi logo.
If you recall, Pepsi introduced this new logo about five years about in 2009. They paid a famous design firm a million dollars to create this new logo which, as you can see, is pretty much just a modification of its old logo. This new logo was heavily criticized by several internet blogs as being a waste of money. Even more than that, several graphic artists actually created a doppelganger version of this logo, as you can see, to represent an obese man, as a means of protesting against Pepsi's effect on our health. This doppelganger image, this campaign, quickly became an internet meme and increased attention on the negative effects of drinking Pepsi. A second example comes from the automotive industry. And this is a campaign that's known as FUH2. This creative viral internet campaign began in 2008 in response to General Motors' marketing of the Hummer SUV, specifically the Hummer H2 in the mid 2000s. Now General Motors tried to position this brand as the ultimate four wheel drive vehicle capable of taking on any challenge, and used the slogan, "Like nothing else."
The FUH2 campaign crafted a very effective doppelganger image focused not just on the brand itself, but also its owners which are portrayed as jerks who care little about the environment by driving this huge gas guzzler. A final example comes from the cigarette industry.
This is the Joe Chemo campaign which was an internet campaign created by an organization called Adbusters. And this organization has a lot of doppelganger images for different brands that it finds offensive. This particular campaign was against the Camel cigarette brand and a character known as Joe Camel which was very popular in the 1990s in the U.S. and also globally. In this doppelganger image the confident, cool and popular Joe Camel is replaced by this sick, depressed and lonely Joe Chemo. Shortly after this doppelganger campaign began, Joe Camel was withdrawn from the market. So those are a few examples.
Let's talk about the definition or what we're talking about in terms of a DBI. A doppelganger brand image is a collection of disparaging images and stories about a brand which are circulated in popular culture by a fairly loosely organized network of anti-brand activists, bloggers and opinion leaders. These images are usually focused on well known brands that are viewed as lacking authenticity, and trying to create a false or misleading emotional appeal through their promotional activities. So now let's take a bit of a deeper dive in to this concept. There's lots of interesting issues surrounding a DBI. For the purpose of this discussion I'd like to focus on three issues in particular. First of all, what would motivate somebody to create one of these doppelganger images? Clearly creating a DBI such as the Joe Chemo campaign takes lots of time and substantial energy. So why would somebody go through all the trouble of doing this?
Well, typically these efforts are motivated by a perception that a brand is being inauthentic by claiming to be something that it's not. By disguising its true nature. This indeed was the motive for the Joe Chemo campaign which was the result of anger and frustration that Joe Camel tried to portray smoking as fun and cool while ignoring its potential risks and dangers. A second interesting discussion is what types of brands are most susceptible to a DBI.
Typically most doppelganger images are focused against large, well known brands. These brands have a high degree of familiarity which means that their business practices are more likely to come to the attention of anti-brand activists.
In addition, DBI campaigns focused against larger brands are more likely to get attention than those focused against smaller brands so that the individuals who create these campaigns will get, you know, more play for what they do. Thus, for example, Walmart has several anti-branding doppelganger initiatives aimed against it, while Target, the second leading retailer in the U.S., has far fewer. For example, the "People of Walmart" viral video has over 10 million views while the "People of Target" video has only about 5,000. That's quite a difference.
Now many DBIs are created as a form of individual protest and thus are located on an individual's blog or Twitter feed or Facebook page. Sometimes, once in a while, these individual accounts are picked up by a larger online media outlet such as Reddit, Dig, Buzz Feed, or even traditional news channels.
For example, the Pepsi DBI that we talked about earlier was initially posted on its creator's blog. And this blog has very few followers even today, but it was then popularized on Buzz Feed in a feature that they ran called "Logos That Look Like Other Things." This Buzz Feed posting received over 300,000 views.
DBIs can also be found in other places such as websites of anti-brand activists like Adbusters. We can find DBIs for a collection of brands, including McDonalds, Starbucks, and Calvin Klein, just to name a few. Finally you can find DBIs also in some specialized initiatives targeted against specific brands. For example, Walmart has over a dozen websites dedicated against this retailer. For example, we have hell-mart.com and walmartsucks.org. Let's just point out that I don't endorse these sites and personally I love shopping at Walmart.
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