Brand Lag

Brand lag: That period of time where brands try and catch up to what its consumers are currently doing. (Ok, I’m a Wiki protologism whore, sue me.) There’s a few relevant discussions going on at Micro Persuasion and Church of the Customer about social sites like YouTube, Myspace and Flickr acting as a brand’s focus group for what’s being said about them. Sometimes, brands and brand managers just take forever to catch up and listen to what their consumers want.

These days though, that can negatively affect a brand more than it ever has because bad word-of-mouse can make or break you sooner, rather than later, while good wom can put you on the map. Worth noting is a manifesto at Cluetrain I discovered a while back and linked to, but still is very relevant to the issue of consumers rising up.


Tags: brands, consumer, marketing