Interesting to see two quite iconic consumer brands - Marks and Spencer with its boob job, and the Evening Standard's Sorry campaign - happily stepping up and - shock horror - spending very serious media money apologising to consumers.
Traditionally this is the turf of the corporate communications folks ... spin territory rather than core branding. It speaks to me of a number of lurking communications issues going large:
- Do it ... or have it done to you. Brands see now - very much the case with M&S's big boob - that failing to respond when consumers - with either warmth or hostility - open the dialogue is potentially hugely destructive.
- Quality will out. If what you've been doing for your consumers doesn't come up to scratch and is hurting the business, admit it and build on the resulting goodwill to recreate the brand from ground up. Doesn't hurt, we note, in the case of the Standard, to have a Russian trillionaire writing the cheques, of course, but even so ...
- The micromedia tail wags the macromedia dog. Social media - very much the case in the M&S boob scenario - is beginning to call the tune for big media.
And of course, what will be most interesting is to see how The New Transparency plays out elsewhere.
Now, about those MP's expenses? (But let's make sure the public purse isn't co-opted by the COI to fund the - perhaps inevitable - mea culpa's to come from Parliament!)
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