Corporate branding in the age of
Ben Edwards
Director, IBM New Media Communications
© 2006 IBM Corporation

Corporate branding in the age of
About Ben
Former journalist: 14 years in “legacy media”
Nine years at The Economist as reporter, foreign correspondent and
editor
May 2005: joined IBM
August 2005: launched IBM’s podcasting program
April 2006: appointed head of New Media Communications
Oversee New Media strategy and corporate policy
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding in the age of
What is New Media Communications?
Roles and Responsibilities
• Establish social media skills among IBM Communications teams
around the world. Develop enterprise applications for these social
media capabilities across all communications disciplines, from
internal communications to media relations and marketing
• Establish the business value of New Media Communications,
demonstrating:
• Lower costs and improved effectiveness of existing communications
• Innovation in communications to connect with audiences in different
ways
• Establish IBM Communications as a valued resource for the
corporation as it adopts social media
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding in the age of
Why New Media Communications?
Social media is gaining rapid acceptance as an inexpensive, easy-to-
use set of tools for creating, sharing and discovering information
and social connections
5m articles in 229 languages
Wikipedia has published
200,000 videos get uploaded to YouTube every day
tens of thousands of podcasts
iTunes lists
50m blogs
Technorati tracks more than
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding in the age of
Why New Media Communications?
Inside IBM, social media is also gaining rapid acceptance among
IBMers as an inexpensive, easy-to-use way to create, share and
discover enterprise information and business connections
24,600 registered users
BlogCentral has
620 podcasts and has recorded
IBM’s podcasting pilot lists
820,000 downloads
70,000 registered users
Wikicentral has
6,000 users have created 100,000 tags
Dogear’s
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding in the age of
BlogCentral: registered users
25,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
5,000
0
2003 2004 2005 2006
Source: Webahead
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding in the age of
Podcasting pilot: episode downloads per month
180,000
160,000
140,000
120,000
E pis ode dow nloads
100,000
80,000
60,000
40,000
20,000
0
Oct-05 Nov-05 Dec-05 Jan-06 Feb-06 Mar-06 Apr-06 May-06 Jun-06 Jul-06 Aug-06
Source: Webahead
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding in the age of
Wikicentral: registered users
70,000
60,000
50,000
N um ber of us ers
40,000
30,000
20,000
10,000
0
Dec-05 Jan-06 Feb-06 Mar-06 Apr-06 May-06 Jun-06 Jul-06 Aug-06
Source: Webahead
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding in the age of
The rise of social media heralds the advent of a
new communications paradigm
Social media are not about the technology
Social media should not be thought of as new “channels” for
distributing existing content and messages
Social media offer fundamentally new ways for creating,
sharing and discovering information and social connections
Social media have different economics
Social media create different audience expectations
Social media demand different communications skills from
those who use them
In sum: social media herald the advent of a new
communications paradigm
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding in the age of
The New Communications Paradigm
Mass Media Social Media
Publisher Professional publishing Self-publishing
Economics High cost Low cost
Audience Mass Niche
Engagement Passive Active
Voice Institutional Individual
Communications Publisher Enabler
Marketing Advertising Publishing
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding and the
New Communications Paradigm
© 2006 IBM Corporation

Corporate branding in the age of
August 2006
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding in the age of
Brands began life as symbols of product quality and
consistency
July 1942
June 1917
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Corporate branding in the age of
By the 1960s and 1970s, brands began morphing into
symbols of consumer identity…
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Corporate branding in the age of
…and more recently into symbols of our social aspirations
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Corporate branding in the age of
The prevailing orthodoxy: Social Media represent a loss of
corporate “control” over the brand
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Corporate branding in the age of
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding in the age of
In truth, corporations lost control of their
brands the moment they became symbols of
our dreams, aspirations and identities
After all, who constructs and controls
identity?
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Corporate branding in the age of
Who won the Beetle battle?
The engineers in Wolfsburg, Germany?
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Corporate branding in the age of
…and when brands fail us – when their products
and their behaviors no longer help us to project
the identities we want to project to the world…
…we punish them mercilessly
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Corporate branding in the age of
August 6, 2001 August 7, 2006
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding in the age of
Since 2000…
has lost 31% of its brand value, or $2.9 billion
has lost 29% of its brand value, or $4.7 billion
has lost 63% of its brand value, or $7.4 billion
has lost 70% of its brand value, or $25.3 billion
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding in the age of
As brands engage with social issues, brand insecurity
may be worsening
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Corporate branding in the age of
So what has changed
between us and them?
1. They can create and share the brand themselves
2. We can listen better
3. We can create and share the brand with them
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding in the age of
1. They can create and share the brand themselves
Mass Media: brand construction was a negotiation between the
corporation and the customer’s wallet, intermediated and
influenced by the mass media
Social Media: self-publishing tools and social-networking services
let audiences of all kinds discover communities of interest and
publish the brand to each other
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding in the age of
How brands live (and die, horribly) on
On people are…
•Celebrating your brand
•Mocking your brand
•Mashing up your brand with other brands
•Making your brand perform strange and
unnatural acts
…
And it’s not just on
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Corporate branding in the age of
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding in the age of
2. We can listen better
Mass Media: corporations had few opportunities outside of focus
groups to listen to what their audiences thought about the brand
Social Media: with employees, shareholders, customers, suppliers
and partners all publishing about the brand, corporations have a
great opportunity to listen to what they have to say
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding in the age of
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding in the age of
3. We can create and share the brand with them
(if it’s that sort of brand)
Mass Media: corporations indulged fantasies of control, pouring
wasted resources into fruitless attempts to dictate the brand
Social Media: social media present an opportunity for corporations
to change attitudes. We can’t control. But we can influence. By
inviting the audience to create and share the brand with us, we can
hope for maximum influence
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding in the age of
And by listening and sharing…
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Corporate branding in the age of
…we have a shot at making our brands more
secure and more healthy
Brands are at their strongest and healthiest and
most secure when the stories we tell about
ourselves are the stories our employees and
our customers and our suppliers tell about
us…
…and social media allow us to share the
storytelling
© 2006 IBM Corporation
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Corporate branding in the age of
An agenda for change
1. Don’t try to segment your audience. Nurture a brand
which employees, customers and all constituencies can
relate to, emotionally and intellectually
2. Provide employees with the means to tell their own
stories about the brand, and in their own words
3. Listen. Listen to what employees are saying about the
brand. Listen to what customers, partners, suppliers and
shareholders are saying about the brand
4. See 1.
5. Where there is potential for a positive outcome, engage to
influence
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