Blame the name

The recent controversy and furore over Surf Excel's Holi advertisement had Microsoft Excel bearing the brunt of social media trolls and attacks. Netizens confused the two brands despite them existing for decades and operating in distinctly different segments.

Two years ago, certain comments by Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel on India had social media aficionados not just trolling Snapchat, but also the e-commerce site Snapdeal. Almost a decade back, controversial ads by the innerwear brand Amul Macho had consumers confused and outraged over why dairy giant Amul had to sell innerwear and resort to cheap theatrics. 

Brand confusion in consumers' minds is rampant and impacts brands in multiple ways.

According to CompuMark, an agency for trademark research and protection, almost 74% of brands globally have experienced some form of trademark infringement due to the existence of other brands with names that sound similar. CompuMark estimates show that 44% of brands that have encountered trademark infringement have identified customer confusion as the biggest after-effect, while 40% have spoken of revenue loss. In this day and age of social media, this loss is immense.

“Amul had to face challenges when Amul Macho was launched. This creates ambiguity in consumers' minds. Frustration and confusion of consumers, loss in brand loyalty and effect on brand recall are other factors that impact a brand. The confusion happens as Indian consumers get easily swayed away by emotion and the understanding of the brand identity is low. Being emotionally swayed can cause a rage on social media,” says Saurabh Pacheriwal, co-founder, Gemius.

When hashtags reign supreme, similarity in brand names often gives way to hashtags trending for the wrong brand, causing a big drop in the image, says Ashish Shah, founder and CEO, Vertoz.

According to Prateek N Kumar, CEO and managing director, NeoNiche, what lies at the centre of such controversies is the innate fear of missing out (Fomo). “Usually, someone starts the topic with a trending hashtag, fact-checking takes a back seat and the wildfire creates an equivalent of internet Chinese whispers.”

Experts feel a lot of “confusion'' also happens due to meme marketing tactics. “Probably, it could be that someone somewhere just wanted to have fun and started the whole thread of conversation, dragging in another brand. No one can ever clarify this. With a lot of fake content being shared, it is very quick to start and spread rumours. And when such brand confusion happens, people who are reading about it are more interested from a fun point of view or seeing how innovative the meme being circulated is,” says Sonam Shah, founder and CEO, Treize Communications.

Brands need to speak out and clear consumer doubts over their names. Brands should firstly consolidate their public image, feel experts. 

“This can be accomplished by running branding campaigns and delivering the relevant brand communication to the right audience, at the right time, which improves brand recall,'' says Shah from Vertoz, who adds that programmatic advertising, which relies on algorithms to purchase and sell ads real time, can be a great tool in managing ad strategies. “The specific targeting that programmatic provides can be a boon for brands to reach out specifically to the people that are most affected by the miscommunication of brand identity.''

Another way of addressing such situations is to come out quickly and build a funny brand story, feel experts.

Says Shah from Treize, “The brand (in this case MS Excel), should come up with an interesting comeback in the form of a video and join in the fun while addressing the issues. It should be a mix of both fun and education wherein they express the issue and explain the difference.''

Agrees Kumar, who feels brands need to build a funny story around their ethos and use social and traditional media to dish out this story. “MS Excel can, for example, talk about its multi-cultural background and weave it with humour by saying something like MS Excel is a good spreadsheet which can capture the misplaced statistics of this fallout with a trending hashtag of their own like #5FactsaboutMSExcel, etc.”

A customary email by the brand clarifying their position and stating that they are not under the radar can also mitigate the crisis, say experts.

BATTLING THE NEMESIS

Almost 74% - Of brands globally have experienced some form of trademark infringement due to the existence of other brands with names that sound similar

44% - Of brands that have encountered trademark infringement have identified customer confusion as the biggest after-effect

40% - Have spoken of revenue loss