Have you witnessed a brand-jacking?
The latest hijacked brand that has garnered the attention of several news outlets is British Petroleum. The oil spill raging in the Gulf of Mexico has outraged consumers throughout the country. And then came the Twitter® account “@BPGlobalPR”, an unofficial feed that humorously portrays the misfortunes of the public relations department of British Petroleum—the company responsible for the oil spill.
The brand-jacked Twitter account has attracted more than 180,000 Twitter followers, over 10 times the Twitter follower base of the real British Petroleum Twitter account. The unofficial feed accomplished this by posting dark satirical jokes about British Petroleum, the cleanup efforts and the damage caused by the spill.
Because of this Twitter account, British Petroleum has lost an entire audience in social media at a time that’s critical for its public relations. Instead of taking control of its message to consumers, British Petroleum allowed someone else to take the lead, heightening its need for damage control.
When it comes to your brand—be greedy
In a recent interview, the author of the “@BPGlobalPR” Twitter account said that he created it because he was frustrated with British Petroleum’s public relations department. If brands are really subject to the whim of one person’s frustrations, they need to be better prepared. If British Petroleum had been more proactive with its online presence, the damage caused by this Twitter feed may have been avoided.
Plan like it’s going to happen
While there are a variety of reasons why brands get hijacked, companies who specialize in protecting them suggest that the best thing to do is be prepared. MarkMonitor, a private company who actively alerts companies about suspected brand hijackings online, has several useful tips in developing a brand protection plan.
Most likely, your company has some kind of plan that you follow in case of fire. But why don’t you have a plan for what happens in case somebody sets fire to your brand? A brand protection plan can help both plan and prevent a brand-jacking from occurring. Some components that MarkMonitor suggests:
- Owning your mark: Your brand protection plan has to include complete domain and social media name registration. This means putting variants on your name in the plural form and using ‘the’ in front of your brand name.
- Becoming narcissistic: Don’t forget to include misspellings and negative variants in your social media and domain registrations. By having control of these domains, you ensure that nobody else can register the domains and use it to harm your brand.
- Training the guardians of your brand: Include brand-jacking plans and procedures as part of continued training of public relations and marketing employees. This includes preparing your responses just in case someone tries to take control of your brand.
- Getting comfortable with this process: Registering domain and social media names is a continuous process as your brand gets bigger. So make sure to automatically renew the domains you’ve registered. Also, continually staying abreast of social media trends can give your company a head start in registering your brand before somebody else does.
The response your company has to brand-jacking needs to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. But being continually proactive about monitoring your brand can help limit damages and keep your brand from becoming the next online parody.
Twitter is a registered trademark of Twitter Inc.
References
Brand Abuse Terms. (n.d.). MarkMonitor.
Danchev, D. (2008, June 3). Online brand-jacking increasing. ZDNet.
Ehrlich, B. (2010, May 25). Fake BP public relations Twitter account a viral hit. Mashable.
Hesseldahl, A. (2007, May 1). 'Brandjacking' on the Web. BusinessWeek.
McCarthy, C. (2010, May 27). Fake BP Twitter account remains shrouded in mystery. CNET News.
Parekh, R. (2010, June 4). Ten questions with @BPGlobalPR. Advertising Age.
Parish, N. (2009, March 4). Snacklash: Snickers online effort brandjacked by a familiar face. AdCritic.
Popkin, H. A. (2010, May 25). BPTwitter account is one big joke. msnbc.com.
Suciu, P. (n.d.). Fight the faux: Battling cybersquatting. Inc Technology.
