Power relations within brand management: the challenge of social media

• Published in: The journal of brand management Vol. 25; no. 2; pp. 85 - 92
• Main Authors: Leitch, Shirley, Merlot, Elizabeth
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Palgrave Macmillan UK 01.03.2018; Palgrave Macmillan
• Subjects: Brand management; Brands; Business and Management; Commentary; Consumers; Customer relations; Management; Marketing; Power; Social networks
• ISSN: 1350-231X; 1479-1803
• DOI: 10.1057/s41262-017-0081-1

This paper has sought to map the diverse ways that social media has fundamentally disrupted power relations within brand management. Social media has altered the dynamics of the relationship between brands and brands consumers as well as between consumers themselves. Social media has introduced new social practices, especially new practices that are consumer-centric rather than brand-centric. The processes whereby knowledge is created and legitimated have been upended in the fast-paced, sharing culture of social media, which privileges immediacy over veracity as part of the phenomenon of post-truth culture. Social media has also enabled new forms of consumer resistance to brand strategy, as empowered consumers become a primary source of brand information for other consumers. The growth of the lawless dark net has further enabled new forms of resistance to corporate power and provided an ideal forum for anti-brand activism.