Branding and Social Media

The document discusses the evolution of social media and its impact on branding. It notes that social networks were originally about people, not brands, and focused on dialogue, entertainment, and sociability rather than business or news. It suggests that social media have made brands less significant. However, the document defines branding as generating cultural relevance to a brand by connecting to the zeitgeist, or spirit of the time. It proposes that brands can sustain cultural relevance by playing off intriguing issues dominating media discourse or inverting marginal ideologies in a risky way. The document encourages brands not to mimic themselves and to avoid generic trends, instead stimulating creativity by addressing pain points or impossible problems.