Warady's Riffs, Raves and Rants on Marketing

Yesterday I ran across a news report talking about the fact that the SEC (the college conference, not the Securities and Exchange Commission) wants to ban the use of all social media at their sporting events. It seems that they feel it is a violation of their profit generating network agreements if they were to allow fans to report on the events live via Twitter, post photos on Facebook, Flickr, or upload videos to YouTube.

Thus we have another example of people who simply don’t “get it.”

First off, and I talk about this a lot, so I apologize for repeating myself, but brand owners do not really own their brands. The consumers own the brands. If you have a brand, you can think it stands for whatever you want it to stand for, but the fact is, the consumer is going to determine the ultimate personality of the brand.

Therefore you are not really brand owners, but brand caretakers. You create the brand, you maintain the brand, you put the best product or service you can out in the marketplace, but then you have to allow the consumer to determine how the product is going to be used, where it will be used, and if they LOVE the product, the consumer will become a brand advocate and want to spread the word.

Which brings us back to the misguided bureaucrats at the SEC.

If the fans sitting in a football game are excited about what they see on the field, and want to send a Tweet to hundreds if not thousands of followers that they have on Twitter, or upload an exciting video via their iPhone, to their YouTube channel sharing the game experience, why in the heck would the SEC want to stop this? Why would they want to potentially quiet their brand ambassadors who desire to share their enthusiasm about the SEC brand with their friends? These people are influencers among their friends, and you should never want to muffle the voice of influencers. It makes absolutely no sense.

The fact is, the SEC has no control over what their fans can do via Twitter or any other social media network. And with this “ruling”, they have done more harm then good. They have tarnished their brand by trying to dictate how the brand experience can be shared.

Message to the SEC: People, the world has changed! Embrace it. Understand it. Use it to your advantage.

Good luck trying to police your fan’s use of social media. They, not you, own your brand.