Developing an appealing and distinctive brand image is an important aspect of any firm's product strategy, and also helps differentiate its offerings from those of its competitors. Now, since few products have really large differences in terms of tangible features, most branding efforts today focus on more intangible features and try to give their brands an emotional appeal. While these appeals are attractive to some customers, many just ignore them and a few may actually dislike them. Now, in the past, if you disliked the brand image, you would probably try to avoid the brand and you might share your disdain with your friends and family. However, today, with the democratization of new digital tools, you can do a lot more using digital design software, digital cameras, and digital editing programs combined with the Internet, you can actually remix or create your own version of a brand that you find offensive. This is the basic idea behind a doppelganger brand image. Now the word doppelganger is really quite interesting. It's a word that is German in origin, and actually a combination of two words, doppel, which means double and ganger, which means walker. Thus in essence, a doppelganger is a double walker. This term developed in the late 1700s, and it was based on the belief that people have an alter ego that looks like them, but is ghost-like in nature, and if they encountered this doppelganger face-to-face, bad things will happen. Likewise, a doppelganger brand image is an alter-ego of a brand that is negative in nature. Now, let's take a look at a few examples. First of all, the FUH2 campaign. This creative viral Internet campaign began back in 2008 in response to General Motors marketing of the Hummer SUV. Perhaps, you remember this vehicle. In the mid 2000s, General Motors tried to position this brand as the ultimate four-wheel drive vehicle, capable of taking on any challenge and use the slogan, "Like nothing else." The FUH2 campaign crafted a very effective doppelganger brand image that focus not just on the brand itself, but also the owners of Hummers, which were portrayed as jerks, who cared little about the environment by driving this huge gas-guzzler during the height of the Gulf War. Second, the new Pepsi logo. Pepsi introduced a new logo back in 2009. They paid a famous design firm a million dollars to create this new logo, which as you can see, is really just a modification of its prior logo, not much different. Nonetheless, this new logo was heavily criticized by several Internet blogs as being a waste of money. In addition, several graphic artist created their own doppelganger versions of this logo to represent an obese man as a means of protesting against Pepsi's effect on our health. This doppelganger campaign quickly became an Internet meme and increased attention of negative consequences of drinking Pepsi. Third and finally, United Airlines. In 2017, a passenger on a United Airlines jet was forcefully removed from the plane, which was at that time sitting at the Chicago Airport, because a flight attendant asked him to give up his seat and he refused. Another passenger captured this incident on video and posted on social media, and it became a huge sensation. As you can see, this video was quite disturbing and shows the man, who was a medical doctor, screaming wildly as he's being dragged off the plane by airport police. The next day, the United Airlines CEO released a statement on social media in which he said that this passage was re-accommodated. This incident and the statement that followed attracted substantial criticism and a large number of doppelganger brand images that reflected this incident in a negative sense, both in terms of pictures and also words. Now, let's take a look at our definition. A doppelganger brand image is a collection of disparaging images and stories about a brand that are being circulated in popular culture by a loosely organized network of anti-brand activists, bloggers, and opinion leaders. These doppelganger brand images are usually focused on well-known brands that are viewed as lacking in authenticity and trying to create a false or misleading emotional appeal through their promotional activities. Now, let's take a deeper dive. There are lots of interesting issues surrounding the doppelganger brand image. For the purpose of this discussion, I'll focus on three issues in particular. First of all, what motivates someone to create a DBI? Creating a doppelganger image such as the FUH2 campaign, certainly takes lots of time and energy. So why would someone do this? Typically, these efforts are motivated by the perception that a brand is being inauthentic by claiming to be something that is not or disguising its true nature or effect. This was the motive behind the FUH2 campaign, which was a result of anger and frustration that people felt against General Motors, and how they tried to portray the Hummer as a vehicle that could conquer the world, but not acknowledging the negative impact it had on our global environment due to its poor gas mileage. Second, what types of brands are most susceptible to a DBI? Typically, most doppelganger images are focused against large, well-known brands. These brands have a high degree of awareness and familiarity, which means that their business practices are more likely to come to the attention of anti-brand activists. In addition, doppelganger campaigns targeted against these bigger brands are likely to get more attention for their creators compared to those focused against small brands. Thus, Walmart has several anti-branding doppelganger initiatives aimed against it, while Target has far fewer. For example, there are dozens of people of Walmart viral videos floating around, they get millions of views, but there are a few, very few people of Target videos. Third, where are DBI likely to be found? Now, most DBIs are created as a form of individual protest and often located on an individual's blog, Twitter account, or Facebook page. Now, sometimes these individual accounts are picked up by a larger digital media outlet such as Reddit, Digg, BuzzFeed, or even more traditional news channels. For example, Pepsi's DBI was initially posted on his creator's blog, which at the time had very few followers, but was popularized on BuzzFeed in a feature called logos that looked like other things. This posting quickly received over 300,000 views. DBIs can also be found on websites such as Adbusters that are dedicated towards creating DBI for a wider, variety of brands. So for example, on Adbusters, you'll see DBIs against McDonald's, Starbucks, and Calvin Klein, just to name a few. Finally, there are a number of brand specific DBI initiatives tried against specific brands. For example, Walmart has over a dozen websites dedicated against it, including the WalmartSucks.org. Now, I just want to point out that I shop at Walmart all the time, I love Walmart. I'm just reporting this, I'm not endorsing it.
