DOES ANYONE BELIEVE IN NEGATIVE MARKETING? IF NOT, THEN WHAT IS DOPPELGANGER BRAND IMAGE?

Aravind Chalapathy | Executive member of Crowd Core Marketing Club

Every company, from non-profits to profits, companies to startups, invests a significant amount of time and money in shaping its brand. Branding is more than a marketing tool; it encompasses all the businesses, has to offer. But guess, what? Your brand's "doppelganger" can easily be shot and can kill your image in the market! Doppelganger is a German term that is a mixture of two words: Doppel, which implies "double," and ganger, which indicates "walker." A doppelganger is essentially a double walker. This term originated in the late 1700s, and it has been based on the idea that people have a doppelganger who looks like them but is ghost-like in nature, and that if they met this doppelganger face to face, bad things will happen. A doppelganger brand picture, on the other hand, is a negative alter-ego of a brand. In modern culture, a disorganized network of anti-brand campaigners, bloggers, and media organizations circulates disparaging photos and stories about a brand. Negative images conflict with the intended image of the brand owner. Creating an attractive and distinct brand image is an important part of every company's product strategy since it helps to set it besides its competitors' offerings.

Doppelganger Brand Image: your product is not what you think

Source: Medium

When a doppelgänger brand image is widely disseminated in popular culture, it creates a jumble of meanings that can affect consumer preferences and actions. We believe that a doppelgänger brand image can cause confusion between the personal motives of an emotional-branding tactic and the profit-driven motives of its corporate sponsor. In such cases, the meaning of an emotional branding drama may be called into question, and the brand's identity value to customers may be severely harmed.

Source: https://quotestats.com/

Nowadays, everybody is involved in buying a product via the online platform. Not only is it possible to buy a product online, but it is also possible to use an online platform to find a good restaurant, a good hospital, and even a good educational institute where they can pursue their higher education. The best out of all the options available on the market is being chosen using an online platform. People are falling for this tactic because there are so many substitutes for one commodity on the market that customers are forced to think outside the box. Most branding efforts today concentrate on more intangible aspects and attempt to give their brands an emotional appeal, a few products have very large differences in terms of tangible features. While some customers will find these appeals enticing, many others will simply dismiss them, and a few may even ignore them. In the past, if you didn't like a brand's image, you'd consider avoiding it and tell your friends and family about it. Today, however, with the democratization of modern digital technologies, there are even more influencers, such as reviewers, online bloggers, online gurus, anti-brand activists, bloggers, and YouTubers, remixing or making their own image of a brand that they deem offensive, thus influencing the brand's marketing value. A doppelganger brand picture is based on this definition.

Source: RevLocal

In the past, word of mouth or alumni with patriotism towards their college would comment a good statement about their college or hospital dominated a review of a hospital or educational institute. However, in today's digitalized environment, anybody can write something on a blank wall, referred to as an online forum. This is having a negative effect on the hospital and educational institute, as well as generating a false negative brand image.

Source: Facebook

I was particularly interested in this issue and wanted to learn more about negative brand imaging in the educational and healthcare sectors, what people's perspectives are, and how they are influenced by these negative anti-brand activists, such as online reviewers, YouTubers, and so on. I conducted a quantitative and statistical analysis using data collected from consumers. To learn more about my research and the results I obtained after conducting interviews with consumers, click on the link below to read the full article.

http://hustjournal.com/vol502021june/