Troll Proof Branding in the Age of Doppelgangers

277 Pages·2022·12.103 MB·English

by  Gaurav Sood

Fake news, Hacktivism, Internet trolls and
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Culture jamming are rampant pop culture HT
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phenomena in the age of consumerism. O
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Clever strategies such as emotional and cultural branding can only help your
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brand go as far as one little slip from grace. In the blink of an eye, your brand’s
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image can be tarnished by its monstrous doppelganger. Tweets by angry fans
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along with memes about your brand can become your worst nightmare.
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Troll Proof Branding in the Age of Doppelgangers captures the evolution of P B TROLL PROOF
the brand alter-ego also known as brand doppelganger image created by P
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consumers, anti-brand activists, competitors, opinion leaders, media and the E
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public. It aids you in developing strategies to counter the impact of your brand L BRANDING
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doppelgangers.
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Arm yourself with strategies that promote brand I
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in the Age of
positivity to fight trollers and hacktivists.
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Branding has
never been more E I
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fun to read!
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A very insightful Gagan Sood E L GA
book on how to manage CEO, GE Power P N
and counterbalance a new Conversion Americas, P G
New York, USA
challenge to world O E
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class brands.
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Professor Jagdish N. Sheth S
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Charles H. Kellstadt
Professor of Business, R
Goizueta Business School,
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Emory University,
Atlanta, USA V

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Gaurav Sood is Professor of Marketing D
at Amity University, Noida.
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ADVANCE PRAISE
‘A very insightful book on how to manage and counter-
balance a new challenge to world-class brands: anti-
brand activists and negative influencers in the age of
social media. Dr Sood offers very practical strategies to
shield your brands from negative attacks and fake news.’
Jagdish N. Sheth (Padma Bhushan),
Charles H. Kellstadt
Professor of Business, Goizueta Business School,
Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA
‘Branding has never been more fun to read! From fake
news to brand hacktivism, the author cautions against
these various weapons of brand destruction and provides
strategies to counter your brand’s doppelganger.’
Gagan Sood,
CEO, GE Power Conversion Americas,
GE, New York, USA
‘This book is full of fun stories and examples of brand
doppelganger imagery. The author shows how fake news
and brand hacktivists can destroy your brand and pro-
vides strategies needed to counter the doppelgangers. A
must-read for all branding professionals, students and
pop culture followers.’
Atul Parvatiyar,
Director, Center for Sales and Customer Relationship
Excellence; Professor of Practice, Marketing and Supply
Chain Management, Rawls College of Business,
Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX, USA
‘Gaurav’s passion is infectious, and the book has a com-
pelling narrative on the brand of wicked doppelgangers
who have an aim in sight to tarnish the image of brands.
The author interestingly weaves the story around the
evolution of doppelganger in the virtual world and his
methodologies of carefully crafting negative imagery,
creating attractive but damaging memes, trolling the
brands exploiting their vulnerable spots and hacking
their information to deliberately expose the negative
sides of the brand. The doppelganger can be a harassed
consumer, anti-brand activist, a clever competitor, an
influencer or a media. The author plays with the fire of
torching the brand of the companies through develop-
ing a brand alter ego, a doppelganger who can be a troll,
hacktivist or an influencer. The topic is contemporary
though having lots of grey and dark shades. Each page is
generously scattered with carefully researched brand
examples. Gaurav strategically establishes the factors
leading to the creation of the brand doppelganger
imagery, reassuringly emphasizes the art of storytelling
and suggests counter strategies to combat and manage
the menace of doppelgangers by bringing in the brand’s
positivity through knowing the pulse of their consumers
and genuinely responding to their wants, needs and
queries. The author has a razor-sharp insight and inci-
sive analytic ability to bring to the fore the finer details
of the uncanny world of the doppelganger, the brand
alter ego, that makes this book one of the best branding’s
reference books around and a must-read for students,
educators and industry professionals alike.’
Dr Amit Kapoor,
President and CEO, India Council on Competitiveness
‘Dr Gaurav Sood has written an amazing book on
branding which is much needed by the industry and aca-
demics. The entire branding paradigm has changed as
there are drastic changes among the consumers,
companies, competitors, media and society. This change
is wonderfully narrated in the book. Must-read for all the
marketing and business professionals.’
Professor Varsha Jain,
Marketing; Co-chairperson, Doctoral Programme and
Research, MICA, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
‘A must-read book for branding enthusiasts and pop
culture followers.’
Professor Sandeep Puri,
Asian Institute of Management, Manila, Philippines
‘This book has some very interesting insights on import-
ant issues such as brand doppelganger imagery, culture
jamming, fake news and internet trolls that many brands
face today.’
Dr Sunil Thomas,
Professor, California State University,
Fullerton, CA, USA
‘This book is a storyteller! It weaves real cases from the
world of branding to explore the phenomenon of brand
doppelganger imagery.’
Sumit Sehgal,
Director, Samsung SDS
‘A must-read for all digital marketers as this book analy-
ses various forms of online consumer backlash and how
consumers, competition and public at large create a
brand doppelganger imagery using the social media plat-
forms to damage the brand’s imagery.’
Amitabh Verma,
Ex-Google; Founder and CEO, AMP Digital
‘The concept of brand doppelganger has been very fasci-
natingly brought up by Dr Sood and his breadth of expe-
rience in industry and academia has lent weight to his
insights and theories on the subject. Media landscape,
both offline and online, is haunted by fake news, trolls
and consumer backlashes which make the big brands
vulnerable to the creation of their own doppelganger.’
Rajiv Dubey,
Senior General Manager and
Head of Media, Dabur
‘Most books on branding make few connections to the
current brand management environment. This book
written by Dr Gaurav Sood is designed explicitly for the
new world of brand and branding. A blend of theory and
practice, with cases from the global brands, the book
brings alive the critical dimensions of ‘brand doppel-
ganger’ in a crisp yet comprehensive manner.’
Hari Krishnan,
Strategic Advisor, Culture Drum
‘A truly International brand playbook. Gaurav’s argu-
ments are thorough and persuasive and his breath of
academic and professional experience all across the globe
has helped to reflect in his story telling. The book Troll
Proof Branding in the Age of Doppelgangers take aim at the
darker side of the brand and the impact of the brand
doppelgänger on the reputation of the brand. The book
is an eye-opening reportage and wonderful analysis of
how trolls, fake news, hacktivism and culture jamming
creates brand’s own doppelganger and threatens its
image in the popular culture. Gaurav has carefully anal-
ysed cases from across the world of brands which are
victim to its own doppelganger. The book is a must-read
for marketers and students to learn how to develop
counter strategies and manage the brand doppelganger.’
Douglas Quintal,
Sr Executive-in-Residence, Emerson College,
Boston, MA, USA