Social media and branding: accelerated natural selection?

At Advertising Age's Digital Conference last week Unilever Chief Marketing Officer Simon Clift commented, "No matter how big your advertising spending, small groups of consumers on a tiny budget might hijack the conversation," he said. "So this internet thing is much bigger and more interesting than just finding successors to TV advertising." It's a lesson learned partly from Greenpeace, which last year hijacked "Onslaught," Dove's follow-up to the massively viral "Evolution" video, with what turned into a widely watched and discussed parody focusing on Unilever's purchases of palm oil resulting in destruction of Indonesian rainforest. More from Advertising Age here.