Troll Proof Branding in the Age of Doppelgangers

Review\n‘A very insightful book on how to manage and counterbalance a new challenge to world-class brands: antibrand 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\n‘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\n‘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 provides 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\n‘Gaurav’s passion is infectious, and the book has a compelling 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 developing 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 incisive 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\n‘Dr Gaurav Sood has written an amazing book on branding which is much needed by the industry and academics. 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\n‘A must-read book for branding enthusiasts and pop culture followers.’ -- Professor Sandeep Puri ― Asian Institute of Management, Manila, Philippines\n‘This book has some very interesting insights on important 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\n‘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\n‘A must-read for