Your brand owns you.

Or at least it can if you're not careful.

By brand I don't mean that carefully manufactured facade you've created for yourself. I mean the real brand.

Brand: The sum of people's understanding of who you are based on their direct and indirect knowledge of you. ("You to Them")

For example: Microsoft has a brand problem. There is lots of direct experience with them and their products and it's not always been positive. The waring tribes within Microsoft created a power vacuum leading to THOUSANDS of messages as to who they are. The result is that a simple, coherent, human message isn't part of what Microsoft puts out. However, a simple, coherent, human message has been created. And that message is of a company that doesn't care about it's customers, values profits over user experience, and technology over humanity.

With a brand message like that is it any wonder you see stuff like this: