Citizen takeover gathers pace at United

The pace of developments at Manchester United continues to surprise.  It really is becoming a fascinating story about "ownership" of a brand and the legitimacy of ownership when the customers decide that the owners are not running the organisation in a responsible way.  Certainly it is showing the impact that an involved, committed and passionate community of users and consumers (brand community) can have around an established brand when they want greater involvement.   In the case of Manchester United it is no longer a question of shared ownership of the equity of the brand, which most assumed was the agenda with brand community, the fans are actually setting the agenda of ownership - they want to take control.   The coup of getting David Beckham to wear the green and yellow scarf was a symbolic moment and according to the Guardian, media around the world have covered this aspect of the story taking the story to another level.
(Photo from gulfnews.com)

The Guardian piece also suggests that the club have introduced a range of classic control measures on communictions which any PR consultant can tell them are useless.   The measures including firing any employee wearing the scarf and now they are editing out all mentions of the protest from United press conferences which are covered on its own TV station, MUTV.  That will be the first commercial activity which the protest group, MUST, will target, as the actions of the club are undermining the legitimacy of their own TV station. The owners if they are going to succeed will need to need to build a dialogue with the fans.  They cannot ignore the demands, can they build a compromise position where the fans have a larger stake, which surely is a position for the Glazers to consider?  I doubt they have the capability to develop such an agenda not least because football has traditionally shown little understanding of the role of public relations in contrast to marketing as academics such as Maria Hopwood from Leeds Met highlighted at the CIPR Academic Conference at the University of Stirling in the summer.   

The importance of symbols in the campaign is particularly interesting both in terms of brands but also their historical pedigree.   Beckham wearing the scarf and so symbolising - even anointing its significance - to the whole role of the scarf in its different colours from the traditional brand have a powerful resonance.  All revolutions - or citizen takeovers - have icons, something which Wally Olins, a leading corporate identity  practitioner and commentator, has highlighted in several papers highlighting the use of icons in the French revolution (tricolor, Marseillaise etc).
(Delacroix: Liberty leading the people. 1830. Britannia.com)