micro-reality vs. mega-image

Since this is the topic of my dissertation (loosely defined), I suspect I will be going back to this idea. I figured it can go in installments ... like a soap opera (minus the unpredictable but highly credible plot twists). This thing above is a YouTube comment (no, i don't read them out of interest. strictly for research purposes) posted among maybe 1000 comments on the Coke Happiness Factory commercial. And I found it super-illustrative for what I am talking about on this blog, which is the gap between the world of products & the world of brand communication. If the tools of communication changed, why doesn't that communication change as well? Traditionally, brand = abstract economic entity that manages processes of product qualification (this product is better than that one because is made by Apple). Also, brand = abstract communication entity that manages brand image, logo, and personality (i hate Coke but i love their commercials!). It's not hard to imagine how the digital change both the ways people qualify products & talk about and with the brands. But the ways brands are managed haven't changed all that much. If you think about the brand as a setting for interactions between people and products and - b/c of digital media - these interactions are pretty visible and tangible, then really there's no need for brand-as-an-abstraction. Or, more simply, no need to imagine those interactions when we can actually see them/observe them/measure them. Something like traditional branding in reverse: the brand (strength & loyalty) becomes an outcome & not the cause of these interactions.