Comments on: Brand Angst

By: People Over Process » Blog Archive » Pushing Down the Job Announcements

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 18:24:56 +0000

[...] What this amounts to is straight from Cluetrain, Gonzo Marketing (which never got enough attention), and, more recently, Brand Hijack: open up your fire-walls and let your people marketing and influence. Otherwise, you’re wasting a valuable resource. Counter-intutivly, companies love to hire smart people and then treat them like they’re dumb. For companies, part of the recovery is telling the world how happy they are to have a new person working for them, rather than relying on LinkedIn and IM. [...]

By: People Over Process » Blog Archive » Open Platforms in Systems Management

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 00:03:33 +0000

[...] Most importantly, encourage those 3rd parties to “hijack” the platform [...]

By: People Over Process » Blog Archive » Help Your Community Help You, An Example from Spiceworks

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 19:31:42 +0000

[...] In Brand Hijack, there’s much talk of co-creation of your brand, product, and/or service. Again, that kind of thinking makes perfect sense to people who’ve been on the web for several years: Cluetrain is in the water supply now. In the case of Spiceworks and other sites, we have not only co-creation (there’s quite a lot of product management done by user voting, last I checked), but co-marketing and, perhaps, even selling. [...]

By: Brian Phipps

Brian Phipps — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 19:21:19 +0000

Agreed, tho I would like to think of us as a “culture of producers” rather than a “culture of consumers.” A good brand should help us produce more, rather than just consume more.

By: cote

cote — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 21:26:42 +0000

I like your angle on creating the customer and/or (to be less “controlling” in stating it) making part of your strategy a sort of “training” cultural change item. That is, instead of just providing a product or service for people to come and get, creating the reasons and even culture for that item to exist in.

That all sounds like some voodoo and at the same time obvious. Perhaps it’s too close to the existential angst thing.

That said, I do think brands — more broadly, the culture of consumers — is core to (at least) American thinking. I think that’s what disgusts a lot of people: they don’t want to be just a consumer, helping “increase shareholder value,” no matter how warm and fuzzy the marketing/brand is.

Closer to the software world, it raised the question: what is “valid” to charge money for? Why not “life”?

I stopped reading No Logo awhile ago because it was getting too polemic rather than pragmatic. That said, I think it’s worth finishing off the second half.

By: Brian Phipps

Brian Phipps — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 21:10:49 +0000

Recognizing that the old brand models don’t work any more (as you’ve done) is a first step in reinventing brands that do. I say “first step” because a new framework for brands really entails tossing out huge amounts of the traditional top-down brand apparatus, its assumptions and modalities. It requires new concepts of brand, new brand models, and new product models, too.

The key (as I see it) is to define the business mission as “creating customers,” and to use brands as a customer creation engine.

“Creating customers” means much more than simply making a sale. It includes designing the customer that will make your business succeed, plus many levels of customer collaboration (in meaning and in value). As a company, you want to create the customers that your competitors can’t reach. (Your customers are your greatest competitive weapon.)

Ergo, “If you want to make your products fly off the shelf, give wings to your customers.” This “giving wings to your customers” is the stuff of brand platforms and programs.

Personally, I would downplay the “angst” angle. Brands are concrete. Examples: A good user’s manual is part of the brand program. It shows respect for the user, and makes the product easier to use. An effective help desk is another brand component. So are user communities and blogs. One could actually spec out all the brand deliverables as part of a brand strategy.

Hmmm . . . forgive me for commenting on the subsequent post before this one. Didn’t see this one until later. Too much fast-twitch brand muscle . . . or Peet’s coffee . . . or whatever . .