Umar Haqiue of Havas Media videos blogs about why, in a world where information and interaction are cheap, the need to distill the essence of an entire corporation down into a logo or TV spot becomes increasingly unnecessary. Branding “…is dead”. Companies and marketers don’t need to fit their sales pitch the smallest possible, most easily mass marketed clip. Because the costs of distributing information about one’s product has become close to zero, consumers are free to feast on the flood of niche consumer product information available in blog, video and other forms. He finishes with the message that companies should keep the principals of an open dialog in mind when trying to sell to consumers: “Start listening to them, instead of just talking at them.”
Although he is primarily talking about branding in regards to selling to consumers, any company interested in building momentum in a post-advertising world should consider adapting this strategy. It appears that the idea of the necessity of branding is waining. So what replaces it? Simple – sophisticated, personalized and most of all, two-way, interaction with customers. Listening to customers, and incorporating what they say back into your products, services, and organizational structure. Through this dialog, align the organization with what the market wants. Technology has only recently made this possible.
A couple days ago, I blogged about why I think it’s neat-o for enterprises to try to open a dialog with their customers. In my opinion, progressive organizations that talk to (and listen) to their customers will get paid back by fervent communities that support and advocate their products. Most of the enterprise hasn’t yet realized this quite yet. But, a tremendous advantage could certainly stand to be had by say, a consulting company, that was brash enough to start creating a dialog with clients. A way to get started would to build a public, client-driven social network, blog or wiki.
Combine this strategy with the principals of open, transparent organizations – such as open source methodologies, and you have the outline of a model for the future of professional service organizations.
[Umar Haquie post via Atlassian's Jeff Walker, who seems to share my taste in WordPress themes.]
2 responses so far ↓
1 Justin // Feb 22, 2008 at 7:17 pm
I’m not sure i agree with Haqiue’s premise. I notice that given the ease and abundance of information (both well thought through, and poorly), the necessity of creating a more coherent, shorter, highly communicable “brand” is higher than ever. Given the bandwidth we have, if the material isn’t clearly articulate, then i (perhaps just me?) generally skip it. If its too salesy, or too longwinded – who has time. It’s, particularly if there is enough information available that i can go and find a clearly articulated message from _someone else_! There is clearly a balance between customer communication, and communication by press release. The new “two-way communication” paradigm is still a transfer of information and brand that must be highly managed – if anything moreso than before since you need to both control the outgoing message, and then capture and respond to any customer responses.
2 Justin // Feb 23, 2008 at 1:55 pm
whats up with the comments?
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