Blogs and the future of brands
Jeff Jarvis has some interesting thoughts on the relationship between blogs and brands, using the media business as an example. That business was once characterized by a limited number of players whose dominant brands defined what was available at the corner magazine stand. In effect, those brands were publishing. They prospered within a limited brand space.
Internet innovations and network economies are now changing that traditional media model. In particular, blogs and their online brethren have mushroomed the world of publishing. The once sheltered brands at the corner magazine stand are now exposed to the elements. The new magazine stand is your mouse, controlled by you. Through the internet, its shelves are infinite. As Jeff says, there is now no scarcity of brand space. Brand opportunities exist all across this “distributed-to-the-edge internet,” with many of these opportunities being seized by new players, working from the bottom up.
Well, what’s true for brands in media markets is also true in other markets, with an even wider horizon. Blogs are one of the factors that are irreversibly transforming the once-limited “brand space” of the shelf or the channel into wide open spaces, where new rules apply. Brand value is being generated at the edge, by new players, and by customers. This can be a superior form of value to that promulgated by companies using conventional brand practices.
Companies shackled with legacy brands will view blogs as threats, and will react accordingly. Forward-facing companies will make the most of new opportunities. Virgin brand territories await.
As we say elsewhere, “Brands of the future will not be top-down monoliths. They will be a thousand agile initiatives, loosely coupled, rich in customer texture, often sparked by customers themselves.”
We’ll write more on this in coming weeks. For now, here’s a rough listing of how blogs can help brands create customers:
- Break down barriers between company and customers
- Engage customers in fine-grained conversations
- Identify needs of lead customers and others
- Define new brand spaces
- Tap into customer initiative and intelligence
- Create new forms of product value/brand value
- Open new brand innovation avenues
- Spark new market initiatives
- Facilitate pilot programs and prototypes
- Form customer bonds that competitors can’t match
- Express your passion for what you do
- Build trust through openness
- Focus employees on customer results
- Extend brand building to the market edge
- Lead by example
