Growing brands from the customer up
Everywhere around us, the expanding digital universe is rapidly transforming the world of brands, with new digital tools pushing aside yesterday’s symbols, slogans and “timeless” icons. In place of conventional top-down “branding” campaigns we’re seeing breakthrough brand innovation from below, with small companies, not big corporations, reinventing brands and re-defining brand building itself. They’re growing brands as organic, 1:1 collaborations in context, and in value, across multiple customer fronts.
Digital brand leverage: the shape of brands to come
It appears likely that the future of brands will be driven by digital brand leverage—in the form of direct links between value creators (or content creators) and customers, bypassing intermediate brand structures, and middlemen. What makes this possible are two recent developments: 1) digital technologies that facilitate close interaction between companies and their customers; and 2) collaborative brand practices that unify companies and customers through a shared vision and mission.
The example of Scrivener, a one-man brand
As an informal example, we might look at the brand being grown by Scrivener, a powerful Mac OS X text editor and information manager recently launched to high acclaim. Scrivener calls itself a “virtual writing studio that integrates the processes of outlining, storyboarding, research and writing.” It sells for $35 and is the product of one person, Britisher Keith Blount, a writer himself. It’s a one-man brand, so to speak, with limited resources. Yet, it has brand qualities many million-dollar brands sorely lack.
Some of these qualities are:
- Shared vision and mission with customers
- A platform for customer partnership
- A platform for brand community
- An emerging brand value network
- Openness and accessibility
- 1:1 customer relationships
- Active customer participation
A brand’s fate is written in its online forum
A brand’s online customer forum will tell you a lot about that brand. Scrivener uses the popular phpBB open source bulletin board as its forum structure. Let’s see what kind of customer relationships are cultivated in the Scrivener forum by quoting selected forum sections. Note the language and the tone:
Announcements: Announcements about new releases and the ongoing progress of Scrivener.
Technical Support: Having problems or just want some help with using Scrivener? This is the place to come.
Wish List: Anything you think Scrivener desperately needs? This is the place to request it. All requests are seriously considered, but please do bear in mind that Scrivener strives to be as “bloat-free” as possible.
Feedback: Tell me what you think of Scrivener. Maybe you prefer another writing program – you are welcome to tell me why (politely, please!). Or maybe you love it and just want to rub my ego – even better.
Bug Hunt: Found a bug in Scrivener? Report it here. Be sure to check out the known bugs first.
Beta Testing: Beta versions and test code will be posted here.
Tips & Tricks & FAQ: Please post anything that you think should go in the Scrivener help file here, so that I know what I need to include when I come to write it. Tips, tricks, or oft-asked questions…
The Zen of Scrivener – Usage Scenarios: How do you use Scrivener?
Software by Other Folk: Talk about any software you want. Recommend useful programs or discuss the competition (politely to all, please).
Writer’s Block: Discuss the writing craft here. Any good quotes from authors on their processes; any good advice; anything at all that might help us all get better. Feel free to ask others for advice, too.
And Now for that Latte: I was once asked to write down three negative traits about myself. I wrote: “1. Procrastination.” Feel free to procrastinate to your heart’s content by discussing whatever you want here.
The brand as an invitation to community
Do you see a pattern here? This is not a brand talking down to customers, or one trying to implant an idealized image in their minds. It’s an invitation to create a writing community around a new tool called Scrivener, where the brand serves both product and customers. The tone is personal, supportive, candid, down-to-earth, highly social, relaxed and conversational, like talking shop with friends. What starts as a “one-man brand” shifts to a community endeavor, benefiting all.
It’s the brand as company potential X customer potential. That’s how to grow a brand from the customer up.
April 18th, 2007 at 2:53 am
Scrivener rules – I’m using it for a book I’m working on. The OS X world is full of 1 to 10 person companies that make wonderful software with great connection to their customers. At the large end OmniGroup – at the small end there was NetNewsWire, where the principal was bought by another company (greatly diluting it imho)
Not all of these have interactive online communities … but all of them write excellent software that fills a niche and all of them are very responsive to their customers.
A side issue … I know a few of these people. They point out what they do would not be possible in the Windows world as the level of competition would prevent them from focusing on their product. They would need to be at a larger scale and getting there would be difficult.
April 18th, 2007 at 11:12 am
I can see some real parallels in the relationships between writer/reader and brand/customer. Writers would make good brand builders.
June 12th, 2007 at 6:48 am
[...] A key challenge for every nonprofit brand is to grow and empower a brand community that ultimately can add value back to the brand. This brand-building approach focuses on building a brand community that can grow the brand from the bottom up. This is an organic way to grow the brand with many possibilities for cost-effective leveraging, especially in this digital age. One community can launch a thousand opportunities. The nonprofit becomes a portal on community potential, and economic potential. [...]
July 17th, 2007 at 8:39 am
[...] There’s also a good amount of “brand sandbox” in the processes I’ve described called designing customers, creating customers, and growing customers from the ground up. [...]
October 16th, 2007 at 11:08 am
[...] Creating a high-tech device that customers can’t readily figure out is a critical brand problem. It’s never a “customer service” problem. As I’ve noted before, a brand is company potential X customer potential. If customers can’t make immediate, full use of your product, reaping the benefits from your innovation, it’s your brand that pays the price. And ultimately, so does your bottom line. [...]