Branding 2.0 (page 1 of 5)

Every consumer is a potential broadcaster with the means to demand specialized products. The nature of branding will have to adapt to embrace this hitherto non-existent aspect of marketing. As such the basic concept of branding will remain unchanged - to create an emotional attachment between the consumer and a product. However that's probably the only fixed point brand marketers can stick to in the future. Here's five reasons why....

1. Brand blogging

The web now teems with blogs on every single subject under the sun. Online individual diaries abound with individuals keen to share their points of view with the rest of the world. They're often so well-informed that the opinions they offer help form mainstream news reports. Given their potency, it begs the question whether blogs should in fact be adopted by brands as communication tools.

The marriage between blogs and brands is increasingly becoming a reality. Brands like Seth Godin and Tom Peters which exude personality, already blog. Brands such as Weight Watchers, LEGO, Apple, TiVo, and Harley-Davidson not only feature regularly in general blogs, but they have their own dedicated blogs created not by their brand-builders but by their fans.

Control over brand messages is gradually moving away from brand builders and edging closer toward consumers. Imagine Disney blogging about its characters, Nokia about its latest products, or Microsoft about virus issues. It could very well help them get closer to consumers by reaching out to the core fan communities. Exploiting this avenue requires a firm commitment.

It's a huge challenge for companies to write regular, informative and useful blogs. To do so, they must be flexible and react promptly. Companies simply aren't armed with the flexibility and quick response time required to run a relevant, interactive, engaging blog. They'd risk producing one-page press releases rather than interactive, topical points of view.

In the future, brands will have to take quick action effectively. They'll need to exhibit opinions fearlessly and share them with the world, meanwhile avoiding litigation and unhampered by risks. Yet companies tend to avoid political issues. Corporate entities feel obliged to clear their opinions with every quarter, eliminating all risk of offending any sensibilities. They thus sanitize their viewpoints rendering them meaningless. Sterilization tends to kill to the momentum needed to sustain and inject value into a blog.

Tomorrow's brands will have to transcend today's inhibitions. In many ways, this is the ultimate test for brands. It would reflect organizations' confidence and coherence. It would demonstrate brand self-esteem and ownership that speaks for itself unhesitatingly, promotes opinions, and shares them in hours rather than in weeks or months. As manufacturers and retailers learned just-in-time thinking in the '90s, brands will have to adopt a just-in-time ability to share information with consumers. If brands don't make this evolutionary leap soon, companies will be left behind. Consumers expect timely e-mail responses and prompt order fulfillment, to become part of the individual's minute-by-minute experience of everyday life.

Companies are far from this point. An organization that can handle the blog challenge requires dramatic structural, systemic, and communications changes.

2. Brand Phishing

Imagine you went down to your local bank, the branch just around the corner, to discuss retirement plans.