Brand mash mapping

Last month Google revealed its advanced version of Google maps. Yahoo! was quick to follow the new trend. A trend known as Mash-up. Normally this wouldn't have caught my attention. We're talking about a map - just a map. Get real! But, when I visited the site, I was amazed. I found a map packed with balloon-shaped pinheads - referred to as mash-ups - indicating the locations of Porsche owners all over North America. Another mash-up site revealed Beetle owners' whereabouts. And let's be clear. These aren't maps which show you where the car dealerships are. They show you where the car owners are. Yet another map lists places to find cheap gas
(www.gasbuddy.com). There's one that indicates where single people looking for partners live. Just click on the mash-up balloon and you'll see a picture and detailed description of the person denoted by that mash-up. Check out hotOrNot.com and see for yourself. So, a combination of mapping and the internet has delivered us a new and wondrous world of community relations.

The opportunities for brand-builders are massive. Despite being in its early days, it's not hard to figure out the potential of the API technology, which the backbone of this programming interface is called, for harnessing consumer knowledge. Mash-ups have the power to connect every brand's user data to a map and to instantly present a picture of the brand's territory.

Imagine a map that showed you where most Prada customers live. Or Ajax, or Fubu customers...The technology promises to change our perspective on brands as users and brand builders, and to influence our consumption and management of them. Think of the ramifications of a map that illustrates the Coca Cola versus the Pepsi worlds. Or even Mac users versus PC users. The possibilities are limited only by the accessibility of data. Mash-ups reveal unaccustomed knowledge about ourselves as brand consumers and owners. They might make plain communities you never knew you were a part of. Or they might demonstrate your uniqueness in loving the brands you do.

The mash-up trend is yet another tick in the consumer's check-list. The technology can connect users with each other and transform individuals into brand broadcasters. I've noted the trend in brand-building power away from brand owners to consumers often. This then is the next step in this power transfer. First eBay, then blogs, then PodCasting, and now mash-ups. Every day new tools are developed which enable users to amplify their voices. Websites which isolated themselves from meaningful interaction with users, by failing to reflect consumers' lives, preferences and behaviours, will soon struggle to survive. The 'community' dimension of brand-building is rapidly becoming a mandatory component in every brand strategy. The days of one-way information, from brand to customer, are over. The familiar habit of emitting constant and controlled brand information is becoming too dangerous not to kick. On a practical level, the "about us" button is out. The "about our customers" button, which connects brand fans with each other, is a pre-requisite to brand health.

I first identified this trend in my book BRAND sense (www.brandsense.com), dubbing the phenomenon the MSP trend. That's the Me Selling Proposition. Mash-ups put the trend into action and reinforce the fact that brand of the future have only one choice - to be run and ruled by their consumers rather than by their marketers.

This opens up an interesting can of worms. On one hand, the MSP opens up amazing avenues for hearing the real voices of brand users. On the other hand, the MSP has inherent risks: if the world can hear real opinions about brands, uncontrolled, unedited, uncensored, you can't be sure all voices are going to be happy ones. But this is a risk marketers will have to take. So, get your house in order. Are you prepared for the MSP trend? For mash-ups? For blogging? To what degree does your site allow customers to run your brand, voice their opinions and become part of your brand community?

There won't be many readers who can answer this question with confidence. But for those who can, or can see themselves being able to do so, a whole new brand world could open up. A world where the true brand managers are your customers.