BrandDemocracy: helping customers tell their story. It’s simple but so far removed from the dominant wisdom – use modern technology to tell the story about the brand. Now y’all know I’m a big Threadless fan (see the video when I met Threadless team) so any excuse to riff about them once again is most welcome.
Here’s a great example of Brand Democracy in action – helping Threadless designers and customers take control of the narrative.
You see, great marketing isn’t about choices in media – digital, Facebook or mobile – it’s about choices in mindset; you can get your brand onto digital and mobile but you could still be telling the story about your brand. The key is arming customers with the right tools to tell their own story. Here are some examples.
Putting customers in control of the narrative will irk most “brand managers” because if they’re not managing the brand – what are they doing? Truth is that brand management is passe – it’s the stuff of 1999.
What “brand managers” need to be doing is developing Permission Assets and tools to help customers relate their story to each other. Connect them. You may not agree with what they have to say but as Peter Van Stolk, founder of Jones Soda, says – you just need to be cool with it.
Think about it, how could you use this approach in your own marketing?
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