Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

There’s been lots of talk recently about how consumers are now controlling brands. John Wagner recently posted some interesting commentary on the subject. Here’s the best bits:

Brands are about image and experience, emotion and passion, logic and abandon. And those attributes are carefully crafted and nurtured by the way wise companies position, sell and service their products.

Why do I believe a Tag Heuer watch is better than a Timex, even though I’ve never owned one of either? Because some guy created a video on You Tube about it? Or because Tag Heuer spends millions and millions of dollars diligently developing an image of quality and style?

…

Social media gives us the ability to communicate more effectively with consumers — to hear from them, understand them, relate to them. It’s about inviting consumers inside to chat, not turning over the keys to the house.

If you work in marketing, PR, advertising or even behind the counter, you are responsible for your company’s brand. Don’t give it away.

This all relates to the trend where some commentators have gone a step further than suggesting that consumers control brands, but that companies should also effectively let them become their R&D departments and allow them to develop new products and services.

To a certain extent these arguments hold true. Just look at the recent success of Lego allowing their obsessed customers to help develop their new Mindstorms range. Please note my use of the word obsessed though. A lot of consumers want to just use your product or service, not join your marketing department as well. Not everyone put slips of paper into the suggestions and complaints box.

More importantly, as Akio Morita, Sony’s late visionary leader, once pointed out:

Our plan is to lead the public rather than ask them what products they want. The public does not know what is possible, but we do. So instead of doing a lot of market research, we refine our thinking on a product and its use and try to create a market for it by educating and communicating with the public.

The quote I use in the title of this post is by Henry Ford. In the days before the automobile, how many of us were asking for them? Our consumer needs and wants do not necessarily dictate how markets will be shaped in the future. For example, there are people who would like to think that YouTube is the future of television. YouTube is great, but it’s not going to replace TV. Just look at the top clips.

If I want to watch thirty second home video clips of people doing stunts or something funny, I can tune into Jackass or one of the many home video shows on any TV channel already. More importantly, a lot of the popular videos are taken from mainstream television already.

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