Open Source Marketing

Bob Garfield's Ad Age article has lots of great snippets in it (and even a quote from me). Here's a couple...

"Hear that?  In the distance? It's a crowd forming -- a crowd of what you used to call your audience.  They're still an audience, but they aren't necessarily listening to you. They listening to each other talk about you. And they're using your products, your brand names...

...your iconography, your slogans, your trademarks, your designs, your goodwill, all of it as if it belonged to them -- which, in a way, it all does, because, after all, haven't you spent decades, and trillions, to convince them of just that?"

"This raises the question of what agencies are left to do.  Maybe the answer is obvious: to manage, focus, exploit, maybe even co-opt the open conversation. The real question may be whether the agency world is culturally equipped for the task."

Free subscription version here, free version here.  My version here.