Brands Look In A Blog Mirror

I met up with journalist and modern marketeer Alan Mitchell this week to discuss open source marketing and the world of distributed media.  I explained to Alan what we have learnt from the twenty or so blog reports we have written over the last year - in which we summarise what people are saying about a brand in a snapshot of blogworld.  A bit like looking in a mirror is how I described the service.  Brands have an idea of what they want people to think and believe.  Sometimes that is reflected in the online chatter, sometimes it's not...

- and occasionally what they see is a bit ugly.  Obviously, this is the idea of qualatative analysis like focus groups but online feedback is unsolicited and holds fewer punches.  This led us to discuss the baggage around the words 'consumer'...and even the less controversial 'customer'.  When companies talk about 'their' customers it can sometimes imply a sort of ownership over those individuals.  This in contrast to the world of open source where the talk is of 'users' who are seen as being sources of insight into products and markets.  It may all sound like petty-semantics and puff-theory but there is no doubt the psychology between brands and customers is being put through the wringer right now.

Comments

[Jonathan]

There's a proportional relation between brand and consumer. The more appealing the brand is, it's gonna directly influence the customer to purchase it. Brand can change consumers mind nd need.............Marketing involves a lot of risk and higher you take risks, higher would be the returns since profit is the reward for risk bearing.