Eric Raymond’s seminal essay The Cathedral & The Bazaar remains one of the most powerful analogies for the world of media and marketing today. In case you aren’t familiar with Raymond’s work, he explained how in the world of software design, for many years, engineers spent long periods locked away creating huge operating systems in institutional settings that were then wheeled out into the real world for people to admire and to obey. However, the open source movement changed all that with online systems much more like global street bazaars allowing programmers to gather in informal networks and collaborate on technical projects in an organic manner, adding a little stitch here and a patch there, and always feeding their knowledge back into the main market, which remained forever in public ownership. For many years Big Brands operated in exactly the manner of Raymond's Cathedrals, building towering spires that required Brand Architects and Guardians to maintain their sanctity. However, in the shadows of these vast edifices grew global online Bazaars made up of people who found they could organise themselves around their passions, as oppose to the demographical pews ordained by the marketeers. And gradually the flocks flocked out of the Mainstream Media Cathedrals into the hustle-and-bustle of these online markets. However, this was just the beginning and people quickly realised that they could not only hang out in the Bazaars but could also bring their own soapboxes along in the shape of blogs. And eventually, as these little soapboxes grew into giant social networking sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, the Bazaar morphed into a global conversation. One where people trashed the Big Brand Cathedrals as they pleased, or even helped build new ones, ignoring the pained grimaces of the Brand Guardians and Architects who could only see desecration wherever they looked.
However, that’s now all changed. Big Brands have come our from behind their lecterns and are fully signed-up...
...members of the Bazaars and the Global Conversation. Why? Simply because this is where the people are. And Big Brand Values are most of all rooted in deep financial pragmatism. Some of this new behaviour on the part of Brands is quite frankly, a bit creepy. Just yesterday, I tweeted about a disagreement I am having with Thames Water. Only a couple of minutes later, @ThamesWater enquired about my problems and asked for my address to, 'find out more'. I replied that everything was in hand. 'Good. Here if you need anything/further help,' replied @ThamesWater, sounding very much like the local vicar going amongst his people, but also a bit like Lord Mandelson signalling a collegue his future support.
Other brands are much more daring, dropping off their vestaments and running directly for the heart of the most bustling bazaars. Just take the Old Spice Guy’s recent excursions away from Big Brands' most hallowed halls (aka P&G) and into the bawdy inns of 4Chan, where the global conversation is at its most shadowy and conspiratorial. It's a sign of the times that Old Spice Guy, whilst not universally welcomed, wasn't hung, drawn and snarked to death.
While the world of Big Brands was initially too caught up in its sermons and fine words to notice the dwindling congregations, it has now woken up and joined the burgeoning world Bazaar. In fact, I suspect, many people, wish they had stayed in their pulpits where they were easy to avoid. But some brands are becoming very savvy and offering goodies including new soapboxes for people to use. Like the ‘Best Job In The World’ campaign run by the Queensland Tourist Board, that invited people to share their wares and talents in exchange for the type of adventure that sets the Bazaar buzzing.
Most ironically perhaps, the Bazaar and its global conversations have rescued some of the biggest Brand Cathedrals of all. Although no religious icon, Simon Cowell’s empire has had a big hand in saving the fortunes of ITV. Indeed, just as it looked like the Church roof was about to cave in, the most Reverend Cowell not only brought the Bazaar into the Cathedral, but put the congregation in the pulpit and replaced the learned sermons with the liveliest of public gatherings, letting people re-text the religious writings along the way. And of course, choosing their own future idols to worship.
And these days, much of the chat in the bazaar, for better or for worse, is about Big Brands and Big Media. Indeed, this year, Pew, the bona fide US research house reported that ninety-nine per cent of links from the street-market of the blogosphere were to content published in the Cathedrals of mainstream media.
Yep, everyone loves the Bazaar now. But we still admire our Cathedrals too. Especially, since they opened the stained glass windows and let the sunlight in.
Facebook et al. are also cathedrals. Their services are organized differently, more bazaar-like, but they're definitely cathedrals.
Posted by: Homer Smith | August 05, 2010 at 07:55 PM
Thanks Homer, I see the point you are making. FB et al do indeed make the Bazaar feel a little more 'respectable'. And it occurred to me whilst writing the post that Apple and the Appstore are probably the most Cathedral-like of all. So maybe the Cathedral and The Bazaar are merging, and both become better for it...?
Posted by: James Cherkoff | August 06, 2010 at 08:24 AM