Modern Marketing - Blog by Collaborate PR & Marketing

Open Source Branding

Open source is a term used to describe an arrangement whereby a programmer creates an application and allows others to look at and use the code that makes it work. This is normally carried out under certain conditions, such as that the person using the code references where it came from.

The desired result is that massive collaborations can be facilitated in ways not possible anywhere else, thereby creating results not possible anywhere else. The most famous example of this is the Linux operating system that has been so successful it is now seen as genuinely rivalling Microsoft.

The ideas behind open source have been taken into other arenas including music whereby artists encourage fellow musicians to use their work in interesting original ways. Partly because they know it could make them well-known and respected among their peers

In concept, open source can be thought of as being a way in which producer and consumer cooperate to create something both parties can benefit from. Like a massively sophisticated testing lab.

I think the term can be used to describe trends occuring in the world of communications and branding. Increasingly, brands are being customised by the people that consumer them. The most powerful example of this is eBay whereby the people who use the company's services ARE the company's services. However, there are other examples in more traditional areas. Budwesier's highly sucessful Whassup! campaign (which I worked on) was the first example of this I came across. The campaign was spoofed hundreds of times by consumers of the brand who apparently wanted to become involved. New animations were created, films made, scripts written, all by the company's customers.

This idea fits into the theme that this blog explores of a new type of consumer, one mobilised by technology. People weren't happy with the Budweiser campaign just to consume. They wanted to provide their own versions and narratives. This was possible because of new technologies.

Key to the Whassup! campaign was that Anheuser-Busch were happy for people to corrupt their own work (as long as they referenced it as Bud). They new it meant their marketing idea would spread much further and take on forms that would be very attractive to consumers. Often in ways that they as a respected corporation would be restricted from doing.

Keeping Good Company

In August of this year a United Nations committee agreed that businesses should be held accountable for human rights.

The committee, entitled the Subcommission on the Promotion and protection of Human Rights, held that transnational corporations should be monitored by a UN body to assess whether various international treaties are being complied with. They include UN treaties, Genevea conventions, International Labour Organisation Rules and guidelines from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The proposal will be considered by the full 53-nation Human Rights commission in Geneva next March before member states are asked to adopt its meaures. Even if agreed it will only carry moral authority --the proposal includes no power of enforcement.

For this blog, this is the first step in the UN recognising that corporations are now more like countries in terms of their power and influence and need to be treated as such.

This could be a very significant event for the corporate mindset and highlights some of the challenges faced by modern marketeers.

The combination of less public trust in Big Government and Big Business and the increasing power of mobilised consumers this blog has tried to define, creates brand new challenges for corporations that value their reputations (ie all of them). Throw in one of the world's most trusted and loved institutions acting as policeman and the profile of a new landscape startes to emerge.

Powerful 'herds' of consumers mobilised by technology will scutinise the actions of corporations all over the world and hand out verdicts on their abilities as good citizens. And these verdicts will stick making marketing campaigns appear empty and sales slacken.

And what then ? Will the UN start sanctions against rogue corporations ?

Electronic Democracy

The way in which people interact with their government is a fundamental part of any country's economic and social dynamics. In many Western economies this is an area characterised by cynicism and lack of interest. The UK government believes that the internet may be able to help and is busy trying to take as many processed online as possible.

Yesterday I met Tom Steinberg who believes that while the government's intentions are right it's approach lacks imagination and insight. His project mysociety.org seeks to demonstrate that a different approach can achieve a great deal more and create more bang for the taxpayers buck, whilst involving them along the way. The project team are currently collecting inspired ideas submitted by the public to develop and show how a collaborative approach on the internet can tackle feelings of disenfranchisement.

His ideas seemed linked to one of this blog's themes, that networked technology increasingly empowers the individual and mobilises influential groups based around real, practical needs. Be they a desire to see change in a marketplace or in this case a wish to bypass Big Politics.

Today's FT seems to support the idea reporting that Middle England is now organising itself in an unprecedented way and turning to digital networks before the town hall. From militant pensioners against the council tax to Stamp Duty reformers, the silent majority is using tactics more generally associated with dog-on-string, anti-globalisers.

Professor Angell of The LSE dismisses this activity as insignificant. However, he then goes on to describe it as,'the grit that forms the pearl, the first point of contact.' Which goes onto become the valuable and solid hardcore surely....

For modern marketeers such trends are fundamental. Consumers are starting to look less like individuals and more like powerful herds. The question is how to address such groups.

Second Time Round

Is it possible that we are about to enter into a second boom based on the internet ?

There are a few hints pointing out that we are rembracing the web at least.

Google is about to be floated for half the value of Tesco (hardly a dinaosaur itself).

Red Herring is relaunching and predicting a circulation of 400,000.

NOP reports that internet users now spend more of their leisure time doing things on the internet than they do on the TV.

Yahoo's advertising revenues have risen 48per cent in the last quarter.

Maybe this time round it's a boom based on figuring out how a networked society works, rather than figuring out how to wrench 'investment' cash from the palms of naive investors.

A Perfect Market

The founder of eBay is called Pierre Omidyar. His vision for the business was to create a perfect market that would improve the democratic nature of society. Quite a vision but it seems to have worked. Eight years after it's launch it's worth $35bn.

He also said that he wanted, 'to give the individual the power to be a producer as well as a consumer. The financial empowerment you can bring people by giving them access to an efficient market is tremendous.'

What a perfect description of the new consumer that this blog has tried to define. Individuals mobilised by technology to become producers. Thousands of consumers all able to compete for consumer dollars with established businesses. But with no cost base.

All food for thought to the modern marketeer.

Going to war with the consumer

This week's Creative Business has a great quote from a Stanford University law professor called Lawrence Lessig.

At the recent Pop!Tech conference Lessig that current copyright law is being used by organisations such as the Recording Industry Association of America, which is suing ever MP3 downloader that it can find, as a bludgeon.

"We should be changing the law to fit the technology not go to war with the consumer. We need to recognise there is a space between piracy and property."

Lessig tried to persuade the US Supreme Court that continual copyright extensions, such as Walt Disney's continued grip on Mickey Mouse were a barrier to creativity (what a job!). He failed but left convinced that in reality only two legal scenarios exist regarding copyright. Absolute copyright where all rights are reserved and no rights or public domain, where anything is allowed. He felt sure that this is not what a lot of artists want. The inference being that it is the corporations who own their IPs that like the status quo.

Lessig's response was to set up Creative Commons. A not-for-profit where artists choose a copyright style to suit them. More than 1 million licences have been downloaded from the US site. A UK site will follow next year.

Sounds like a lawyer for modern marketeers everywhere.