The excellent Networker in yesterday's Observer newspaper gives a great example of the power of CGM.
It refers to the company Kryptonite that makes bike locks. When it emerged one day that the company's most fearsome deterrent could in fact be opened with a bic pen, word spread rapidly on the web through biking communities such as bikeforums.net. In a few days 400k people read a notice on the board and 3 million downloads of a video demonstrating the product's fallibility were recorded.
The next day Big Media got hold of the story and shelves were cleared and product returned.
Networker's point is that the product had been around since 1992. It was the new enhanced power of CGM that nailed it.
Or in the article's words:
"There are lessons to be learned from this episode. The first is for company executives: if you screw up badly then the world will know and there is nothing you can do about it. The good old bad days when duff or unsafe products could be sold for years before some law enforcement or customer standards authority acted are gone for good. And because of the net it can happen in a week."
Digital consumers roll on...
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