Are Consumers Talented?

In yesterday's Observer John Naughton, summarised the Flickr story and added that: "It demonstrates in the most vivid way that there is much more talent out there in the population than was ever believed by the moguls who controlled the old print and broadcasting business".  Add Big Brands to that I thought.  For ever and a day, brands have been used to tell consumers (aka people) things in very simple ways. Why the need for simplicity?  Because you need to cut through the noise and create impact etc etc.  However, sometimes I wonder if it's because, deep down, some marketing folk think that people are all, well you know, a bit stupid.  If you can't boil down your point into a very short sentence - ideally one word - and illustrate it with a nice story - it's not that they won't see it.  They won't understand it.  Because, they are, you know, a bit thick.  So, the idea that Naughton hints at - that consumers (aka people) are, in fact, not thick, is all a bit too much to take in.  And the idea that they might be talented.  Well.  That's just stupid.  I sometimes float the idea of talented consumers in marketing workshop-y sessions where you can get away with such outrageousness.  It normally gets the discussion going.  But, but, but.  Consumers are there to Consume and to be represented by their Lifestyles and to Aspire.  Not to be talented.  If they are talented, we'd have to recognise that fact.  No that can't be right.  Our consumers - they aren't talented.  They are consumers.  They consume.  Raising the levels of respect shown to customers isn't new.  In some ways it's very old fashioned.  David Ogilvy summed it up perfectly ages ago - "The consumer is your wife."  However, this time it's different.  Because what Ogilvy intuitively knew to be true, Flickr and the other gazillion web tools floating around the web prove.  There's no Patent on Talent.