Mass advertising, as we know it, could well be dying. Increasingly, it’s the consumers who are taking charge of your brands. Since the Internet began, the power in the brand game has shifted.

In the old days, marketers were in full control of the brand. Now the majority of brand impressions are initiated and promulgated by consumers. Consumers have become brand masters, leaving marketers to merely fuel the game, rather than play it.

In fact, many companies are working closely with the consumer to co-create products, services and new brand experiences!

Consumers’ role
Procter & Gamble, for instance, launched its CONNECT + DEVELOP programme about five years ago, with the goal of having at least 50 per cent of its new products derived from ideas generated by non-employee experts. Smart thinking. Apart from its R&D base, the company now has access to millions of potential innovators. The results? Swiffer Wet Jet, Olay Daily Facials, Crest Whitestrips and Lipfinity were all suggested by consumers.

Consumers are even taking over the traditional function of ad agencies. The Converse gallery has dozens of 24-second films, made by Converse fans, expressing what the shoe means to them. These are then broadcast on Converse’s website, with the possibility of being aired on MTV and other cable networks as well.

But the most daring example of co-creating with consumers comes from Scandinavia! Vores Ol (‘Our Beer’) claims to be the world’s first open-source beer. The recipe and the entire design manual is actually available on the Net! Once virtually anyone can sign the agreement and can use Vores Ol’s recipe to brew the beer, create a derivative and make money!

Consumers are loving it because they can get what they want and need at their own terms, show off their creative skills, become famous and even make money from their contributions and involvement.

Consumers are demanding more participation in the creation of the brands they consume. And are no longer content with the traditional forms of marketing that forced them to passively ingest the traditional harvest of an advertising agency — commercials, ads, banners, fancy wordings and imagery.

Consumers are challenging the traditional stereotypical prisms through which brands are viewed. Most brand managers like to think of their brands as saintly, untarnished entities that need to be protected against desecration and sacrilege.

They see themselves as keepers of the flame, as Knights Templars who must maintain a 24 hour vigil to safeguard the sanctity of the Holy Grail (the brand). But the consumers don’t think of brands as the Holy Grail. Consumers just want to closely interact with brand, talk to it like buddies and have fun with it.

It’s imperative that brand managers stop seeing themselves as brand custodians. Because fact of the matter is, you can’t keep a brand in custody. A brand lives and thrives in the minds, lives, experiences and conversations of consumers who can be monitored and observed but never controlled.

To connect better with consumers, tomorrow’s brands must have opinions, or they’ll be perceived as bland. Brands must be real and not necessarily squeaky clean and uncontroversial. Brands must take a stand on issues, express their values and opinions, and demonstrate responsibility.

Brands’ values
Brands without well-defined opinions will find it increasingly difficult to gain traction in the marketplace. The challenge is to ensure opinions are in tune with the brand’s core values. That they’re authentic, not deceptive and not an opportunistic, superficial play for attention.

For example, some months ago, Ben & Jerry’s released an anti-nuclear ice cream. It’s fun novelty for some, a responsible and serious message for others. The ice cream sold out in days. Richard Branson painted “No Way BA” on his entire fleet of aircraft when he characteristically displayed animosity toward his formidable adversary, British Airways. It positioned Branson as a courageous David fighting the Goliath of British Airways. The public loved it.

The timelines for building a brand are also collapsing. Things no longer happen according to a 24-month deadline. You might be lucky and have a deadline stretch to 24 hours. Brands must prepare themselves to be able to react within days to trends. Consumers love quick response times.

And yes, consumers love creativity. The more daring and chutzpah a brand displays, the more quickly consumers fall in love with it. Triumph, a German lingerie maker, was trying a get a foothold in Tokyo, one of the world’s most competitive markets. One year, the company invited Japanese women to deliver their used bras to their local Triumph stores to receive a free new bra.

The invitation led to a ritual: close to a million bras were gathered and destroyed at a shrine in the center of Tokyo, an event that made headlines around the world. On another occasion, Triumph released a bra that could be converted into an environmentally friendly shopping bag.

These approaches took Japan by storm. Triumph is now one of two market leaders in Japan, and the company as a policy, deliberately, restricts its marketing budget so that creativity becomes a way of life.

(The authors are vice-president & executive creative directors,Contract Advertising, Mumbai)