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The new traceability

By Mark Di Somma

Flogging a dead horse - as beefAffordable “beef” that’s actually made of horse. Professional athletes who haven’t won what they’ve won legally. Acclaimed investors who turn out to be running Ponzi schemes … The great threat to claiming achievements going forward isn’t credibility. It’s incredulity. It’s disbelief that what one sees, that what has apparently happened, is true. It’s nagging scepticism on the part of investors and customers that the extraordinary must somehow have been artificially, or illegally, manufactured.

Such an atmosphere has enormous repercussions for brands, because of course brands generate much if not all of their value through trust. Evaporation of that trust creates two dangers. Brands either stop trying to be remarkable. Or they try too hard. They commoditise. Or they cheat. Either way, eventually they lose.

Such doubt also changes the rules for what companies need to communicate. Specifically, it suggests a shift in how companies and brands explain. There is little point now in announcing that you have pulled off the impossible (unless, as in the case of Felix Baumgartner, the  impossible can be clearly witnessed). Instead, brands need to be able to show why what has been achieved was possible. How was it done?

How can the “lasagne” be so cheap?

How can one man keep winning race after race?

Why are the new jeans even more affordable?

How did that newspaper know that much about that person?

How did that fund manager make that return?

The new traceability doesn’t pivot on whether a brand has met an international standard. It  revolves increasingly around proving the authenticity of the back story: how a brand has succeeded and still stayed on the right side of the ethical threshold. As the scrutiny around “success” continues to tighten, this will require a candour and a level of explanation, perhaps around methodology, that many will grimace at because it may mean disclosing what they have always held close. But it’s how businesses will increasingly be asked to explain what was once accepted as “almost too good to be true”.

Acknowledgements

Photo titled “Happy Horse” by nathanmac87, sourced from Flickr

More reading

Sustainability: Being good, not just doing good

Every pitch is a story

By Mark Di Somma

The purpose of a pitch is not to sell what you do. It’s to explain in the clearest terms why someone should look forward to doing business with you.

Tell your pitch as a story
Don’t pitch to your prospect’s greatest wish. They already know that. Pitch to their greatest fear. Tell them the story of how you will help them overcome the risks they face to emerge triumphant.

If you haven’t already done so, watch Nancy Duarte’s inspiring TED speech about how to structure a great presentation. As she says, every great presentation needs a combination of facts, insights and story. A pitch presentation, and indeed a pitch document, are no exceptions. To paraphrase Nancy, a pitch is your opportunity to change your own world by changing someone else’s.

If you don’t want to follow Nancy’s great structure, try the Pixar story approach:
Once upon a time there was ___.
Every day, ___.
One day ___.
Because of that, ___.
Because of that, ___.
Until finally ___.

Or take a leaf out of Get Them to See It Your Way, Right Away by my dear friend Ruth Sherman (better yet, read the whole thing):
State your main message
Add key points
List benefits
Examples, stories and vignettes
Summarise and specify next steps

Different pitches need different approaches. The key thing is that you take people with you on a journey that is motivating, challenging and at the same time reassuring. Increasingly, I actually construct pitches in the same way as you might think about the storyboard to a movie (sometimes I even base them on a movie), with transition moments, reveals, twists and of course a great ending. (Actually I got the idea to do this from Ruth. It’s in her book.)

Here’s another fun idea. Take the same facts and try telling your story in a number of ways to see what makes it most effective. It will also help you land on the right structure. Then get people to pitch the storyline back to the team in a three sentence synopsis. You’ll be surprised how different storytelling can change the tone, the feel and the fit. Here’s an example of three very different approaches:

  • Titanic (bold, dramatic, epic)
  • Annie Hall (quiet, reflective, questioning)
  • CSI (detailed, problem-solving, subtle)

Choosing the one that’s right will depend on the nature of the project, the personalities of the people, the risk perceptions, the confidence they have in you … all manner of things. But trying out different approaches in-house will help you find a distinctive and deliberate voice to pitch for that business to that client in that situation.

Finally, don’t just think about the presentation itself. Very few people just turn up to see a film that’s playing. They come to see a movie because they’re excited to see what they’ve heard so much about. Maybe they’ve read a review or seen a programme or their favourite blogger has mentioned something.

In the same vein, to lift the “look forward” factor, I think you should, whenever possible, divide a pitch into three stages that span either side of the presentation meeting. The great advantage of this approach, when it’s done well, is that it effortlessly elongates the story:

The trailer – what are you going to do (if you can) before you even get to pitch in order to interest/excite the people you’re meeting. What are they going to see or hear that convinces them you are credible, interesting and worthy?

The presentation itself – how will you stage it, where will it be held, how many people will speak … detail, detail, detail.

The popcorn – what are you going to give them during the presentation or afterwards to remember you by? It could be a gift. It could be a pure piece of theatre. It could be both. One of my all-time favourites was a pitch I heard of where the presenters wanted to underscore that the prospect was currently losing a million dollars every hour on a project. They announced this by ringing a small bell. Exactly 60 minutes later in the presentation they rang the bell again. After the presentation, everyone received a small bell in a box with the chief contact’s business card. Wow.

Acknowledgements
Photo of “Tell your story” by Wadem, sourced from Flickr

Further reading
The first look to look for in any pitch situation is the intention

What do you have: a brand or an identifier?

By Mark Di Somma

Identities are just a shadow of brands
Contention #1. A true brand coalesces people around a business model – to buy, to work, to judge, to invest. True, it is, as Adrienne used to say, “the total experience of doing business with you”. But the experience is not the end – it is the means. The experience, just like all the other elements of the business model, works to generate trust, connection and distinction. It must do so deliberately, carefully and responsibly. It does so to deliver a premium.

Brands exist to earn margin beyond the going market rate. That’s their role, not their by-product. That margin can of course take various forms. It can be literal, in the sense of what consumers are prepared to pay. It can be cultural, in the sense that people with more talent are drawn to one marque over another. It can be financial, in the sense of enhanced EPS (earnings per share) for investors.

A brand that doesn’t generate, or intend to generate, that above-normal market rate is a brand in decline or no brand at all.

Contention #2. One of the key reasons we have such cluttered small and middle sized markets is that so many companies in those markets don’t have brands. They have identifiers that they call “brands”. In fact, they are signatures. But, in the parlance of a brand is not a logo, putting a name on a product or a firm, particularly an indistinguishable product or firm, doesn’t make it a brand. It simply makes it an also-ran with a name.

Companies then invest advertising money in their identifier in the hope that it will somehow gain value. What they are actually investing in is media-paid familiarity of their identity.

Contention #3. So much brand strategy is actually identity strategy, because it is based on developing an informed identity system, not driven by the need to develop a storied ecosystem capable of generating those above-market returns.

Contention #4. So much brand management is actually identity management – again because it seeks to control how the brand is arranged rather than overseeing how the brand is performing as a margin generator.

Contention #5. Many rebrands are really re-identifications. They modernise the hieroglyphics. They don’t redefine how the business will make money beyond the given market return.

Contention #6. Brands should be assessed for investment by senior decision makers and Boards on their ability to deliver to the key financial measures and indicators, not questioned on their affordability based on the key financial measures and indicators. As a Marketing Manager said to me just last week, “I’m struggling to get my Board to understand that I’m responsible for assets not opex items.”

Acknowledgements

Photo entitled “That’s Interesting” by Kevin Dooley, sourced from Flickr

How do you write a great purpose?

By Mark Di Somma

A powerful purposeA sizzling purpose sets out how a company intends to change the world for the better. Its role is to unite customers and culture alike in the pursuit of that intention. It’s a statement of belief, of hope, of pursuit. It’s born of a wish to see the world put to rights. Having fielded a number of enquiries this week about how to develop a purpose, I thought I’d share how I approach such a critically important task.

First and foremost, a purpose should never be developed in isolation. This affects your entire organisation. It should involve the senior leadership team to start with, and then be socialised for discussion. The discussion itself shouldn’t revolve around the words (because that quickly becomes semantic nit-picking). It should focus on the passion, on the biggest belief you share and on the implications of holding that belief for everything you do.

Start with the greatest good

Don’t tell your people and customers about what you want to see change in the business. State what you fundamentally believe must change in the world. Coke wants to see more happiness. Disney wants to see more magic. Virgin wants to see more rebellion. Google wants to see more things found. What does your brand most want to see happen? What do you passionately want to see stop? Whatever you decide: that’s the goal. And it should be one you are prepared to shout from the rooftops.

Make the strongest link

What is your brand going to do to make that change happen? The answer to that question must define your unique involvement. It must help explain why you are most qualified to be trusted in this pursuit and how everyone you care about (including of course your customers) benefits from you trying to get there. It must shed light on your agenda – and in so doing, it must reveal your humanity.

Ask for actions at every level

Your purpose should be the goal that everyone who works at your workplace and buys from your brand is most committed to see happen. That’s the big picture. But your purpose must also be able to be framed in such a way as to inspire people at a highly transactional level. Steve Jobs didn’t instruct people to “Think different”. Instead, he encouraged them to continually question what they were doing by asking: “What are you doing today to think different?” Such a benchmark question pushes people to evaluate their actions against the impact they will have. Such questions bring the purpose right down to what anyone is doing in any given moment. If you can’t frame a benchmark question from your purpose, it isn’t personal enough and therefore it risks being less relevant.

Examples that may inspire you

Virgin: Screw business as usual and let’s see what’s possible.

Google: To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Twitter: The fastest, simplest way to stay close to everything you care about.

Starbucks: To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighbourhood at a time.

The “Tell me again” test

Some years back, I was fortunate to meet author and speaker Ian Percy at a conference in the States. He generously gave me a copy of his wonderful and succinct book “The Power of Purpose”. It makes the business case for purpose powerfully and deliberately, and includes this simple idea that I use religiously because it separates in the clearest terms the business case for what you’re doing from the purpose you should promulgate. (Thanks Ian.)

Here’s how it works:

When you retire and your grown children or their children come to you and ask you to explain why you spent so much time at work, what story will they most want to hear? Will their interest match your purpose?

The wrong reason to have gone to work, because your grandchildren wouldn’t ask and wouldn’t be interested: “Tell me again how you achieved a year on year double digit return on capital.”

A wonderful reason to have gone to work, because people would always want to know: “Tell me again how you helped cure a disease that was killing a million children a year.”

Both statements aim for the same result if you’re a pharmaceutical company – the business can achieve highly attractive returns on capital by curing a significant disease – but the purpose, the reason you’re asking people to come to work, couldn’t be more different.

In the first instance, you’re asking people to show up to achieve a financial effect. In the second case, you’re asking them to help stop a child-killer.

Run the “Tell me again” test against your current mission. Now ask yourself this: Who’d want to hear about that again?”

A purpose that is not worth sharing is not worth having.

Acknowledgements
Photo by AuthenticEccentric, sourced from Flickr

Further reading
Purpose vs vision and mission

30 things likeable brands do

30 things likeable brands do

By Mark Di Somma

Being likeable is not about being liked by everyone. Likeable brands actually need to be very clear about who likes them and why and how they need to behave in order to continue to appeal to their community. 10 ways to build a truly likeable brand states the principles of likeability and is one of my most popular posts. As a companion piece, here’s my 30 point action list on how brands should systematically accumulate likeability. Order can vary. Read More

Can you innovate too quickly?

By Mark Di Somma

Apple iPad 3 launch eventWhat is the right pace for a brand to transform in an iterative economy? So often we’re told that success will stem from pushing the innovation accelerator flat to the floor. As proof, we hear about those companies that failed to innovate or didn’t respond quickly enough – and were buried. But is that true?

Is innovation just about turnover, or is it more complicated than that? Where should brands take their cues – from their own development programmes, from their competitors, from the media, from their own marketing demands?

Where do you look for prompts when you have new work in the wings?

There’s a theory for this (of course) – diffusion of innovation. It revolves around two key aspects: an adoption process that generates critical mass (a.k.a the bell curve); and Professor Everett Rogers’ five influential factors concerning take-up:

  • Relative advantage – how much better the innovation is than its predecessor
  • Compatibility – how easily the innovation can be assimilated into everyday life
  • Complexity – how easy or difficult the innovation is to adopt
  • Commitment – how easily a person can try the innovation out before they commit to it
  • Visibility – how easily the innovation can be seen, recognised and endorsed by others

I would add three more considerations to his list:

  • Pace – how often are innovations announced, particularly if the product innovation cycle appears to have sped up (this may cause consumers to feel that the innovation has been rushed)
  • Similarity – how similar does this innovation seem to what came before it (and therefore how inclined are people to forsake what they see as minor improvements by ‘skipping’ a generation)
  • Excitement – how much attention has the innovation garnered both for itself and in comparison to other concurrent offerings coming into the launch.

Michael Schrage tackles the issue of how to pace change in an HBR post recently. He provides a great answer: “The issue is less about how fast CEOs are willing to move than how quickly their most reliable customers are prepared to change … Your own rate of change is determined less by the quality or price/performance of your offerings than the measurable readiness of your customers and clients … Their inertia matters more than your momentum.”

“The measurable readiness”. The critical success factor for innovation is not just speed to market, it’s speed with market. Scaled inclination. While consumers may have become very accustomed to witnessing change, that doesn’t necessarily mean they will participate. Observing change doesn’t mean that they will buy the change. Something causes them to switch. But something can just as easily can cause them to question.

And that questioning can occur not just before a purchase but also after it. Take the introduction of the iPad 3. It may have felt good to many at the time – but with the arrival of the iPad 4 so soon afterwards, “measurable readiness” for what the iPad 3 was and what it had contributed came under fire. A Toluna QuickSurveys poll found that 45% of the third generation iPad owners it surveyed were upset with Apple for releasing the fourth generation model just seven months after the former tablet’s release.

OK, the dissatisfaction didn’t affect iPad 4 sales, but it does sound a cautionary note I think to brands looking to “rush” the market. Innovators need to be very careful in their pacing of releases not to be seen to be leading consumers on or for that matter to be seen to be deliberately holding back.

I summarise it this way.

The 10 reactions to innovation:
People will buy something wondrous.
They’ll examine something that’s markedly better than what they have.
They’ll consider an improvement.
They’ll hesitate over an adjustment.
They’ll dismiss a lack of progress.
They’ll reject a mistake.
They’ll vilify a disappointment.
And if you fail to renew fast enough, they’ll look for a copy (at a better price).
But they’ll also forgive.
And they may even choose to forget.

Acknowledgements

Image of “Apple iPad 3 Event” taken by Blake Patterson (blakespot), sourced from Flickr

Other perspectives
Purpose vs mission and vision

Purpose vs vision and mission

By Mark Di Somma

I hope the days of vision and mission statements are nearly over. They’re the paperwork of traditional management models. They’re strategic compliance, and as such, they get deliberated over at great length and then forgotten. For the most part, they’re also self-centred – all about what the organisation wants to achieve for itself, all about how it intends to achieve whatever it deems important. They often don’t suit the much more open, interactive, social ways in which business is increasingly being done. Read More

How do you keep the magic? 7 ways big companies get it so wrong with long-term customers

By Mark Di Somma

By Mark Di Somma

Big companies find it hard to sustain meaningful relationships with customers

Everyone talks at length about customer engagement and the need to converse. The process is relatively straight-forward for high-street brands. They use the seasons, sales and releases to keep people coming back. There are timely prompts. But how do you keep customers engaged when they’re on a contract, for example, that may span several years or even a lifetime?

A while back, my company Audacity was involved in a complex, multi-layered change programme to transit a telecommunications company’s customer communications from paper-based to digital. Over the course of many months, we grappled with all the issues you’d expect: what needed to be communicated; when; how; through what channels … But one of the biggest issues we identified and addressed was how to evolve the tone of the communications over time so that they brought people closer to the brand. We identified this as crucial to developing meaningful, valuable and of course profitable long-term relationships.

Utilities, banks, telcos, car companies and insurance companies in particular seem to make seven crucial mistakes in managing a customer communications programme:

  1. They think paperwork is a relationship;
  2. They treat people as “the customer” rather than as individuals;
  3. They focus on conveying information rather than growing loyalty;
  4. They apply “flat” tone and manner guidelines that don’t adjust for the change in familiarity that should take place over time;
  5. They think of the communications themselves as set pieces driven by function or event (bills, policy changes, price rises) rather than integrating that functional information into a much more inclusive and interactive communications style;
  6. They use their CRM to “track” each relationship rather than looking for ways to increasingly humanise it;
  7. Customers receive multiple communications from multiple parties with multiple priorities. As a result, they don’t feel like they are dealing with one organisation throughout the journey. Instead they talk to one part of the entity about one part, and another part of the entity about another, and the manner and style of those conversations can be very different.

Inspired by the work of David Court and others at McKinsey in developing the “consumer decision journey”, we developed our own version of such a journey specific to communicating within a relationship rather than the purchase consideration process itself.

The Audacity Group MotivationMapIt’s underpinned by three key thoughts:

• Inclination is king. The purpose of communications is to accumulate loyalty and each step up in the process represents a change in the loyalty dynamics. It’s not about the number of communications customers receive, but that everything a customer hears from and about a brand works together and consistently to incline them more and more towards the brand. You can’t just be interesting at first. You have to remain stimulating and relevant over time and from every angle.

• Communications should be experiences, not just information. Brands need to design what customers continue to experience so that they exceed what customers just expect to receive. Anchoring core communications in agreed channels at set points throughout the journey gives the relationship structure. But then, on top of that, using more immediate and responsive media adds spontaneity, surprises, interest, rewards, up-sells and fun.

• The tone and manner should keep pace. A brand’s communications must always report to its tone and manner and visual guidelines. But the journey remains interesting and engaging when different aspects of the brand’s personality come to the fore over time. Specifically, the transition points in the journey are opportunities to adjust the tone so that it becomes, and feels, more familiar as customers become more committed.

Audacity’s tool, MotivationMap, literally maps the change in dynamics that should occur in how a brand communicates over time. The goal is to continually match the tone of communications with the inclinations of customers throughout their relationship with you.

At first glance, the topline view of the model (above) seems very simple. The intricacies come in how it is applied – for example, the “prompt” points that step people up from one level of commitment to the next; and the fact that the motivational process is not a one-off. There is not one consideration point. There is not one bond point. In fact, the whole journey occurs simultaneously at different levels throughout the relationship: there is the inclination that people have towards the company as a whole; and the inclination they feel towards each offer/opportunity they are presented with. The greater the overall bond, the shorter the journey for each offer (in theory at least). The more offers that are taken up, the greater the bond.

MotivationMap is a model that continues to evolve. For example, one thing I’ve been working on is the final step of the journey: learning to say goodbye properly. It’s a reality of doing business today that I touched on in this post.

Let me know if you’re struggling to marry what you know about your customers with what you tell them and how you converse with them. Please leave a comment or email me: mark@markdisomma.com.

Acknowledgements

Untitled image of a corporate building by ^W^, sourced from Flickr
MotivationMap is a tool of The Audacity Group in New Zealand

The first thing to look for in any pitch situation is the intention

By Mark Di Somma

By Mark Di Somma

So you’ve been asked to pitch for some business. The most natural thing in the world is to focus on your intentions – whether you want to pitch, how much resource you’re prepared to throw at it, the timing, the deliverables …

What often goes unasked (and unanswered) is why the invitation to pitch is being made in the first place. That matters because it helps identify who your real competitors for the business are, and therefore whether you believe you have a genuine chance of winning the business on terms that are acceptable and sustainable to you.

Question the intention of every pitch

Six intentions

Some organisations have to put their business out to pitch – it’s policy. Chances are they also do this a lot, so it’s a process for them – which means their intention is to do what they always do. They’re going to be looking for good process back. They need to see that in addition to taking away their problems you can and do do things by the book. Your biggest competitor in this situation is a return on your investment. You’ll win if you’re the safest pair of hands, but chances are all you’re going to win is this piece of work, because the follow-up will almost certainly be pitched as well. Do your numbers and your resourcing very carefully for projects like this.

Some organisations are tyre-kicking. They want to see what’s out there, and they want to see people compete for their attention. So they send out the commercial equivalent of an ‘open call’ and wait to see what walks in. This situation – commonly referred to as “the beauty parade” – generates a line-up of attractive companies in a revolving door pitch that sees an entry and exit on the hour. The way to win is to be impressive, and lucky. The biggest thing you’re competing for is attention. Bring fireworks. The show is usually more important than the tell.

Some organisations are trawling. They need ideas – and the simplest and most cost effective way to source them is to go out and get them from the market under the façade of the pitch process. Alarm bells should go off if you hear anything like “we’ll know the answer when we see it” or “We just want to see your ideas”. The natural inclination of many service organisations is to help. So they prepare a pitch where they tell themselves they’re convincing, when in actual fact they’re solving. In particular, watch for pitch situations where the organisation receiving the pitches retains control of the ideas, either as of right or in exchange for a nominal fee. Your biggest competitor in these situations is loss of ownership. We’ve all watched people prepare a pitch, lose, and for those ideas to somehow find their way into the final thinking. Be disciplined about what you reveal. Show enough to prove they need you – then have the confidence and pride in what you do to stop.

Some organisations are genuinely looking to change. These are the pitches that really count because these are the situations in which a company is not only most motivated to look for new ideas but also to look for new generators. The key dynamic in this circumstance is almost always action. The biggest competitor is your perceived ability to generate momentum versus how others are perceived. Show up with a strong understanding of what’s going on, some searching questions, some telling insights and a plan of what you believe can be done in the first 90 days. Bring proof you’ve pulled off what’s required before, it was just as scary and it worked. If you can’t bring a similar example, bring case studies and testimonials that demonstrate your ability to lead and to be trusted.

Some organisations are really looking not to change. They may be making genuine-sounding review noises, but in point of fact, the pitch is really just a means to an end that you’ll never be privy to. There is no competitor in this situation. Because there is no genuine intention to do anything. If the reason for pitching is not clear, if the objectives seem muted and you only receive vagaries for answers, decline politely.

Some businesses just want to cut cost and pitching is a way to solicit participation in that process. They may or may not be open about that. The pitch invites that always cause me concern are the ones that focus on “this is your opportunity to work with a prestigious brand” or “this is the first of many projects we have planned”. There’s a good chance that working with these companies is going to cost you – in margin, in time or both. Unless you have a genuine low-cost model that you can work profitably to advance both businesses’ agendas right from the outset, I’d walk away. If you do have a low-cost model and you do decide to stay, be very clear about the service expectations and resourcing that come with that model from the first project on. Chances are that a company that wants to save costs still expects to have high-touch service. If you can’t afford to deliver that, make your case, set a negotiation point and don’t go beyond it. The company that “wins” in these situations is the company prepared to forsake the most profit. The biggest competitor is the urge to stay and make things work somehow because you hope the other party will be reasonable. If that’s what you’re banking on, sorry – but you’re on a hiding to nothing.

The four questions I recommend you ask

I find a lot of wheat and chaff sorting can be achieved very early on in the pitch process with just four questions. The next time you’re invited to pitch for a piece of business, ask:

1. Why have you put this business out to pitch, and what do you hope to gain by doing so?
2. How did you decide who was on your pitch list?
3. When was the last time you ran a pitch of this size?
4. What was the result of that pitch – did the business stay with the incumbent or did it go elsewhere?

You’ll build a rapid profile of the business’s intentions, and therefore the identity of the real competitor(s), from what you’re told – or not told.

Acknowledgements

Question mark made of puzzle pieces taken by Horia Varlan, sourced from Flickr.

Familiarity 2.0 will bring brands amazing opportunities and new challenges

By Mark Di Somma

By Mark Di Somma

It’s easy to underestimate the huge changes that have taken place in the dynamics of the brand-customer relationship in recent years. Brands and consumers are now engaged at whole new levels of familiarity. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn et al haven’t just brought people closer, they have enabled entirely new types of brand community to evolve and develop. But as we shall see, they have also expanded expectations in terms of responsiveness.

I’ve dubbed this heightened connection Familiarity 2.0 (because to me it really does equate to a new era of acquaintance).

Familiarity 2.0Research shows consumers increasingly valuing brands that they feel fundamentally understand them and that interact with them as human beings. According to the Brandfog CEO, Social Media and Leadership Survey 2012, customers now expect to have direct access to brands and brand leaders. What’s more, the survey shows, there is a direct connection between social media participation, purchase intent and increased brand loyalty.

The days of the brand being on one side of the counter and the customer being on the other are coming to a close. Increasingly, transactions are part of a wider and more open exchange. Purchase is an expression of the brand-customer relationship rather than its sole goal.

The opportunities arising from this social shift are enormous. Familiarity 2.0 paves the way for brands to continue to extend relationships so that, more and more, the relationships themselves are two-way. In fact, Familiarity 2.0 dynamics will change how brands evolve by redefining who they involve. Customers will literally become participants in a brand’s business. They will have opportunities to be active contributors in exchange for recognition, rewards (perhaps) and the thrill of collective involvement.

As these dynamics mature, brands could well look to their customers to help them:
•  Accelerate product development and improvements;
•  Enhance and personalise experiences;
•  Drive market-powered innovation;
•  Test ideas in specific or developing markets; and
•  Realise responsibility initiatives.

More and more brands will globally source competitive ideas across the full range of their activities from an engaged community of brand advocates. Kickstarter meets Skunkworks.

That’s the upside. It’s already here in places. But to me, it is far from pervasive.

However, a heightened sense of familiarity will also generate interesting challenges. Here are four:

1. As the lines between “them” and “us” blur, and brands act much more like communities, the lines between those working inside the brand and those who buy and believe in the brand must also blur. People from both “sides” will interact more openly … That will inevitably raise many more questions than are already being asked about what can be shared and what can’t, by whom, how etc

2. Shared beliefs will cement brands and audiences more overtly. That in turn will evolve what communities talk about amongst themselves. Inevitably brand managers will want to know how those conversations can and should be managed. Marketing managers for their part will need to find new equations to more accurately correlate activity and profitability.

3. Impatience will increase. As consumers think of the brands they buy as increasingly ‘like them’, they will expect those brands to respond not only more personally but also much more quickly. As the infographic with research conducted by Software Advice  shows, we are a long way from that reality, so brands will need to find a way to temper the advantages of familiarity with the judgements that consumers will make about brand-quality and customer service when responses are not as forthcoming as they might like.

4. Perhaps the biggest challenge facing brands though will be where they draw the line in terms of customer intimacy. When is close too close? When does data become invasion? For that matter, at what point does conversation just become banter? How do brands avoid becoming too familiar – so well known, so understood, so much a part of everyday life that they lose any sense of mystique. As George Sands once observed, “Admiration and familiarity are strangers”.

Acknowledgements:

Photo titled “realizing” taken by The Alieness Gisela Giardino, sourced from Flickr