Your brand is not what you think it is…it is what your customers say it is. Companies will spend millions of dollars establishing a brand, but unless your customers perceive it the same way the brand will morph into the community brand that supports it.
I’ve been reading a great book “Groundswell”, and they make this statement about mid-way in the book. I have to say that it not only applies to companies these days…it applies to technology and market places. Take a look at what Pandora is doing to traditional radio. What has iTunes and the other digital download sites have done to traditional retail. What blogs are doing to traditional magazines. What cell phones have done to traditional telephones (feels weird even typing that word). Email has done to faxes…and the list goes on and on.
My point is, the people control these trends. They control the market place. They control, now more than ever, where companies move brands…products…technology. For the first time in history, the people have a platform. They have social profiles, blogs, twitters, product reviews.
Traditional radio, magazines, retail, phones, will never be the same. In another 10 years, we’ll need to do carbon dating to study these dinosaur formats that thrived up to the mid 90’s. The consumers have spoken. Is your company listening?
