Are You Ready for Marketing 2.0?

This is a broader discussion than just this weeks' launch of BrandingWire. And it is because the product of this collaboration ends up not being a tangible thing, per se. In fact, you are the ones with the products and services, the conversation around your brand and how to make it blossom is the focus and potential action of such collaboration.

I think we've covered 2.0 from the Web to Advertising to the kitchen sink. The one variable in this equation remains the human element. In Marketing 2.0, this variable populates both the working team and the outcome.

What if this concept came alive in an open source format? What if you had a team of experts who will look at your opportunity not in the traditional agency setting as a group brainstorm. What if the way the analysis, research, and experience deployed happened simultaneously? Each version would contain a recommendation from a different angle. As diverse as your customer base, and covering so many more ideas.

That is exactly what happened this week with our first case at BrandingWire. I've been talking about feedback and echo chambers -- there was tremendous positive feedback built into our offline conversations among the 12 members of this posse, yet surprisingly very little to non existent echo in the possibilities presented.

Joe Raasch, a reader and coffee house customer, comments on my take of our first coordinated post:

For the sake of conversation, what if you couldn't implement any of your ideas (cost, timing, staff, whatever) and you had to rely on a social network of some sort to get people to enjoy your coffee?

Some of the best food and drink experiences in many towns are the 'local bar'. You expect the chairs to be a bit mismatched, the bar to have cigarette burns, etc. Nothing flashier than a neon Summit Brewery sign. Yet the bartender knows your name, the beer is cold, etc, etc.

Or the great breakfast place that makes hashbrowns like no other...even though there are only eight seats in the entire restaurant. This is the engagement Drew mentions.

Do marketers create ideas for the opportunity to create ideas? Or are they pinpointed with the theme, client, and overall experience and brand promise in mind? Or do they feel compelled by clients to put several ideas in front of them because they feel that is what is to be delivered?

These are all great questions. I expanded on the concept of open source marketing at my post at The Blog Herald, so let's jump over there and kick off that conversation, then come back here and build on Joe's points. Coffee anyone?

Comments

[Geoff Livingston]

Good post: This seems right to me. Things are moving so quickly that marketing's more of a service organization helping and responding to the community, rather than dictating to it. And this is the natural evolution of marketing as social media gains further traction, it's only natural that the principles of success here affect other disciplines within the marketing tool set.

GL

P.S. Sorry, but the term 2.0 kills me. I just think it's been beaten to death.

[Valeria Maltoni]

Geoff:

That's why my tongue was firmly planted in cheek. The truth is anything marketers (and consultants, I must say) get a hold off, tends to get beaten to death.

Everyone wants to have the magic potion or the magic word, and it becomes difficult to explain things at the creation stage. So on the label comes.