Open Source Innovation
Today’s consumer is different from the past. More savvy, more sceptical, wealthier, better informed, and more in control. The advertising industry, however, is still largely using tactics that were created in the 1950’s. The traditional command and control mindset results in unhappy consumers. Modern day consumers find advertising irrelevant, or even irritating. The solution to the problems with old school techniques is open source innovation. The new age of marketing is emerging with a different vision of the world. Here at Um-Dearborn, we understand the mindset of the new consumer and the values of Open Source markets. We understand that for marketing strategies to be effective they must reflect this new marketplace.These strategies are as sophisticated as the new markets themselves but a few principles are clear:
Spot Brand Fans
Be a Brand Host
Be a Good Listener
Get Real
Back to the Source
Customers are Clever
Let Go
Consumers are no longer happy to sit back and be fed a brand and its values. They want to interact with the brand source. That means giving consumers access to the brand and inviting them to co-create on branded projects. Open Source marketers understand this and make it easy for customers to get involved with a brand and affect its direction and values.
The new age of marketing recognize there is no point in ‘demanding back the source material’ because it is well and truly out there in the public domain and it’s not coming back. In fact, they look to put the brand source materials in the hands of the consumers. They enable communities to create and innovate in ways that enlarge and enrich the community.
Open source innovators know that that brand guardians are no longer relevant to the marketplace and that brand hosts are more in tune with the times. Today’s consumer wants to interact with big, exciting, sexy brands, but on their own terms. Brands can host the party and try and make it attractive to consumers but they must realize that the new consumers are more in tune with the times.
The voice of the mass markets was a loud monologue which didn’t leave a lot of time to listen to anyone. Open Source communities are all about conversation and dialogue. Open Source Marketing means listening really closely to everything that brings the new marketplace alive.
Authenticity is one of the most valuable assets in the transparent marketplace. So human, friendly voices are extremely effective. Corporate speak and public relations flack is just ignored and pretening fails. This is a difficult leap of faith for companies who have been used their brands like shields, to keep the world at bay.
Open Source marketers understand that their customers are more clever than themselves and their agencies. They try and tap into this intelligence to help grow their brands. This includes the obssessive customers who make noise about every last product detail or development and constantly get in touch with crazy ideas. These customers are often the most valuable.
Open source marketeers understand that people are now in control of the brands that for so long have been wrapped up and locked in corporate safes. Brands are no longer proprietary and companies need to adapt to that reality. There’s no point in calling in the lawyers to try and change things back. The world has moved on.
Open Minds
Open Source marketers also know this new environment is not as dangerous as it sounds. They know the greatest barriers are the mental ones built up during the reign of mass marketing and TV.
Budweiser launching the hugely popular Whassup! campaign led to consumers making their own versions and competing to see who could be most innovative and entertaining. Groups of Rabbis, English gentlemen, superheroes and South Park characters started Whassuping! appearing all over the web. They may not have realized it at the time but they were collaborating in an Open Source style