Co-Creation and the SCHMITT Blog
Today marks a turning point for the SCHMITT blog.
Why today? The winds of change are blowing. Everywhere I turn, I hear news that the old command-and-control marketing will no longer do. Brands can no longer be built by monolithic leadership alone. The new watchwords are transparency, openness, and consumer participation.
The new model is aptly titled “co-creation.” In it, consumers help to create the products, services, and brands they desire. The open-source model (started in software, with Linux, etc.) is coming to marketing. By involving customers more, companies lose some control, but gain the possibility of much more passionately involved stakeholders in their brand.
The old model of Disney suing schoolchildren for appropriating the image of Mickey Mouse is just no longer workable. Today’s marketplace winners are not a handful of mega-brands built by decades of advertising; today’s winners are brands that passionately engage consumers, and let them have a hand in shaping them.
Blogs are, in fact, heralded as one of the new technologies that can give consumers that hand in the process. Blogs allow for greater participation, interaction, and transparency. So why not this blog?
I have decided to bring co-creation to the SCHMITTblog. Instead of writing all posts myself, I will be inviting a handful of passionate brand evangelists to serve as contributors to the blog.
David Rogers and Nick Peterson, of the Center on Global Brand Leadership, have both collaborated with me on books, classes, consulting, and branding operas. Professor Jonathan Levav (a.k.a Levav) has already proven his mettle in the comments section of this blog (see his notes on body hair). In time, other contributors may be added.
There is a risk, of course, in opening up such an established brand as SCHMITT to the unpredictable hands of others. But the rewards and possibility of co-creation is too great to pass up.
Enjoy the new, co-created, SCHMITTblog!
-Bernd H. Schmitt
Why today? The winds of change are blowing. Everywhere I turn, I hear news that the old command-and-control marketing will no longer do. Brands can no longer be built by monolithic leadership alone. The new watchwords are transparency, openness, and consumer participation.
The new model is aptly titled “co-creation.” In it, consumers help to create the products, services, and brands they desire. The open-source model (started in software, with Linux, etc.) is coming to marketing. By involving customers more, companies lose some control, but gain the possibility of much more passionately involved stakeholders in their brand.
The old model of Disney suing schoolchildren for appropriating the image of Mickey Mouse is just no longer workable. Today’s marketplace winners are not a handful of mega-brands built by decades of advertising; today’s winners are brands that passionately engage consumers, and let them have a hand in shaping them.
Blogs are, in fact, heralded as one of the new technologies that can give consumers that hand in the process. Blogs allow for greater participation, interaction, and transparency. So why not this blog?
I have decided to bring co-creation to the SCHMITTblog. Instead of writing all posts myself, I will be inviting a handful of passionate brand evangelists to serve as contributors to the blog.
David Rogers and Nick Peterson, of the Center on Global Brand Leadership, have both collaborated with me on books, classes, consulting, and branding operas. Professor Jonathan Levav (a.k.a Levav) has already proven his mettle in the comments section of this blog (see his notes on body hair). In time, other contributors may be added.
There is a risk, of course, in opening up such an established brand as SCHMITT to the unpredictable hands of others. But the rewards and possibility of co-creation is too great to pass up.
Enjoy the new, co-created, SCHMITTblog!
-Bernd H. Schmitt
posted by SCHMITT at 5:33 PM
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