In a departure from traditional PR and media-release marketing, brands have in recent years been experimenting with a much more open relationship with their customers.
Last month Epic Games announced that they were developing the latest version of Unreal Tournament in conjunction with their fan base. Internal developers will work with interested gamers and programmers on a shared codebase and discuss features, artwork and gameplay in an open forum.
This is more than just asking for customer feedback – its full-scale collaborative product development.
While by no means a trivial undertaking, this venture is made easier by the fact that it’s a virtual product, and there are established and powerful tools to allow programmers to work together efficiently.
The next step is for this to happen with physical products. Crowd-funding is one thing, but ultimately Kickstarter, Indiegogo and their dozens of clones are just a prepayment system, a way for entrepreneurs to validate an idea and secure upfront funding without losing equity. Rarely are they any more collaborative than traditional funding methods.
When it will get interesting is when major brands start to actively engage their customers and create the next generation of their consumer products in conjunction with them.
The fear, of course, is that you might end up with “The Car Built For Homer” – as any old-school Simpsons fans will remember when Homer is reunited with his half-brother, who gives him free reign to design the car of the future, resulting in a dome-roofed, overpriced, green monstrosity that nobody wants. Though the story is obviously exaggerated, it’s based on an actual model by Ford in late fifties and the Simpsons has a knack for hitting unnervingly close to home.
This stems from that fact that generally experts are experts for a reason. They understand the challenges of building a product and the limitations of manufacturing. So it makes sense to experiment with smaller scale ideas first, and one of these is advertising and brand messaging.
Ultimately success will be determined by how brands can balance sincerity with a clear message. User-generated content conveys authenticity, but your customers aren’t your marketing team, and giving them complete creative freedom without oversight could end poorly.
Coca-Cola has recently shown a great example of when oversight works with their new “This is AHH” commercial, consisting entirely of short video clips shot by fans sharing how they feel when they take a sip of Coke. The top 40 submissions were cut together and are running in a national TV campaign in the US.
Aside from perfectly embodying the Vine and Snapchat generation, the campaign works so well because they’re personal stories told professionally, and viewers engage with this message.
At the end of the day, it’s like starting a new relationship – losing control is scary, but it helps you discover great new things.
James Haydon
Activation Executive
VivaKi
The AdNews NGen Blog: Losing control can be scary
2 June 2014