May 14th, 2007
May 14th, 2007
With the growing popularity of social networks, video-sharing and consumer-generated content, consumers are becoming brand evangelists and selling to themselves more and more. From the Super Bowl Doritos ad to Cadillac’s new microsite, consumers are creating and starring in their own advertisements.
Advertising today has become much more interactive and consumer-friendly, allowing the customer to become the marketer. Since consumers are the ones who buy the products, I think companies like M&Ms and Blendtec have the right idea by allowing consumers to create advertisements and personalized messages that appeal to them on a deeper level.
Taking the concept a step further, a company like Threadless (an on-line t-shirt manufacturer) not only solicits feedback from their customers, but all of their designs come from customer submissions. Customers design t-shirts and upload them to be voted on by the community and the most popular ones are put into production. The same process is used to determine which sold-out products deserve a 2nd print run. This company has pushed the concept of consumer participation to its limit. Can you think of any other company that would dare let the customer have complete control of what is sold? Radical…