brands as shared objects

A post on PSFK sparked some thought in my head about how to shift corporations perspectives on marketing - or at the very least where the mental block is.

The article was really an interview with High McLeod (of Gaping Void , where he talked about social sites (e.g. Flickr) being a place for social objects or social markers left by people.

If brands are to participate in the changes social media as bringing about, that means they need to be social to - as some would put it, they need to be part of the conversation. Right now, most corporations have done this by inviting consumers in - often via consumer generated content or by giving them something to share/publish (enabling social conversation).

But is conversation really want people want? Yes, it's a great service tool, but I would argue that what people want from companies and brands is a sense of ownership. Not necessarily the ownership that comes from being a huge fan of the brand, but ownership that comes from feeling closer to how the brand acts or is acted upon. One way for this is to happen is for the brand to truly become shared property.

Technically, a brand is shared property: we do what we want (pretty much) with the physical manifestations of the brand. And truly open-source brands (like Linux or Wikipedia) operate in this way. But such brands start from scratch and from way outside of most corporations. Companies act as though they are the sole owner of a brand (because well...they are). Talking to clients about how they start sharing the brand with others or making it a shared object make help lead them to a new way of thinking about how to enter the marketplace.

Ideally, it may lead to new kinds of brands and business models: ones where the brand provides raw materials and or finished objects (not just a platform as with Facebook) and consumers can create on top of this.