12.16.07
User generated brands
As you look at user generated currency and other democratic expressions of value that will have to be part of a social stock exchange, you have to look at what I’m calling (I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else call it this) user generated brands. It relates to the crisis in advertising, where intermediaries positions are faltering in the wake of citizen evaluation and product and service presentation; the public’s image of value creation has slipped out of the hands of the professionals. This Business Week story talks about it. Though the line “Advertising is a tax you pay for unremarkable thinking” has gotten the most attention, another quote from Intuit’s Scott Cook sums it up better for me “A brand is what a friend tells a friend it is. Not what a company tells them.”
This is a key emerging element in the first question that social stock exchanges will have to answer: what kind of value social returns create, and how can they be priced into the value of a company’s equity and expressed on an exchange. User generated brands are being built now. User generated currency might find a home on the social stock exchanges.
My thinking on this subject has been moved forward by online conversations with Nicholas Gitovsky. On the issue of what would constitute a meaningingful segmentation of online attention such that you could sell yourself or your group back to an advertiser (not through an ad agency) he suggests this. “Validated intention data coupled with certified profile data, perhaps. “Is that guy a good risk to lend a land rover for the weekend when he’s travelling on business?” Yes, because his driving record, credit report, intent to purchase and affiliations show that it’s not a 20 year old kid just looking for a joy ride, but a guy who owns a 5 year older model back home in Greenwich, where his dealer has stated a willingness to underwrite the insurance for the rental replacement”. Done.
Nicholas thinks about this kind of trade off a fair amount - and “so do people working on Vendor Relationship Management with Doc Searls (author of the Cluetrain Manifesto, which asserted markets are conversations) and his posse,” Nicholas says.
kevindjones said,
December 16, 2007 at 6:40 pm
“As we all know, a satisfied customer can often be your most effective marketing vehicle. This has become all the more apparent as Bazaarevoice found in a survey they completed for Keller Fay, the word of mouth marketing agency based out of Atlanta. They found that 79% of reviewers write reviews to reward a company for the quality of the product or service they bought, with 87% of the reviews being positive in tone. Positive experiences mean greater customer involvement.”
http://marketingconversation.com/2007/12/02/social-media-is-driving-online-reviews-will-drive-community/
Gerry said,
December 27, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I think you are missing something with all the market language. We have more purposes that the markets can contain, social or otherwise.
The production of content is an end in itself. To the extent that you insist that there is some monetary value proposition in driving eyeballs, you have missed the point that brought the eyeballs in the first place.