Last weeks Sunday Times ran this head line "After a year’s work, out goes the “Make the most of now” tagline, in favour of the simpler “Power to you”. Instead of dictating to customers, Vodafone wants to let them know that they, with phone in hand hooked up to the mobile internet, are now in charge."
This week Campaign ran the headline ‘Giffgaff encourages users to get involved with the brand’. It is a new mobile phone company which puts the customer at the centre of its business. The proposition is that as a customer, the more you give Giffgaff the more you will get back, they want advertising ideas, product developments, Apps and of course more customers recommended by existing customers. They claim that as a customer you could get 100% of your call for free if you give a lot to the company!
Marketing spin or reality, time will tell but one thing is for sure, whether you are the worlds largest corporation, or a new start up, putting your customer at the heart of your business and letting them collaborate with you, your brand and the way in which you do business with them is the only successful path in the future
How agencies and consultancies react and enable this process of collaboration between Brands and consumers is still a big question, one that many agency networks have not even thought of let alone started to solve……coming out of recession it will be interesting to see which agencies revert back to the old way of working and which take the brave new path.
Chris Lovell, Group CEO
October 2nd, 2009
