Category: Brand Evolution

Controversial music exchange service LimeWire gets a legal version. With this, users can legally download music for about 1 euro per song (dc, Dutch). This way a personal music brand comes into being. At first, most important is to have a complete assortment, so there is no reason to find music in another place, and then the personal profile follows. LimeWire can have built the profile based on the illegal music downloads, and then give advice about music that can be downloaded legally. In the end, new artists will come who will sell their music cheaper, or even give it for free (and make money on concerts and merchandise), so there will be price competition between the various personal music brands. The added value in the end will be the personal advice. This is a small step in that direction.

Hema at its new website has a prominent place for customers to give feedback: ‘tell us your opinion on hema.nl’. After clicking, a short survey follows (am, Dutch). Thus market research evolves into customer research. Brands will regularly ask their customers what they think of their services. Not at the first contact, but especially after a couple of contacts and experiences. And brands will remember the answers, and compare them: ‘last time you were critical about the speed of the website; do you think that has improved now?’ Thus questions will become more personal, and the answers more relevant. This is a small step in that direction.

Food entertainment brand Life & Cooking stimulates consumers to react at its website. Action ZomerToppers (Summer Toppers) during three months makes it possible for visitors of the Life&Cooking website to save for a ‘well-filled pack of groceries’.  Every week they can collect points for opening the newsletter, reacting to the forum, voting in the poll, participating in actions, adding recipes, or ‘going to a secret place on the website’ (mb, Dutch). Brands are having their brand coming out: the border between employees and consumers disappears. Employees are easier to reach, and at the same time consumers are rewarded for their contributions to the brand. Thus brands evolve which are supported by groups of people who don’t necessarily work for the same company. This is a small step in that direction.

Dutch foundation Stichting Ideele Reclame asks citizens for input on website www.umaghetzeggen.nl ("you may say it") At this website, the public can leave suggestions for informational and educational campaigns for next year (si, Dutch). Slowly but surely societal opinion forming processes get a different form. Sire used to filter signals out of society, translate these into a central message, which in the end was spread through mass communication. Now citizens get a voice in the choice of the themes for the campaigns. This will evolve into one big societal debate. Every theme will constantly be the topic of conversation. Everybody may say what they think. Everybody may make a videotape and send it in. Others may vote for it. But getting one central message across to everybody will be harder. To make sure we stay connected though, new forms will come into being. This experiment is a small step in that direction.

Temp agency Timing uses Tim as a spokesman. Tim answers all questions you have about work-related issues like illness, vacation days, or pension. Tim is the assistant at the website and directly opens the page answering your questions. And Tim finds jobs matching your wishes, and keeps you updated on any new vacancies. Besides, Tim can also just have a little chat with you. Tim can be found on the Timing website as well as in Live Messenger (MSN) if the user adds e-mail address tim@timing.nl (tc, Dutch). And thus, brand agents come to life. Tim engages in the dialogue with an almost real face, complete with emotions. Now on the PC, later also on TV or on the mobile phone. Now just for simple questions, but Tim will get smarter year by year. The birth of Tim, whose name is a great choice by the way, is a small step in that direction.

The biggest website for fashion accessories in the Netherlands, Fashionize.nl, uses a character in its communication. This character is used at the website as well as in the favicon (the graphic sign that appears in the address field and in the bookmark list). Now as an illustration, later this character will get a name, will become interactive, we can react to it and in the end it will evolve into a brand agent, with whom consumers will start their spoken dialogues through any possible display. This is a small step in that direction.

Dutch news brand eKudos shares its advertising income with users who actively contribute to the website (dc, Dutch). Brands are having a brand coming out. With that, the border between employees and consumers completely disappears. People who actively contribute to the brand are rewarded. Others on the contrary pay for the added value the brand delivers. This is a small step in that direction.

American readers now have the possibility to react to items from Google News. For the time being, only people or organizations involved in the article can react. To be able to react, people and organizations need to be registered, and Google checks them through domain name and/or e-mail address (dc, Dutch). Brands make it possible for consumers to react to items, to write reviews, and to rank reviews, and through that involve the consumer. More and more however they will check the consumer’s true identity. This way the value of the reviews gets higher though. The consumer will not be anonymous any more, but can still use a pseudonym. The brand however knows the real person behind the pseudonym. This is a small step in that direction.

Headset manufacturer Jabra introduces a 24-karat golden version of JX10. This version costs 249 Euro (mc, Dutch). Every item worn on the body is part of the personal identity. Any form of technology we carry has a symbolic function. Brands in this play a very important part. In the beginning the focus is on technique. After that, as brands want to distinguish themselves, the focus is on design. Headsets in the future will either more or less disappear in the ear (compare with contact lenses) or will be worn strikingly, like ear rings (compare to glasses). These first examples of design head sets mark that direction.

In a personal surrounding on the Mitsubishi website, customers from now on can manage their own personal information and information about their car, read tips, and look through actions and offers. They also can request test drives and get reminders for inspections (am, Dutch). All brands start to communicate more personally. Everything they know about people is registered in the brand memory, which in turn is shared with the customer. In the future we will be able to consult our garage records, read or listen to all our contacts with the call center or garage, assemble our personal car, sell our car or even contact our own car. To check the mileage for example, or to upload some music. It all goes in the same direction..

Dutch website Zoover.nl, a site with more than 300,000 vacation reviews, offers tour operators like D-Reizen the possibility to place facts, figures and reviews on their own website. Travel agencies can use the Zoover technology under their own label. Through this module they can for example send questionnaires through e-mail, to ask customers for their experiences after their vacation. The travel agencies this way can research general findings, but also has to ask their customers to leave a Zoover review when coming home (em, Dutch). This way the relationship between personal brands and transaction brands slowly becomes clear. Zoover becomes the personal holiday brand, responsible for the contacts with the customer. And companies like tour operators, airlines and car rentals become transaction brands. Transaction brands which only through excellent achievements will survive in this landscape. This landscape in which the consumer dominates. This is very logical: after all, he is the one who pays. This is a step in that direction.

At Amazon Fresh, part of Amazon.com, consumers now can order fresh food. At the moment as a try-out just in Seattle. Delivery is very flexible. Through ‘DayBreak’ products are delivered on the doorstep by early morning, through ‘Daytime Delivery’ they are delivered the next day in a 1-hour time slot chosen by the consumer, and through ‘Local Pick-Up’ consumers can pick up their order the same day (em, Dutch). Very slowly we start to also order our daily groceries online. However, it is very hard to break through existing patterns, and for people who have been grocery shopping for years and years it is hard to break through this pattern. But the last ten years a new generation has come into being that thinks and acts online completely. The teenagers from then are today’s people in their twenties. That generation ask themselves why they would haul a case of beer themselves? And that generation now has money too. The delivery remains a challenge. Now it still takes a day, in the future we will receive our order within a couple of hours. ‘Normal’ grocery shopping stays, but gets a different meaning. This is a small step in that direction.

The Dutch version of the Yellow Pages, Gouden Gids (part of World Directories), added a new service to its website: consumers can now make a personal account in which they can mark companies. In the future they will also be able to write reviews about service providers like plumbers, masseurs or hair dressers. As a spokesman said: “We are still looking for the best way to do this. After all, you don’t want competitors to write bad about each other.” (em, Dutch). Brands make their services more and more personal. Now for the anonymous consumer. In the future the consumer will be known by name, and be officially registered (through DigID for example). A brand like Gouden Gids then knows exactly who it is dealing with. Then, through a connection with social networks, it will be able to not just show reviews, but reviews from the consumer’s first, second or third grade network: ‘A friend of your neighbor has experience with this painter and strongly advises against him.’ This way brands like Gouden Gids become valuable, and painters have to make sure their service is perfect. This is a small step in that direction.

Vodafone starts a Web Relations department, apart from the existing Investor Relations and Public Relations departments, to monitor the web. The new, 6-persons department will actively follow web logs and discussion forums to monitor the public image of the company and its services (em, Dutch). In fact, you could say that Web Relations is the same as ‘Stakeholder Relations’. Without a doubt, the department will not just look at what is being said, but also at who says it.  Is it a (former) customer, a (former) employee, a (former) stakeholder, a specialist, a technician, or a combination? And then the public comments of this person will be recorded in the HRM, IR, or CRM system. And Vodafone comes with a proper answer for this person. This way the brand develops more openness, and the dialogue about brands between customers becomes more and more transparent. This is another good step in that direction.

Compare Group, the mother company of product and price comparing site Vergelijk.nl, goes international. They were active in Belgium and Finland already; now extension to Germany and Spain is in sight. Poland, the Czech Republic and Sweden seem to be interesting as well. Over the last couple of years the company has invested in technology to be used in several countries, which can be adapted to local differences in for example product codes and specifications (em, Dutch). Comparing sites lay the foundation for personal brands. They will grow world wide and thus be capable of comparing all products worldwide, real-time. The challenge will be to make the first selection which best suits the (even unspoken) wishes of the individual consumer. That exactly is what distinguishes personal brands.