Forget Lovemarks. If you want to see the future of marketing just read Robert Scoble and specifically his latest Open Letter to Bill Gates. (For those who’ve not come across him Scoble is a blogger who went to work for Microsoft on the marketing side.)
Here’s the intro, but if you’ve time to read the rest it would be worth it.
Hi Bill. I’ve been thinking about how to make Windows Media cool. You know, cooler than wearing white headphone cords.
Open source the product development.
Yeah, you’re gonna be hearing a lot about “open source this” and “open source that” in 2005. Open source has become a metaphor for things done in public view with public input. Actually, you’re a leader here. Check out Channel 9. It’s the first step along the road to open source marketing. But back to the point.
We have five months to come out with a great new set of music players and get a great marketing campaign going. Why is that? It’s called back to school. If we don’t get something going by June then we lose another generation to the iPod. Do you want to let that happen?
How many companies today would tolerate, much less encourage, this kind of dialogue between an employee and the boss? I don’t know – but I’d bet a few quid a lot more successful companies will be doing so in future.
