Brand Wikification

Nick Wreden has opened up a pertinent discussion with his blog on FusionBrand: How To Wikify Your Brand.

In his blog, he reflects on the changing midset of the NewBoardRoom mentality. For decades, the focus has been on growing market share through product positioning, a practice that leveraged mass markets and mass media. Now, the internet paradigm is fragmenting those mass markets into masses of small communities. This is throwning the balance of power back into the hands of the customers. Brands are now defined by their customers, and those customers want to participate in how they want to experience the brand.

Wikification - taking its name from wikis - according to Nick "represents good news and even better news for marketers. The good news is that it incorporates two elements that no boardroom can ignore – measurement and knowledge of what customers value. The even better news is that wikification forces everyone in marketing to value metrics more than “mind share,” “creativity” or any other eye-of-the-beholder concept. It also leads to greater marketing involvement in databases and operational issues that deliver customer value."

It will be interesting to track where these perspectives begin to show up at Board Room altitude. Wikis, blogs, and all this dynamic network behavior is certaining shaping our relationships with brands. Whether the corporate organizations managing them can evolve their business models quickly enough to capture the value of this new behavior is something we're all watching and waiting to see.

Anyway, I really like this term he has coined -
wikification. Keep your eyes open and please share anything you notice along these lines.