Pietel
Guillaume, you say communities make brands, not marketeers or advertisers.
Does this mean Nikon is made by the community?
Or is the brand made by some genious engineers in Japan who are willing to create the best possible camera?
Guillaume
Birgitta Wetterlind’s question
20.01.2009 http://www.vimeo.com/2827978Birgitta Wetterlind is manager of marketing and communication for Nikon Europe BV:
“When is your book coming out in English?”
Dear Birgitta, it is being translated right now. Here’s the prologue and the content table, so you get a rough idea where it is heading (or not).
The whole idea is this: people need heroes, people love story telling. If you understand the natural mechanisms behind story telling and heroism, you can use them in your favor. You can get people to spread a story with your brand as a hero. And you can steer the content.
The new thing about it is the angle: That brands aren’t built by advertising agencies and marketing departments, but by communities of consumers and their goodwill to spread the word. What you can do, to accelerate your business, is give these communities a good story, and a hero brand they can be proud of. Whether these communities are runners and athletes (Nike, Adidas) or desperate housewives (Ambi Pur, Nivea), doesn’t matter. The smallest of all brands is still chosen one day by more than one consumer. Make that day a little victory day. Give your customers the means to be proud of their purchase. That’s the thought.
Or, as Carl Lewis once said:
“Today it is not enough to be a champion, you also have to look like a champion, talk like a champion and act like a champion.”
Read content table and prologue here.
04:29 pm
21.01.2009 om 05:08 pm
21.01.2009 om 05:25 pm
Guillaume
@Pietel
If you read the book well, you know that the story starts with a superior performance. There is no way Nikon would be the brand it is today, without the superior products.
Next is the fact that photographers around the world share their passion for Nikon and tell each other about the goodies.
That is where marketing comes in. To understand these different communities (Nikon appeals to a large range of consumer profiles) and be the brand they can be proud of. You’ll see that after a while there are brand ambassadors, and they will influence their peers. These ambassadors need to feel the support of a big brand. In terms of product (the engineers) and in terms of passion (the marketeers).
21.01.2009 om 05:31 pm
dipfico
@Guillaume:
I agree that the passionate photographer has one or more brand ambassadors to relate to.
But what with the new kids on the block? Who will be their brand ambassador/influencer.
21.01.2009 om 06:31 pm
Guillaume
@dipfico
Kids start taking pics on mobile phones. For them, taking pics is as natural as drinking a soda. That means that they are not looking - yet - for photography expertise. They look for confirmation of who they are. Personality. The challenge for a brand is to fit their life style.And more important, how it helps them connect with their peers and be someone.
22.01.2009 om 07:22 pm
claude
do cameras that are only cameras still have a future???
who wants to just take pictures ? maybe professional photographers, but even they will want to relay them automatically onto their website, eg
22.01.2009 om 07:30 pm
byron
how far can heroes go ? can heroes get out of their field of expertise and conquer other worlds? Looks like competitive field of nikon is extending into a whole different digital world. Other battlefields, other heroes ? can robin hood beat carl lewis ?
22.01.2009 om 11:21 pm
Shannon Mullen
hmm well seems to me the real trick then is having a great, exceptional product and then to feed a small community of passionate users into a huge crowd of proud users. but what if the product is parity, doesn’t has the core audience to build from, etc. — like pepsi for example (but of course there’s a million TBWA-dubbed challenger brands all of which would love to have a passionate community)?
25.01.2009 om 07:03 am
Peter Sutherland
So what role does an advertising campaign play in all this? Does it stimulate conversation within the community?
Anyway my understanding is that the most important part of your book centers around me and the Colgate story. That being the case I deserve at least 50% of all the earnings you make. I’ll forward my bank account details by private email and look forward to an early retirement.
Cheers mate your a genius.
25.01.2009 om 07:21 am
Guillaume
@Peter
You’re on page 36, dude. Nobody ever got that far.