Brand Ownership and Marketing
by Andy LloydThursday, March 6th, 2008
An interesting article ran in this month’s issue of Stores Magazine that talked about The North Face’s interactive marketing efforts, specifically the work they have done with Google Gadgets and Google Gadget Ads (more on that in a later post).
The spirit of what The North Face is doing is something a lot of brands are considering and is captured by the following quote from Kent Deverell, a founder of Fluid, “…in the last year and a half, with the rise of social networking, consumers are becoming content-creators themselves. The new paradigm is to get people involved and allow them to own the brand.” Scary stuff. But is there really an alternative?
Conversations about your brand are going to occur online, like it or not. Postive or negative. Isn’t it better to facilitate the conversation than sit idly by while it swirls around you? The North Face has been forward looking in many ways. By embracing the convergence of professional content, user generated content and product merchandising in their WWW and widget strategy they show they are continuing to engage brand advocates in new and interesting ways.
We look forward to more exciting ideas from Sarah Gallagher and her team!
