At least that’s what they need to become. Because today, most brands are like corporations — stogy, slow, monolithic… Many consumers might love a certain brand, but the brand rarely loves them back. And that needs to change if brands are going to stay relevant in today’s social web world. It also needs to change because well… companies just need to be nicer.
Now look at me talking in these fluffy terms: “brands should love” … “companies should be nice.” What biz exec will take that advice over quarterly earnings?! One that believes today’s companies’ most important asset is their brands, and that consumers make or break a brand’s worth and value.
So with that in mind, I created a framework called PEOPLE to help companies think about their brands as living beings. The PEOPLE framework has six key principals:
- Participate in conversations, rather than just being a subject of them.
- Embrace and accept how other people interact with your brand – never try to censor consumers.
- Open-Up your company’s processes and become a transparent organization.
- Platform, as in become a platform for consumers to communicate with each other, and to express themselves.
- Listen closely to what consumers are saying about your brand.
- Empower consumers to become advocates, rather than just fans.
This framework is very basic — and meant to be that way. So it can be easily digested and internalized by executives as a guide for helping their decision making and strategy.
I’ve made a presentation of this framework. You can view it online. I’m hoping you’ll enjoy it. And if you do, please tell others — maybe I’ll get to present it for real sometime. :)
And with the “O” of the PEOPLE framework in mind, here’s some more about my reason for creating this presentation. I’m in the very early stages of starting my own consultancy called 9teen9d creative research (as in consumers born around the year 1990).
Before even making a web site for the firm though, I wanted to establish some thought leadership out there around the social web space. The “P.E.O.P.L.E” framework is that first step.
I’d appreciate any thoughts or gut reactions you have… be OPEN! :)
Hi Ross, just curious if you’ve seen “the corporation“? The premise is that if you did a psychological profile on a corporation, it would actually be classified as a psychopath. (doesn’t feel remorse, etc) I always found that idea intriguing, and I wonder if you had any thoughts about how that aligned with your statement. Or do you simply feel they have to be more “like (good, sane) people”?
…and yes, I was taking your acronym literally.. you can tell me “it’s not REALLY about people”.. but I think if that’s the case, you’re doing to hit a stumbling block with individuals coming to the table with a certain conception of what “brands should be like people” means (as I did). Even if it was just a catchy way for you to tie together your 6 notions, the total is probably going to end up being greater than the sum of its parts, so you may want to anticipate that..
(I saw you recently started following me on twitter, how did you find me, btw?)