Four types of market conversations

If a 'conversation' is the new marketing paradigm - as the supporters of the Web 2.0 world claim - then there are several meanings of the word that brands need to be aware of.

It is difficult to find a marketer these days that doesn't talk about the need to 'engage' with customers, mainly through some sort of 'conversation'.

However, when you look at what they actually mean by it, it turns out that there are two main schools. One is the old brand notion that brands just talk 'to' consumers, in a sort of a glorified advertising monologue. A lot of merketers seem to agree that this approach is nowadays as dead as Latin.

The other school of conversation is the customer service one. Here, the existence of the return path is recognised and encouraged, customers are part of the 'conversation'.

What both schools of thought have in common is the notion that 'conversation' could be controlled. That is is ultimately down to the brand to set and twidle the control knobs and if the customer has an opportunity to play with it a bit to get the illusion of participation, even better. 

The world of digital has introduced two new types of conversations. One is the conversation between consumers 'about' the brand. The other one is the customer conversation 'through' the brand.

An example of the former is an independent forum, or a blog. There, people can discuss pros and cons of various brands without the brand being present. So, no control. Smart brands have learned that two ways to deal with this are to monitor what is happening with their 'reputation' in such places and to be quick to act on it.

The latter type of new conversation is a proper user participation in a brand. Examples of it are user generated content and various brand-generated communities (or blogs). So, a brand is here still the initiator, by providing the 'lawn' for customers to gather on, and maybe some tools, and then allowing people to engage in a conversation 'through' a brand.

Cynics may say that the 'through' conversation is only a more sophisticated way to exercise control and that only the 'about' conversation is the genuine one. Which, basically, excludes brands from claiming any right to engage in a conversation with their customers.

Yet, if you ask customers, their major grief with brands is that they are not listening. Customer service is still one of the main pain points for almost any brand. So, a conversation matters and brands not just have the right to do it, they must do it. The more, the better for them.

Otherwise, the 'about' conversation will come knocking on the door with a huge bill in its hands. 

Big mouth is not enough

So far, brands mostly needed big mouth to build themselves. From now on, they will need a big pair of ears.

One of the quickest ways to sum up the changes that digital brought to the world of brand building is this: we are moving from the paradigm of 'telling the brand' to 'agreeing the brand'.

It is difficult to avoid the conclusion, at least if judged by the spirit of the industry news in recent times. 'The loss of brand control', 'the need for conversations', 'social networks optimisation' - all seem to be an irresistibly growing trend in how we manage our brands. Even the word 'manage', to many, doesn't apply any more, as the process is increasingly becoming a two-way street.

We can argue that 'old' brand-building model was based on 'telling' the world what your brand is all about. This had its media expression in the broadcast model of advertising. The new age seems to bring another approach. A brand now needs to be 'agreed' between all stakeholders, of which customers, traditionally, tend to be the most important.

So,  a brand needs to listen, big time. A big pair of ears is the most important brand management tool. 'Listening' could be anything: market research, web fora, online panels, user generated content. Even better, lets grade listening, from more passive, to more active methods. Market research is more passive, user generated content is more active way to do it.

It will be interesting to see how the two paradigms will play against each other in the years to come. What seems certain, though, is that smart brands are already practising their listening skills. They are evening learning how to stay quiet sometimes.

It must be difficult.