In an attention focussed economy reputation is everything for a brand. Through the study of open creative communities we can begin to understand the importance of brand identity. There is less worse as being seen as indistinct, boring or unpopular within the critical environment and boundaries of a community. For a brand to successfully market within a neo-tribal like community it has to first understand that the “barrier to entry is creative citizenship, you are either a citizen or a participant or you are NOT” Source Remarkk.
Your participation is based on your relationship to that group of people be it on a local or global community basis, both will need to be addressed. As Mark Kuznicki puts it an Open Community does not necessarily mean equal individuals (players), the organisation of a community lies deeply rooted within actual social human behaviour or interaction with the environment and therefore also your brand. When a participant with skill, ability and willingness engages your brand and recommends others within that community to engage, you are or are on the way to building a reputation. There exist individuals with a certain status within a community whose leadership is legitimized through their reputation and skill.
It is possible that consumers belong to many ‘tribes’ simultaneously. “We are much more than the roles and demographic slices that our companies, families and mass media would want to trap us into” (Source)

So how do you survive in a reputation economy?
In the book Leading the Revolution: How to Thrive in Turbulent Times by Making Innovation a Way of Life By Gary Hame discusses the LVMH retail chain Sephora, a highly successful business innovation concept. At Sephora the cosmetic brands lose their control over sales, product display and merchandising. Perfumes are lined up in alphabetical order along the walls; cheaper brands are displayed next to big expensive names.

The very competitive differentiation these brands relied upon does not exist at Sephora and it does neither in a reputation economy. The crux of this business concept is the ability and boldness to apply themselves to an innovation strategy within the retail branch. In advertising it is similar.

“What is not different is not strategic”.
Today we do not attack the competition, to be successful, we avoid the competition altogether just like Sephora who has left the traditional department store cosmetic counters begging for customers…..and no free gifts or discounts are given at Sephora.
Advertisers who experiment with innovation and cultivate change are successfully building reputations, those who do not, will always have a hard time keeping up their appearance.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 at 11:23 am and is filed under Anything else, Awareness, Web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.