I seem to be finding a common thread in the various conversations going on around the Marketing though leaders' blogs lately. One that my wife echoes every time she goes online to find out information about a product... or a movie... or a service. The democratizaton of global communications technology and the growth of social networks in the digital world have extended the close-knit word-of-mouth networks we once relied on. Instead of asking your neighbor or colleague family member or salesman about a product, people can now prowl the dozens of forums that discuss the pros and cons of everything from rechargeable batteries to $100,000 sportscars.

This isn't to say that advertising doesn't work or that companies should jump on the blog bandwaggon. Quite the contrary. What it does mean is that people have a voice now, and if companies want to thrive in the new people-powered economy, they must learn how to get in-tune with the reality that is created every day by a very vocal army of users who can be their best allies... or their worst enemies.

Spin and pretty marketing don't cut it anymore.

Instead of getting pulled into a long, boring diatribe about all of this, I am going to share a few tidbits I found in some of my favorite blogs today, and let you connect the dots. Enjoy:

"14%: Proportion of people who trust advertising information. 95%: The failure rate for new product introductions."

From Connected Marketing, via the Brains on Fire blog.

"Companies whose marketing includes dialogues with customers increasingly have an advantage over companies whose marketing messages are expressed in monologues. Consumers are tired of being told what’s best for them. They want to decide for themselves what’s best. With the information advantage (over company propaganda) the Internet gives them, they no longer have to depend on marketers for information to decide what’s best. Almost anything they want to know can be found on the Internet from sources they trust more than companies selling products they are interested in."

David Wolfe - Ageless Marketing

"For consumers, online review sites offer a valuable storehouse of information to help with daily tasks such as choosing an electrician or a dinner venue. For small businesses, these sites have the potential to revolutionize marketing and promotion -- creating unprecedented opportunities but also (...) some unfamiliar risks.

"(...) In this day and age, there's nowhere to hide," said Melinda Lucas, owner of Paneless Window Cleaning, a Seattle business that has attracted a significant number of customers through positive reviews on sites like Judy's Book and Angie's List. "Anyone can give you a review that can totally make or break your business. It's made it so you have to be A+ on the ball all the time."

"(...) Other business owners agree that online reviews can be an invaluable tool for customer feedback and improvement. Most small businesses can't afford consultants to analyze their service, but they can get immediate feedback for free from reviews. "The bad reviews helped us get better, because we listened," Fars said. "

Ilana DeBare - The San Francisco Chronicle

This is great news. Companies choosing not to listen to their customers will find themselves at a distinct disadvantage. Companies that choose to cut corners when it comes to design, quality, user-friendliness, relevance and customer service will be replaced by companies that choose not to make wrong decisions.

Some shifts are bad. This one is good.

Have a great Wednesday, everyone. ;)

Hi everyone. I am blogging live from the lobby of the Hilton San Francisco today, and the good news is that the Wi-Fi here is as spectacular as the home-made curry I just had across the street. (Hey, you know that information is going to come in handy one of these days. Just you wait!)

Of all of the Corante Marketing Hub posts of the last couple of days, this the one I thought would be most interesting to bring to your collective attention on this fine workday:

John Winsor points us to this article published this week in the NY Times, which takes a cursory look at customer engagement, co-creation, and what Eric von Hippel, head of the innovation and entrepreneurship group at the Sloan School of Management at the MIT, calls "lead-user innovation.". Here are some of the most telling bits of commentary from some of the company leaders interviewed for the piece:

"It's getting cheaper and cheaper for users to innovate on their own," Professor von Hippel said. "This is not traditional market research — asking customers what they want. This is identifying what your most advanced users are already doing and understanding what their innovations mean for the future of your business." - Eric Von Hippel, MIT.

"Customers want to express themselves, to be involved with the brand. For so long, people would hand me a drawing of their personal design for a shoe or ask if I had considered an idea they liked. This program is a natural outgrowth of that desire for connection." - John Fuevlog, John Fuevlog Shoes - on open source footwear.

"So what is Jones? Are we a soda company? Are we an Internet company? Are we a social networking company? We're all of that. Our goal is to keep creating more ways for customers to exercise ownership of the brand. (...) We started this company with the philosophy that the world does not need another soda. That forced us to look at things differently: How could we create a new kind of connection with customers, let them play with the brand, let them take ownership of it? Everything at this company is about sharing ownership of the brand with our customers. This is not my brand. This is not our soda. It belongs to our customers." - Peter van Stolk, founder and CEO of Jones Soda.

"WE'VE got four rules we follow: We let the community create the content. We let the community build itself — no advertising. We let the community help with the business; we add features based on user feedback. And we reward members of the community for participating." - Jacob DeHart, co-founder of Threadless.com.

Also worth a read today:

Chris Carfi's "WWW - The World Wide WE."

Johnnie Moore's "Diagrams."

Neville Hobson's "Branding Your Memory", "Why No one trusts politicians and CEOs" and "The legacy of Bill Gates."

The BrandBuilder's "Enter The Code Breakers."

Susan Getgood's "No More 2.0."

Special Mention: Definitely do read Tom Asacker's "Truth Three - From Capture to Attract." It's a gem of a post. (The kind you will want to bookmark so you can read it again in a few weeks... or better yet, email to some of your colleagues.)

Whew! That ought to do it for today. Have a great Tuesday, everyone. :)