I really like the new Beer Menus site which has been making the rounds. Founded by two brothers who clearly love beer, their mission, as they explain it is:
As avid beer lovers who started homebrewing at ages 4 and 7, they had to create a website where people could browse and search beer menus.
And so, information that is easily 'mashable' and social added to a passion for something that is both deep and authentic beget a new authority in a category. Is it that easy? Maybe.
I'll contrast it with the initial experience I had with Yattit which tells me that its a 'New Hyatt online travel community.' I was more than willing to give Yattit the benefit of the doubt and, as a regular traveler, even if it was coming from Hyatt.
Like a good concierge, as a leader, I was willing to think that Hyatt would be sufficiently neutral to be smart enough to create a good platform and maybe get out of the way. They're not, and they don't.
Instead, the experience is a gated community for Hyatt Gold Passport holders. Also not a bad idea, but it's set up in a way that will only let me participate if I dig up my Gold Passport card (who knows where that is) and login. Only then can I participate. Can it succeed as a walled garden? I don't know.
I do think that brands can create communities of interest in a relatively neutral way. Nike+ and their other running efforts are a perfect example of branded communities that tap into the passion for the category. The brand benefits by maintaining and growing its category leadership. Nike assumes category leadership, therefore sustaining that leadership.
PR agencies in particular can benefit from helping clients create these communities of interest because essentially its what they've always done. Advertising agencies (and most digital agencies, I suspect) are more likely to be confined by thinking, a business model and a 'reputation model' that limits the injection of ideas not invented here (from consumers, from other stakeholders, from anyone outside the Creative-Production Complex).
well put lee! i'll have to casually sprinkle "creative-production complex" in conversation around the agency, see if i get some raised eyebrows.
Posted by: Dino | May 02, 2008 at 08:31 PM
thanks! it's a little aggressive and obscure, but not inaccurate, I think....
Posted by: Lee | May 06, 2008 at 04:56 PM