Mike Stopforth

I spend a great deal of time and effort telling clients (corporate ones) that they’d “better watch out” for the effect Web 2.0 is having on consumers. “It’s all about scalability!”, I yell from the podium. “You claim to be customer-centric, but do you mean that? Can you really act on that?” I ask.

The reason I challenge is because consumers all over the world, including here in South Africa, are finding a voice through social media - blogs and things.

Webchutney (India’s self-proclaimed leading interactive web consultancy) calls this new era of engagement 69 marketing:

The marketer has been dishing it and the consumer has been taking it for a really long while. We say time to flip. Give and take.

The trusted 69 way!

Not sure I can say it better than that (thanks Christo for the lead). Recently the Church of the Customer blog whipped out another example of Consumer 2.0 at work. They cited Jeff Jarvis’ Dell Hell as being possibly the most powerful example of Consumer 2.0’s effect on a brand - Jeff’s unhappiness expressed on his blog arguably playing a significant role in Dell’s $100 million customer service reinvention. It only takes a spark.

However, it must be said that there are plenty of pretty widely read blogs in South Africa that never really get taken seriously. Is blogging still too fringe a medium for SA brands to really take note of? Do Standard Bank care about our opinions of their rebranding efforts? I guess I’m asking whether my fire-and-brimstone preaching is rather premature. So maybe it only takes a spark but in SA that spark gets pissed on pretty quickly by the sheer weight of corporate arrogance. Does Telkom really give a plank about Hellkom.co.za?

Lastly, I must make the point that Consumer 2.0 needn’t only be seen as negative. In fact it should be seen as an opportunity. Engaging customers and opening up the communication channels means free market research, product feedback and sometimes even free, interactive R & D. Free is good. Authenticity should be good. Relationships are enduring. Makes sense to this blogger / consumer / human being…

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