Brands as Media

Originally this would be about UGC, CGM or indigenous content (as I saw someone call it the other day, like that word a lot). But it moved somewhere slightly different...

Before I go further huddle up and listen, here’s what’s up; let’s all make a pact right here and now and drop the name CGM, okay? Why? I don’t think that the word consumer should be used in this context due to the fact that the users are actually creating which, in my opinion, is the absolute opposite of consuming. But let’s not elaborate too much on that right now.

It’s clear that indigenous content is blurring the previous clear(er) lines between companies and consumers. But it seems that there is much more happening. Noah Brier wrote some very interesting views on this, which you can read here.
Noah says that indigenous content will be integrated in more and more sites, that it will turn companies’ media spending more and more into a trial&error model and that it will become more and more a part of long term relationships. Now let me try and make some bold move about indigenous content (watch out!), which was evoked by this article on Adverblog (ou, si vous parlez francais, l’article ici), by taking this one step further with the aid of eBay.

Basically what eBay is doing, by selling their advertising space on to the users of eBay, is providing their users with a platform to communicate…and by this they actually more or less become a medium.
Hmmm, could this mean that brands (companies) could turn into platforms where they ‘co-sume’ (hey, I just made up a word…) with their users. With co-suming I would mean the company using content by individuals and individuals using all things offered by the company. A more open and long-term relationship would come into existence where both parties could aid eachother in many ways (or is that too much of a naive utopian thought?).

Eventually this could mean that a brand becomes its own medium, I think.

Okay ‘till here, for now (sorry, got a job to do…). Obviously it needs some more thoughts and ideas, but I like where this could be going.

So watch for an update on co-suming and brands as media.