The Big Think: Today’s Communication Dynamic–Influence vs. Control
In the good old days, you crafted your message and "pushed" it out to the marketplace. The TV commercial sold the story of faster, better, quicker, etc. and the colateral material reinforced it. The sales force carried the message to your audience and the detail aid was the central focus of the communication. (Well, I guess in an ideal world.)
Today, that world is over. A lot of people still don't realize it, but it is.
A brand's message, while it might (but often not) originate as part of your brand communication, is now actually the result of the various media channels that reflect, modify, reinterpret and even invent the story. It's no longer YOUR story, but the communication ecosphere's story. Or put simply, The story is in the hand of YOU and ME to mold as WE desire.
WE blog
WE Tweet
WE search
WE Facebook
WE e-mail
WE Wii (Sorry, I just couldn't help myself.)
WE create a robust sphere of communication that ultimately defines the communication. And the message that Nike or BP puts into the marketplace is at our mercy--at our mercy to like, dislike, or to just cut-and-paste into a proposition of our own.
So much for control!
The role of brand communication today is to control and influence that dialogue. The brand can make you feel good, support your intelligence, stroke your ego, donate to charity or build a consumer-centric brand personality. The brand can enter the dialogue in Twitter. The brand can support Joe blogger. And the brand can do one of the single-most important tasks essential in today's world: LISTEN. Listen closely to the ecosphere and watch the diffusion and evolution of the message. (A word of caution here: You must listen in real time! Not only to focus groups that speak to yesterday reality, but the message that is flowing via new media right now.)
So, when you hear things like "print is dead", you might want to redefine that message in the context of your own communication ecosphere. You see, print isn't deal...control is.