Open Source Marketing in Practice: About Amazing Ideas and Deaf Ears

While sifting through my Blog-This backlog I just rediscovered a brilliant piece from Pete Blackshaw. I wanted to blog about this a long time ago. But better late than never, right ? It is the transcript of a fictitious conversation between a consumer and a company he likes. He tries to tell them about that amazing idea for their brand. But as you can read here that turns out to be not quite as easy as he thought it would be...

My favorite part:

Consumer Relations: What's your complaint?

Joe Consumer: Well, for starters, you keep bombarding me with advertising.

Consumer Relations: That's because we want your attention.

Joe Consumer: But you have my attention. Right now!

Consumer Relations: This doesn't count. (...)

While the conversation is pure fantasy (is it really ?), the article links to some interesting real life examples - like this one from McDonald's homepage:

Unsolicited Ideas

Thank you for your interest to share an idea for a product or service that you believe would be beneficial to McDonald's. Please know, however, that it is McDonald's company's policy not to consider unsolicited ideas from anyone other than our corporate employees, franchise owners and dedicated suppliers. (...)

Translation: Hey customer, shut up and don't bore us with your stupid ideas. Buy our stuff and leave the rest to us professionals !

Well, for some it's still a long way to open source marketing nirvana...


Technorati tags: open source marketing, mcdonalds