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Collaborative Brand Building Efforts –Changing patterns and
the role of technology as facilitator
All these instances have one thing in common. They have emphasized on collaboration, which
has worked wonders for them in brand creation. It starts with bringing in open, the brain
storming sessions, which used to happen behind the closed door and till recently were
safeguarded as the top most secrets. Also it reflects the changing mindsets of the
organizations. For economic reasons or for the reason of getting better technical inputs beyond
organizational boundaries, companies are now embracing openness in their approach of
managing their brands.
Instance 1: In August 1991, a student at the University of Helsinki posted a request to an Internet
discussion group asking for help on a project to build a free computer operating system (OS). Linus
Torvalds wanted an OS that he could tinker with. But neither Apple nor Microsoft was much
interested in giving away the codes that make their machines run.
With this simple request, Torvalds began a process that would complete one of the most
extraordinary collaborations in history. In 1984 M.I.T. researcher Richard Stallman had launched the
"free-software movement" in a project to build a free operating system that he called GNU. It
provided the scaffolding within which Torvalds' kernel ("Linux") could hang. In the dozen years since
Torvalds' post, literally thousands of programmers from around the world have authored and tinkered
with the GNU and Linux code to produce Microsoft's most dreaded competition. Microsoft's fear is not
that this GNU/Linux OS is better. It might well be, but that's a problem Microsoft could fix. Yet what
Microsoft sells no one else can, because the company controls the source code that makes its
programs run. The source for GNU/Linux, however, is free for anyone to take. That freedom is
guaranteed by the license that governs it. And that guarantee has led key competitors of Microsoft--
IBM, in particular--to invest billions in an OS that has been promised to remain free. 1
Using methods very comparable to those for brand value calculation, IDC recently estimated that
Linux-related revenues (PCs, servers, and packaged software) in 2004 accounted for US$15 billion,
and will amount to over US$35 billion by 2008. FIFTEEN BILLION DOLLARS - $15,000,000,000 -
that places Linux in the top 20 global brands, just ahead of Ford and Honda, and right behind BMW.
Instance 23
: Nokia acknowledges the value in creating open source software in collaboration with
others. A number of Nokia developers are directly involved in creating, refining, testing, using, and
supporting open source software. Currently, Nokia hosts, contributes to, and/or sponsors multiple
open source projects and initiatives.2
Instance 32
: Within just one week of launching its 6 million ounce online exploration challenge,
Canadian gold mining company, Goldcorp, attracted the attention of the mining industry on every
continent. US$500,000 in prizes and a rare opportunity to review in detail one of the world’s richest
and highest-grade gold deposits were the key attractions. Goldcorp Chairman and CEO, Rob
McEwen regarded the Challenge as a LINUX inspired global brainstorming for the mining industry.
The Challenge web site received more than 120,000 hits. More than 600 individuals, corporations,
domestic and foreign government geological agencies and universities, representing 33 countries,
registered for the Challenge

Advent of technologies like SaaS (Software as a service), PaaS (Platform as a Service) and
IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) has provided fuel to the fire of collaboration. This has also
paved way for more and more customer cooperation in value creation for the companies.
Another development happening these days is introduction of Cloud Computing, which provides
dynamically scalable and virtualized services over the internet. Availability of easily accessible
services would certainly lead more and more organizations to a shift in their style and approach.
Security concerns taken care of, they would be more open to collaboration and co-branding.
Horizontal and Vertical collaboration in brand building would utilize these synergies and would
take the concept of co-branding much beyond the way it is understood to be right now.
At the same time, these services and virtualization have empowered the customers the more
and they have started collaborating in success of the companies not only as a buyer but also as
co-creators and collaborators. Now the customers are taking up more significant role in
strategies of the companies. From being passive partners in companies’ growth, they have
started scripting the stories, current companies have been forced to adopt for their growth.
From the world of closed room brainstorming sessions, now the companies have moved to the
reality of the open world. In this world, customers not only experience the fruits of strategies but
help them being carved out. They help them create the most valuable intangible asset of the
companies – their brand. It also opens the organization to co-operate with their customers,
prospects, competitors and all others to help them build their organizations and establish or re-
establish their brands in the market.
This changing dynamics would, in our view, force other companies also to look at their offerings
in similar light. The force of changing paradigm could not be more apparent than ‘the big blue’
IBM embracing Apache web servers and Linux to save costs and pick speed in web server
market and be competitive against giants like MS and Sun.
At the same time, apart from knowledge sharing, companies can use tools to create their brands
in a way unforeseen earlier. The medium for brand building would undergo a change. Print
media once used to be the sole source of advertising, which gave way to broadcasting and then
to telecasting. Now, with webcast being an easily available channel, platforms like YouTube
could provide massive ammunition to be used by the companies. Availability of technology like
web 2.0 and platforms like wiki, blogs, twitters etc would provide a platform for these
organizations where they would be at advantage over the traditional methods. Word of mouth is
taking a different form these days, by blogging and micro blogging (tweets) giving a platform to
the customers to speak out and connect to other customers. It also helps customers learn from
the experience of other customers and join together. ‘You tube videos’ has helped a customer
fight a battle against bank of America where simply by putting her recorded message, the
customer was able to connect to various other customers with similar experience and they could
form a pressure group, which finally resulted in Bank of America coming out in open with
clarification and correction in this case. These cases would grow in number with customers
becoming more aware of their strengths of interconnectivity.
At the same time, utilizing these tools properly would help companies create a positive
approach. Blogs can be used as a strategic tool by the companies for inviting customers to

share their views, which would be more creditable than the company sponsored advertisement.
Twitters could be used as a potent instrument in spreading awareness about the activities of the
companies and in ensuring that the company could capture the space in top of mind affair of the
customers and competitors alike. Paid key word searches provide a good mode of
advertisement. This way one can book a berth on the top of the search pages and thereby in
mind spaces of the customers. Providing a platform to the customers to publish and promote
their white papers would help companies gain positive responses from the users and would
result in a good brand building exercise.
All these changes would impact the way companies build their brands. Increasing internet
penetration and adoption of internet as medium of communication among youths and teens
would also mean that there is a vast source of energy waiting to be tapped and utilized. To top it
up, the youth of today is full of new idea, which they do not mind sharing. They are more open
to discussions and idea sharing than the previous generation and sites like mouthshut,
brandadda, TakingITGlobal etc are abuzz with their activities. Growing contributions and
enterprise of youths and teens have ensured that the decision making would also shifting
towards the N-generation, which prefers open doors rather than closed conference rooms.
There also is a flip side to it. Being open to all platforms may be counter-productive too. The
same platforms can be used by other people for counter-advertisements. Since anyone with a
camera can shoot something and post it on the net and the same can be made available to
people sitting in different corners of the world using YouTube, the organizations face a risk
unforeseen till date. Opening up blogs for end-users and customers to write upon would also
open it to competitors as well as unsatisfied customers and as the saying goes: “A satisfied
customer would tell 3 other people but an unsatisfied customer would tell 3000”. So an unhappy
customer, while enjoying holiday in Bahamas may provide a negative feedback (may be along
with visuals) to a customer glued to his PC in Bangalore. This poses a big challenge and a
deterrent for companies to embrace such media.
Another challenge would be authenticity. Since the source of such information may be open to
questions, purists may not buy the idea and the information. If the information provided on these
sites be from the common man, who may or may not have done complete research and posted
the information on sites like Wikipedia as compared to well researched words of specialists on
Encyclopedia Britannica. However the positive side is: any low quality, unauthenticated,
unwarranted and materials published with mistakes can be corrected in a jiffy as compared to
the same action being taken on the earlier media. For example, any mistake on Wikipedia can
be corrected in minutes as compared to months that it used to take to correct encyclopedia. And
more activities by interlinked customers would keep the companies on their toes and would
provide significant learning opportunities.
Both companies and customers are waking up to the change. However, different companies
would have different approach from each other. In order to understand the penetration of these
ideas and acceptability of it, we conducted a survey to gain insight from the people working in
the domain of IT and marketing.

Opinions of professionals
We started working on these ideas of ours and wanted to get our ideas validated. A survey was
conducted – the findings are below:
In order to take into account the views of people who have been in the forefront of IT/Marketing
and have valuable insight of the market, a survey was conducted. Primary respondents of this
survey were the entrepreneurs and executives working in IT and marketing companies in the
age range of 20-60 Years. However it was focused primarily to the people in the age group
between 20-40 years as these people would be the prime players in the markets in years to
come. The age group breakup was as given in the chart. (Please refer to figure 1)
Methodology
Online collaboration was chosen as a medium for conducting survey for the ease of reaching
people and faster turn-around time. This medium also ensures that our survey is not limited to a
localized geography. We were able to collect opinions from people sitting across geographical
boundaries and domain.
Almost a dozen of questions were asked ranging from questions pertaining to present situation to
the situation 5 years in future.
Total 45 responses were received. These responses are being presented in this paper along with
the questions asked.
Brand Creation and Customers
Most of the respondents were of the view that the brands would be a product of synergy
between companies and consumers. As had been in the past and has been talked about in the
paper before, the exercise of brand creation would transcend from being the forte of the
companies to a collaborative effort of both companies and the consumers, where consumers
and customers would play active role in determining brand personality rather than being passive
recipient with utilitarian approach. Even while providing opinions on the media to be used for
brand creation, respondents opted for confluence of traditional media and internet enabled new
technologies.
Where almost 60% of respondents agreed to the idea of synergy between consumers and
companies for brand creation, a whopping 85% opine that the technology would work hands-in-
hands with the traditional methods. The idea of technology not being able to play a significant
role was rejected by 98% of the respondents. (Refer to figure 2 and 3)
Will the companies open up?
When asked about usage of open sources by companies, 58% respondents are of the opinion
that companies and consumers, both, would like to have open sources in their folds. Only 13%
people feel that open source does not have such a promising future. Though the reasons may

be different for different people/companies, cost effectiveness of the open source systems
would certainly play a good role in embracing the open source systems. (Refer to figure 4)
However when it comes to opening up the information for the consumers, people in industry do
not seem to be as enthusiastic as much as the CEO of Gold Corp Inc. Though only 6% believe
that companies would not open the sensitive information to the consumers at all, 65% believe
that companies would tread pragmatic approach and would open up based on requirements
alone. (Refer to figure 5)
Using the Technology
Most of people agree that technology based media would be used by consumers to fetch
information about the product and to compare various product features. The role of digital media
would be primarily to ensure that information is available to the consumers and once they have
information available at their finger tips, they can compare various offerings. This also means
that companies, which do not make themselves/information about them available online and to
the doorstep of the customers may lose out of the mind space of the customers. Nothing new in
that! ‘Away from eyes, away from mind’ has been general trend of business since age old. What
would change here is the supply chain of information. The effort of printing and circulating would
be reduced. Now, more and more effort can be put by centralized team to make sure that
uniform information can be provided to everyone. This would also result in mass customization
of product. A person in India may be comparing a product with customers in US or Japan and
would not be happy if the companies do not provide best features or latest products in their
markets. At the same time, companies can ensure that product features customized for local
markets be highlighted and be spared form comparison across the border. What may help the
companies is the details of the localization and the reason behind it, which would help
customers, appreciate the companies for their foresight rather than despise it for not offering the
features to them.
As customers would look forward to obtaining information from the internet, they would also be
ready and empowered to provide feedback online, helping companies gather inputs for
product/service development and enhancement. (Refer to figure 6)
So, even if this media provides a wonderful opportunity to be explored for advertising, it would
also be used for product development – at least that’s what most of the respondents believed –
being less enthusiastic about the media being used for sales purpose (Refer to figure 7). Most
of the respondents believe that companies would use digital media for advertising and using the
inputs for product developments, where as the number of people who feel that the digital media
would be utilized for direct sales is lesser than that in advertising or product development.
Probably the lesser enthusiasm of the respondents for digital media to be used for sales
purpose is based on their experience till now. Financial products/services are being sold easily
on the net. So are standardized products like books etc or standard customization like
PC/Laptops. But still people may not be charmed by internet – enough to buy most of the things
online. Probably companies may look into other avenues like better technologies, sharing cost
benefits with the consumers or providing more information online or providing good service

experiences online to promote this channel as a potential sales channel. However in our
opinion, it would take some time as it impacts the mind set of both the buyer and the seller.
Among the media to be used by users or companies, search engines and networking sites as
well as posted videos would be the main contenders for brand creation tools. The interesting
thing is blogs and twitters have also been considered to be vying for the mind-space. Twitter,
being such a new entrant in the market and having not been embraced by mass by now is being
considered as a potential marketing tool. However looking into future, twitters would have good
utility as people would not mind writing a half-liner instead of writing a paragraph about their
likes and dislikes. The swiftness would be the key and latest information can be provided online
with one-liners or half of it. (Refer figure 8 and 9)
As is evident from the responses, paid key words, search engines and online networking sites
would create a respected space for themselves in the arena of marketing.
Benefits
Whereas consumers would look forward to being educated about the new features or new
products and having their voice heard, companies would see wider reach to the customers in
cost effective manner and being able to get feedback at real time and sharing industry update
with peer group and with the consumers, which may or may not give them cutting edge but
would certainly help them grow and help them in brand building, information disseminating and
in retaining their customers.. The collaborative edge that the upcoming technology can provide
them cannot be met by the traditional media. (Refer figure 10)
Keeping the fingers crossed
However beneficial the systems/media may be, it is a two-edged sword, evoking certain
concerns in the minds of the marketers. The prime concerns are security, and loss of
information to the rivals. If the technology can be used by the companies to collaborate with the
consumers, keeping abreast with the new development and getting an edge over competitors,
being an open and level playing field it provides the same ammunition to the competitors and
the fear psychosis would play a role for the companies in embracing the new developments.
The fear of “Loss of revenue” could result in lot of stress between the proponents of IT enabled
services and sales team. It is quite difficult for any company to overcome the resistance of
sales taskforce as it hits the top line and bottom line of the company and the impact could be
instantaneous.
However, here again the technology can be used for advantage. Putting firewall and security
mechanism may help allay fear from the minds of the sales team and the companies.
Onset of cloud computing would help companies open up their data centers to be managed by a
third party vendors, with appropriate security arrangement and updated technologies.

Conclusion
Collaboration is making inroads into the market and the companies, more than ever are
becoming dependent on the customers to create a brand value for themselves. Sharing
information and making the best of it has started to become the flavor of the day. This is an
instrument, which helps both the customers and the companies alike.
For those who have toll date not opened up their boundaries for their customers, the time would
be running out till they are forced to do so.
It always helps to open up the doors voluntarily than after being forced to do so as it not only
gives the organization an opportunity to bid some time and plan properly but also creates and
enhances the positive image of the company. Increased activities of the customers in the arena
of collaborative brand building would also see the changing definition of brand loyalty as the
customers would own the brands they create, at least psychologically and metaphorically.
This changing dimension would change the market forces as defined by Porter as well as would
change the brand identity prism as the weight of customer driven factors would outweigh the
other factors.
Security concerns being taken care of, sharing information would be the mantra of the day and
most of the product features would be considered as service, which would mean even
competitors sharing the same platform and delivering in tandem.
In such situation, companies need to gear up and keep pace with the change, which would be
faster than experienced ever.
Key Words: Brand-building, Technology, Collaboration,
Appendix
1. Charts and Figures

Reference:
1. http://www.linuxpundit.com
2. http://www.time.com
3. http://opensource.nokia.com/
4. http://www.prnewswire.co.uk
5. Wikipedia
6. McKinsey quarterly – online magazine
7. Wikinomics
8. http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?
hl=en&formkey=dDd5NFRJZXM0MUVFWXRKbEFiN1FRQkE6MA..

Appendix 1 – Charts and Figures
Figure 1: Age of the participants

Figure 2: What role do you think the consumers will play in creation of brands?
Figure 3: Impact of Internet
Figure 4: Embracing Open Source

Figure 5: sharing information
Figure 6: Customers using technology

Figure 7: Companies using technology
Figure 8: Powerful media

Figure 9: Powerful media – 5 years from now
Figure 10: Emerging media – benefits to the companies

Figure 11: Emerging media - Concerns of the companies

About the Authors
Prashant Kumar Singh
Principal Consultant, Oracle India Pvt Ltd, is working in the field of information technology
(mostly in ERP and CRM), after graduating in business administration from IMT Ghaziabad,
He has previously presented papers on aspects of Customer Relationship Management and
Risk Management.
http://www.prashantksingh.com
prashantksingh@gmail.com
+919663061061
Raje Suneet Jain
Currently a student in Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, is pursuing major in
marketing, Has been awarded first class with Distinction in B.E Computers,pune university ,has
worked with organizations like ITC , National informatics centre on various projects
 headonready@hotmail.com
+919008092535

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Collaborative Brand Building Efforts v1.0

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