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Web-based brands understand something that their more traditional brothers often find harder to grasp.

Being born on the web, they acknowledge the importance and value of community.

They open themselves up to real conversations and end up better understanding user needs.

So, when it comes to shift their brands from virtual spaces, to real ones, they are making sure they include their community in their plans.

Earlier this year, Etsy established a creative lab in their headquarters, that’s accessible to its members.  

Now Threadless is getting in on the act. The online t-shirt giant is now opening its first retail store in Chicago and plans to include a space where customers can learn creative endeavors such as photography and graphic design.

These moves also highlight the importance of brands “doing”, instead of just talking and selling.



Posted by Ed Cotton In the last 24 months, we’ve seen lots of brands try to recruit consumers to create ads on their behalf.

However, what if you subvert and twist the system a little?

We saw that with some negative ads created for Chevy

What if you push further to a subverted consumer-created product?

This is the case with the Prada Ironic Advertisment Wallet, created by a 17 year old girl and sold on the Etsy website.

Here’s how she describes her merchandise.

“This wallet is ironic. Why, you ask? Well, the Prada image is an advertisement plucked from the very pages of VOGUE magazine -- yes, literally. Typically, an item with a brand as prestigious as Prada would be extremely expensive. Advertising feeds into this prestige and brand-name popularity. By taking the advertisement and -- rather than buying a Prada product -- turning it instead into a product in and of itself with that brand-name on it, we have succesfully usurped the entire silly Brand system. We have taken their advertising and turned it into a handcrafted, DIY duct-tape and paper wallet.

The irony is that the product is a wallet.

The owner of this wallet will hold his/her money in this fabulous, handmade wallet with the Prada brand name on it -- but although he/she touts this brand proudly, no money actually went to it.Instead it goes directly to the lovely maker of the wallet, me.”

Lia. Irony queen and brilliant anti-consumerism activist.

OK, let's twist this back, what if you let consumers make their own versions of your products and get paid for it?

Via Bubble Generation



Posted by Ed Cotton