The Mesh - Lisa Gansky [25]
This distrust of old-model companies is fueling people’s willingness to consider alternative business models, brands, and lifestyles. Nearly half of the people in the United States report that they are considering brands they hadn’t earlier. They are more willing to try a community bank or car-sharing service. They will give a new merchant a second look because they have lost confidence in the brands they feel betrayed them. Plus, it’s easier than ever to try new brands. New mobile Web services that connect people to local merchants and venues have been well received in European and U.S. markets. People appear keen to learn more about what local merchants can offer, and have responded well to promotional offers directed to their mobile phones from services like Gowalla, foursquare, Feest (in the Netherlands), MePlease, and Groupon.
Utilizing these new services as well as the pervasive reach of mobile phones, new ventures can create a “flash brand” that is finely tuned to a particular community at the right moment. Restaurant patrons, for example, might be invited to an impromptu tasting or live performance of a new band. Such flash brands provide chefs, investors, or sponsors with effective feedback while creating a sense of urgency among the desired audience. Using flash branding, a kind of “anti-restaurant” has even sprung up in the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada. Toronto recently hosted several new secret restaurants, like Charlie’s Burgers, where you have to apply to be invited to a dining event at an unadvertised venue. Similar offerings unrelated to food will also be easier to design and deliver as social mobile services expand their reach and extend their capabilities. Flash brands are also an inexpensive and exciting way to test new brands and concepts. Merchants, artists, and others can even take a kind of “every fortnight” approach to doing business. By limiting the supply while generating an audience when and where it’s needed, flash brands enable businesses to create a sense of uniqueness to the brand or offering.
There’s also a generational transformation under way. Many older companies are pretty dumb about creating new products that will endear them to a younger generation. Some have gone to silly lengths—remember when Post had Barney Rubble don shades and do a 1980s rap to sell Fruity Pebbles cereal? In trying to be edgy, Pepsi stirred protests by suggesting ways the lonely single calorie in Pepsi Max might commit suicide.
This slow-footedness on the part of corporate behemoths—and the growing gulf between what brands stand for and the actual product desired or delivered—creates an opening for the Mesh. Hundreds of Mesh entrepreneurs have started companies in the past few years, providing alternatives to older brands. Although still a small part of the financial market, peer-to-peer lenders already compete with traditional banks for similar transactions, customer relationships, and capital. In the United States alone, Lending Club and Prosper have facilitated over $250 million in loans. Zopa, the first to do peer-to-peer lending, has expanded to Italy and Japan from its base in London. Smava offers similar services in Germany and plans to expand to other European markets. Other Mesh companies have found underserved financial niches. BigCarrot