What Would Google Do_ - Jeff Jarvis [91]
Internet analyst Jeremiah Owyang compiled a list of auto industry social-media efforts on his blog: Some automakers let customers make their own ads for cars, make their own emblems, or color pictures of cars. GM’s vice chairman, Bob Lutz, blogs. Chrysler has solicited customers’ ideas—but in a closed form that prevents them from commenting on each others’ suggestions. Chrysler also created a customer advisory board of 5,000 selected drivers. The Mini has its active community of owners.
The problem with these efforts is that they do not allow customers to openly affect the product. Perhaps one of the ideas presented to Chrysler in emails or discussed in the Mini’s community might influence a decision that will come off the line in a few years. But we’d never know it. Indeed, the companies’ efforts at interactivity work hard to keep the customer from doing harm. This is interactivity as defined by a children’s museum: Here are the buttons you may push without breaking anything; knock yourself out, kids. But just as companies should hand over their brands to customers so should they hand over their products.
What if just one model from one brand were opened up to collaborative design? Once more, I don’t suggest that design should be a democracy. But shouldn’t design at least be a conversation? Designers can put their ideas on the web. Customers can make suggestions and discuss them. Designers can take the best ideas and adapt them, giving credit where it is due. I don’t imagine customers would collaborate on transmission or fuel-pump design—though a few might have great suggestions if given a chance. But they would have a lot to contribute on the passenger compartment, the look of the car, the features, and the options. They could even get involved in economic decisions: Would you be willing to give up power windows if it got you a less-expensive car or a nicer radio? This collaboration would invest customers in the product. It would build excitement. It would get the product talked about on the web and linked to and that would earn it Googlejuice. It could change the relationship of customers to the brand and that would change the brand itself. Imagine that: the collaborative community car—our car.
A car company could take any existing brand and model and work with the community that already exists around it. Go to Facebook and you’ll find communities of greater or lesser involvement and affection around many car brands. I lost count of the Facebook groups for BMW when I hit 500. They included, with more than 800 members, the “If the BMW M5 was a woman I would marry it” group in addition to the “I hate BMW drivers, they are all c—ts” group with 510 members and, with 446 joiners, the “I piss people off, cause I drive a BMW” group (don’t invite the latter two to the same party). At Meetup, there are six clubs where people gather with their Beemers. BMW has its own official car club offering 75,000 members rebates on cars and discounts on Brooks Brothers clothes (do they see the demographic humor in that?). These are the company’s best customers, its partners. BMW should solicit their help in designing cars, supporting fellow drivers (there’s a little of that in the club forums), and even selling cars.
On Facebook, BMW invited customers to color pictures of