Who’s In Charge?

I came across this terrific statistic from Forrester the other day:

And as if to highlight the point, Amelia posted these two YouTube versions of the brilliant Cadbury’s TV commercial which are a perfect illustration that even when a brand uses the traditional bought media channel, the real measure of success is when it becomes part of culture and properly embraced and democratised.

Another example is this creative take on one of the old Apple TV commercials, which shows that customers sometimes have longer memories than brand owners. The point of these consumer ads is that Apple is going against its old brand ethos in its recent behaviour on the iPhone. The idea that companies and brands could control what people thought of them was always a bit of an illusion, but now it’s positively dangerous.