For one thing

Advertising and marketing is under fire: Targeting consumers has become increasingly difficult as an easily available over supply of media entertainment provokes avoidance of advertising content. Traditional advertising and thus traditional communication models focus on the transmission of a message to group of consumers ultimately addressing only the brand?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s needs: an unbalance value exchange is occurring. Marketing communication only relying on push strategies meets customer defiance, as they are increasingly reluctant to spend valuable time and attention on dealing with marketing messages. Furthermore fragmented consumer groups are hard to pin down to some kind of common denominator which is badly needed to come up with a key message, to lay out a media plan and to develop consistent strategies.

In the course of my master thesis I will call the described status quo into question, arguing for a different stake at advertising communication. Considering that our society is increasingly linked and networking has become a common phenomenon one can conclude that collective intelligence and collaboration as illustrated by Wikipedia?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s success are also applicable to brand building. Countless blogs and online communities professed with brands denote the consumer?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s enthusiasm for participation. At the same time the consumer has become a powerful player in this whole new ball game. I would like to explore how companies can productively use the consumer?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s definitional power on brands. How can consumers and companies collaborate on brand meanings and how can advertising transform closed branding systems into open source networks? How is co-creation and co-innovation applicable to branding and advertising?

Anyone with interest and/or expertise gladly invited to join me on my quest. Just drop me a comment and I get back to you.