From e-brands to Open Brands !

- More than ever growth through innovation and collaboration: the current global and financial economic crisis makes it even more obvious that only innovation will generate the last chance for extra growth potential for the leading corporations and brands in the 3 to 5 years to come. Furthermore, given the expected constraints on internal resources and R&D budgets within major corporations and brands, only a new paradigm through innovative partnerships and external collaboration will enable it to happen.
- A fast emerging trend: ‘Open & collaborative innovation’ is a still new yet a fast growing trend as a young management discipline in major corporations.
- A proven strategic model from major brands: leading brands such as P&G (through its ‘Connect & Develop’ partnership platform and program), Nokia , General Mills (G-WIN program), Microsoft (Microsoft IDEES program being deployed internationally), Orange (Orange Partner program), etc. are developing dedicated strategic partnership programs to empower and accelerate their innovation and go to market.
- Innovation, Change and Brand management are merging disciplines: the innovation, change and brand management fields are more and mode linked, interrelated if not overlapping. Some leading advertizing agencies are for instance offering ‘startup connection’ services and Brand Management consulting firms are developing Innovation management services: companies such as Prophet are strongly positioning innovation at the heart of their services. And new breed of consulting firms such as Venture2 or bluenove are emerging.
- The 2.0 effect: Web 2.0 created new ways and trends to manage brands and marketing campaigns such as ‘crowdsourcing’ processes or collaborative platforms bringing user and designer communities together and redefining the frontiers of creativity, art & culture. Bluenove is for instance a partner of the ‘New Life Copenhagen’ project which integrates a set of innovative and collaborative platforms : www.wooloo.org , www.wecollaborate.org, www.kollaboration.biz . The city itself is therefore becoming socially connected and enabling a new proximity marketing.
Mobile 2.0 is also starting to contribute to convergent (web, mobile, tv, content) viral marketing dynamics and advertizing with examples such as mob-it.
Social network based solutions are of course entering the ‘Enterprise 2.0’ thus accelerating organizational changes and culture transformation within corporations.
And major Brands are now using web 2.0 values to define their next generation claims such as the ‘Together we can do more’ by Orange.

How will major brands and advertizing agencies adapt to these new strategies and change management issues mixing convergent Branding, Innovation and Technological skills ?

bluenove is a strategy consulting firm specialized in change management through open and collaborative innovation