Future: How The Social Contract Between People and Brands Will Evolve

42 Replies to “Future: How The Social Contract Between People and Brands Will Evolve”

1. Agree that the next step hasn’t arrived yet, but I think the contract was rewritten a while ago. Good post.

2. J, big fan of your work but I think I’m missing what’s profound here. It is currently, and I’d suggest always be, about value. Today someone gives up their contact info if the thing they want (eg, white paper) is “worth it.”

   And brands choose what items to offer for no contact info (in order to build brand awareness, or to begin showing value), some information, or a lot of information (eg, must set up phone meeting for live demo).

   Even with ongoing social media revolution, marketers with valuable “stuff” won’t have to give it up to anonymous users if they don’t want to.

3. Hi Jeremiah,

   I don’t want to sound like a curmudgeon, but how is the Sarah scenario you describe any different than what Godin highlighted a decade ago in Permission Marketing?

   The train has already left the station, the consumer is already in control, and progressive exchanges of data or attention for value is the current state of affairs…isn’t it?

4. Hello,

   After reading the ‘reg pages will go extinct’ and this exciting article, I still have a question about the organization(s) that will support/host the ‘people identity’ secured service.

   Do you think OpenID or Liberty Alliance Project (http://www.projectliberty.org/) could evolve into this kind of actors ?

   Does the service could be supported by *any* web companies providing ‘secured online identity services’, following strong rules and standards set by an independant worldwide organization ?

   Also, I’m wondering about the attitude of some governments in front of such data repositories.
   For sure, some will be happy to get centralized db about their inhabitants… but maybe not to set a perfect new social contract.

   Once again, was great to read you 😉

5. Tom, Kevin, Jim

   I agree, the definitions for this to happen have already been stamped. The difference here is that the technology is closer to empower it.

   ID systems will enable this to happen.

6. First of all, I wanted to make sure you saw this cartoon from this week’s New Yorker: http://img.skitch.com/20090410-dqqan8ckc2dddts44611m898t3.jpg

   In response to Kevin, there isn’t anything profound here. I would hate to think that every blog post has to be profound. That said, I think the vision presented here is more-or-less right on.

   True, marketer-citizen relationships have always been, and always will be, about value, but the current arrangement is generally very clumsy and seems to be collapsing under its own weight. There are only so many brands (or people) that I want emailing me. Everyone has some kind of cognitive limit.

   Thanks to Facebook Connect, e-mail addresses are no longer the only currency that marketers and citizens have to deal in, which allows for a much more nuanced and progressive relationship . It’s going to take a while for brands and consumers to figure out how to manage and develop these relationships, but I think the payoff for the marketers who do it well will be great…at least they’ll survive.

7. Jed

   Good point, email address captures may not be how Marketers are gauged on success of a campaign. Perhaps it will be ‘friending’ or ‘fanning’?

8. I’m not sure if I’m getting this. Are you saying that _in the future_ psychographic and friend data will be stored in the cloud? I get basic demo data. Name, age, email, locale.

   How would this work?

9. Jen

   It’s already in the cloud. Take a look at your own or your friends Facebook’ profiles of things they like, hobbies, crafts, products and online behaviors. Currently, this information is shielded behind Facebook’s login screen –yet as Facebook connect evolves, some of this could be exposed to brands.

10. My clients are already looking at metrics more nuanced than friending/fanning/following”we’re looking at @replies, wall posts, photo views, photo uploads, etc.

    I still haven’t worked with anyone who’s gotten too deep with Facebook Connect, so I can only guess here, but I presume that the marketers’ are beginning to be segmented in the way that you described for “Sarah””along lines of how much we really know about consumers, their desires, and their behaviors.

11. Thanks Jeremiah.

    It’s interesting coming from a research perspective. There is info that people are happy to disclose about themselves in a publicly social way that reveal their psychographics, “I like crafts” and then info they are not so willing to reveal, “I have ED,” or may not even be aware of about themselves, “I say that I’m interested in green but actually I blast my air conditioner and drive a large truck.”

    Same with friends. Even among young people, online social friending patterns do not mirror offline, although their is a greater correlation with kids that grew up with Facebook.

    I think yes all of what your saying is true about useful data being available in the cloud, but what isn’t “True” is how we as online social beings reveal ourselves.

12. The consumer’s approach to “assets sharing” is very interesting (considering the user’s main assets: identity, connection and content).
    I think Facebook Connect has some advantages to the other technologies right now mainly because Facebook is the Social Network the highest spread in western countries, but this doesn’t mean that Facebook Connect won’t face any competition from other solutions, especially open ones.

    I tried to summarize the situation that users and brands are likely to face in the near future here:
    http://stefanomaggi.blogspot.com/2009/03/portable-user-v2.html

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14. It seems to me that the inevitable adoption of a universal, portable ID is just the next step in making yet more solid and consistent our individual virtual identities in cyberspace. The extension of this trend will change the relationship between individuals and businesses…I hesitate to use the word “devolve,” because I don’t mean it in the pejorative¦but cause the relationship to devolve into the old idea of the individual consumer going to the corner butcher, and requesting the exact cut of meat desired. That person will again have a completely individual relationship with that butcher, and, moreover, the person who is standing next to them in line will see the exchange, and will modify her relationship with the butcher, based on the observation, to take the example another step forward. The implication for businesses, I agree, is that it raises the bar they need to hurtle in order to win that level of individual access, but I think we™re circling back to the old one-to-one marketing concept.

    But it also opens up more opportunities to aggregate information, as the web becomes more and more like real life but with the added ability to capture rich depths of information. Another example: if I buy a pair of boots, the business doesn™t have to know anything about me directly to use the information. If there is a picture or a video of me wearing the boots, on Facebook, or some other site, what would prevent a business from harvesting socio-demographic information about me, from all the nuggets of information I have left in posts or other public forums? In order to create a customer profile, imagine if I could scan Youtube/Flickr for the boots, pull out who posted the content, search the web for other places in which that ID is posted and harvest location, age, whatever is available¦capture the names of other products contained in posted comments, create correlations and models. Yes, it™s possible to do that now, but, now it™s a bit harder, since many people don™t use the same ID on every website.

    What is that Chinese symbol that means threat/opportunity again?

15. Agree with the general premise, but the devil is in the details. OpenID only solves part of the problem; wielding personal data is much more complex than un/pw. While cloud storage under user control is a given, actual data could be anywhere; linked from disparate sources and presented through multiple personas via information cards or a similar metaphor. The underlying metasystem must be open and de-centralized, with interoperable methods via standards supported by identity providers and relying parties. How this plays out is a delicate tug-of-war between powerful interests. A catalytic act must occur to drive adoption anywhere near the tipping point. Like any network, its power is proportional to scale.

16. I guess what you have portrayed in Sarah’s use case is a drilled down version of the buying process.

    I had tried my hand at mapping the buying process wrt Social CRM. Hope it helps you.

    I agree with your idea of a Open ID kind of system allowing users to disclose only portions of their personal information. I have incorporated some aspects into the proposed Social CRM IT Landscape too.

17. Charles

    While it’s not here yet, and probably won’t be mature for some time, check out the other components of OpenStack. Identity systems are just the start, the ability for discovery, application access, and friend discovery are listed.

    http://therealmccrea.com/2008/09/19/joseph-smarr-at-web-20-on-the-new-open-stack/

18. Sue, that’s right, you’ve got the general premise. Believe it or not (and I didn’t address this in this post, perhaps another) that brands will figure out how to scrape data about your behaviors, beyond what they are doing right now.

19. I find your use of the term ‘social contract’ not inspiring. The social contract theory is the last of the bad theories, according to me at least. Social contract are impersonal social agreements to which participants are expected to be loyal. I would hope that you would be more creative and make the whole thing much more personal and much less impersonal.

    Steven

20. Jeremiah, The new format looks great! I am excited about the efforts from the Open ID foundation. Thanks for bring their efforts to the surface on your web site. I enjoy your insights on social media.

    Daniel

21. Jeremiah,

    The lighter color is much more inviting, I like the new design as a whole.

    I agree with Steven that the word “contract” is uninspired. The relationship between consumer and brand is a tightrope walk. Scraping data and listening to learn behavioral tendencies is one thing, translating that into a meaningful engagement or interaction without consumers feeling violated is quite another.

    On a recent client project we were tasked to have high school students consider a particular college. We did our research and Facebook was just one community on the list. We started the important process of engaging these students in a discussion directly with volunteer college student evangelists. Both sides learned a great deal and the conversation, rapport building and college considerations are rolling along nicely built on a foundation of trust. The “real” information that each student volunteered (on both sides) only increased after rapport was built between students in a transparent way, I don’t see Open ID accomplishing this despite being a strong offering. I think brands must be willing to “invest” themselves emotionally to some degree along with the consumer equally, otherwise it’s a shallow sales push from one to the other and in my opinion that affects outcomes.

    Maybe “social investment” isn’t a suitable term generally, however, that’s what needs to happen below the surface, at least in my opinion. “Contract” suggests mistrust and forced relationship, whereas, “investment” suggests voluntary and willingness. I believe that certain successful brands are really adept at doing this across the entire enterprise. Disney for one comes to mind.

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24. Looking forward to the future reports and I see nothing but great things for Open ID foundation. Very curious to see how it pans out

25. Geez you certainly got the pot stirred on an issue that seemed straight forward. OK two issues

    1) in terms from scrapping data, Stephen Baker’s The Numerati is flat out scary in terms of assembling personal data. The key is matching online and off line transactions, what’s next mind control!

    2) While all this is conversation for the web most people get their information about brands from television 52% according to Media Track that’s cable and broadcast Compared to 17% from Internet Ads. Now you might say, that’s just the ad not all of the other factors that involve product information. Regardless, what if consumers were able to control the ads they received on TV, No not Tivo, because that lets you fast forward through the ads you don’t want. What if you can select categories of ads that you wanted. Your choice say of outdoor recreation would deliver you an REI adventures ad instead of the Viagra ad.

    Do you think that kind of system would work? Where I’m selecting all parts of my information flow?

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30. Kevin –

    I agree. People will always exchange their personal information for anything they find is “valuable”. However, I think J’s point about identity and the massive reduction in “registrations” will come true.

    @jordanwillms

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32. Key here is to recognize that consumer™s attention, information, and opinions have real value and that its commercial value exceeds the value of the services for which it is being bartered.

    Services like Tivo, the national do-not-call list, life lock, dvrs, spam blockers etc. are all tools that empower consumers to exert control over their attention and information. More intelligent and consumer focused tools and services are on the way and they will reshape research, advertising and marketing.

    Corporate focused authentication “solutions” that facilitate the sharing of data are in reality corporate tools that simply make it easier for consumers to give up their valuable data. In return they are offered access to increasing array of commodity services. The raw material of these services is data. It is shortsighted to assume that consumers will continue to freely part with that value of their property without being compensated in a substantive manner.

    Today single sign on services are cleverly marketed as an ease-of-use tools that facilitate richer social interactions and they are couched in reassuring terms about how privacy is being maintained. But for whose benefit is privacy being maintained? This is but a shadow of the traditional business models of traditional media empires which are crumbling.

    Consumers will realize that their loss of privacy control and ownership means that they assume all downstream management burdens (screen spam, email spam, junk mail) and risk (identity theft) for what benefit? Why would consumers entrust their data to corporate entities whose sole purpose is to extract as much value from them as possible to benefit shareholders?

    For information based economies to function most efficiently the value exchange of transactions will require that data have a measurable cost. Markets will not function efficiently as a bartered exchange of dissimilar units of measure. Like it or not the days of free data are numbered and service providers will need to define business models based on a real exchange of an appreciable currency for the value they deliver.

    http://www.kindclicks.com.
    Where your information is your business.

33. How do technologies like Phorm play to this model I wonder?

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35. Hello,

    After reading the 'reg pages will go extinct' and this exciting article, I still have a question about the organization(s) that will support/host the 'people identity' secured service.

    Do you think OpenID or Liberty Alliance Project (http://www.projectliberty.org/) could evolve into this kind of actors ?

    Does the service could be supported by *any* web companies providing 'secured online identity services', following strong rules and standards set by an independant worldwide organization ?

    Also, I'm wondering about the attitude of some governments in front of such data repositories.
    For sure, some will be happy to get centralized db about their inhabitants… but maybe not to set a perfect new social contract.

    Once again, was great to read you 😉

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37. social contact very used full for people b/w brands and peoples. i hope u accept my point of views

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40. I totally agree with your this point “Technology will shift the power from brands to people as they are able to control their own identity.”.

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42. This was a very interesting blog post, I agree with you that People will exchange their personal information for anything they find is “valuable”.

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