As people hunker down, lose their jobs, see iconic corporations change dramatically, and face a new reality of a more fundamental lifestyle, we’re going to see a shift of importance in creating value. Value in 2007 was about trading up the ladder by adding features that offered more for slightly less more money.

If you’ve got a brand that’s about creating something of value, then you better focus on it. If you’ve got a brand that has lived on being a lifestyle, then you better find a meaning or plan on being smaller for quite a while. Brands that were making money by being slightly better for slightly less, be aware of the old strategic phrase: getting stuck in the middle.

Brands and companies in the middle will shrink in 2009 and companies that aren’t able to shift down, or hone a premium message, shrink and stay on the top (of mind) will not fair well.

As backdrop, Christopher Locke saw this trend coming back in 2001 in Gonzo Marketing when he noted that Ford was being very progressive in 2000 by trying to get all employees to push forward their passions into online forums. As an example, if people who work for Ford also like to garden, then foster online communities amongst employees offer the possibility to open up to the outside world to interact about all sorts of things that could even include new ideas for Ford’s trucks, but also a lot of other good ideas and meaningful involvement.

This week, Gary V. nails it on his “120″ video covering how all these new social web tools are forcing folks to align all elements of their lives onto the same page. No more secret lives, fake or ambiguous ID’s since Facebook is playing the hand of people to fess up to the networks they belong to for access. Along with that forcing hand comes transparency.

Next up, Loic Le Meur offers solid thoughts on his frustrations of the decentralizations of the social map. Partly, web communications are just becoming more advanced to meet users’ needs, but also he’s noting a problem with the early stages of web’s social tools.

Facebook is a walled garden which offers people a safe and user-controlled environment. While Flickr and MySpace broke a lot of social norms about a person’s online persona, Facebook’s attraction as a safer version of digital media sharing allows for a transitional platform for those still afraid to fully go online. For these ‘early majority’, the idea that digital media may get online with little to no control personal control is still scary. An explosion in video and digital camera technology combined to most cell phones (plus much easier uploading functions) should all but end that fear in the coming years (for many in the early and late majority of tech adoption, not for laggards).

How does this thread together for branding? The two emerging concepts of transparency (=people being who they are at work and at home) plus disintermediation (=tools that foster connectivity without being a platform) create a person as marketer/representative/communicator. [note: yes, I'm pulling a term, disintermediation, that isn't really used for the web, but I think it fits]

Marketing strategy and communication is becoming more like silly putty. While these branding concepts are not novel in for web developers and marketers, it is very challenging for firms outside of the interconnected web that are used to highly structured interactions. Silly putty can even make a copy of the news/comics that can be stretched.

TiVo Effect
The Oscars just aired one of its worst showings and Patrick Goldstein of the LA Times nails the current consumer sentiment on advertising attention:

“The academy should heed his advice. Here’s how we watched the Oscars in my household: We TiVo-ed the broadcast, came back from Little League practice, hopped in bed with some snacks and zapped through the commercials…”

I’m all over DVR’s, too. An hour of broadcast content dialed down to 42 minutes? Yes, please. Netflix for season 1 of Battlestar Galactica is on order, ad free.

Strategically, the TiVo effect notes an even more damaging trend line: people arrange their technology to not watch ads. Like the old high-low pricing strategy, consumers are being trained to think in a certain way which feeds on itself. This trend won’t be fixed by forcing cable companies to end fast forwarding for on-demand, btw.

Return on Marketing Investment
Paid sponsor search advertising should be the best method of getting the right audience at the right time and give them a great message. Is it? Google is still tweaking their search and ad placement for a reason:

[source: comScore blog]

Ad coverage is being managed down, and CTR’s are also declining. Google is likely responding to the backlash of the noise that exists in the paid search world, click farming, which exacts an unexpected toll on a system that was meant to be superior to other venues.

Google’s CTR’s are down over the past year. Is a similar trend of consumer ad avoidance entering paid search like it is with DVR’s? Maybe. Google’s inability to have any other significant revenue sources other than paid search should be a concern because the company has already trained users on many other services from maps to finance to expect any advertising trade off. Of course, they can be seen as Google’s own advertising campaign of sorts.

Relevance Marketing
The next wave of interactive marketing will not be about paid advertising at all. Video and blog publishing cost almost nothing but time to develop it. Leading marketers are realizing that transparency is essentially a requirement nowadays. An aside, how awesome is Trent in building anticipation: “soon” is all today’s post says.

It Should be What it Always Was
User based needs turned into unique solutions then communicated to end users in a way they can learn about the offer to then take action. That’s advertising in a nutshell and it hasn’t changed.

Interactive advertising has a long way to go to meet up with its name. In fact, most of the advertising that Google and Yahoo provide isn’t interactive, it is just a more efficient form of classifieds followed up with almost 1999 web page as product brochure sales sheet. Google, et al, innovated the business model of classified, not the classified ad itself.

There’s a lot more to be explored here and with luck, a bit more on examples of what’s on track.

For any company interested in expanding its reach and depth with consumers, delving into interactive ways to foster brand engagement has value. How the execution of that plan will unfold will be worth watching. While products can be meticulously market tested for launch, can the same methods be made for the social arena?

Dell’s move with IdeaStorm will go down as a very progressive, cutting edge way to involve customers in a collaborative and interactive way which makes sense for a computer company. P&G’s issue will be transference of everyday use to online interaction.

P&G’s ability to consistently and successfully launch break through products shows their NPD strength. Can they translate that ability into the amorphous social media space? Using education, showcasing and interaction that is less brand dependent, they have a chance to be sure, whether they can see past providing a branded experience created to push a call to action is P&G, and most company’s, main marketing challenge.

Innovation through Social Media at P&G via The Buzz Bin