• Concept Bureau
  • Posts
  • The Profound Human Connection of Micro-Communities, Participatory Economies & Good Old Customer Service

The Profound Human Connection of Micro-Communities, Participatory Economies & Good Old Customer Service

Your user is changing.

Author

Jasmine Bina
August 13, 2020

If you're part of our brand strategy community then, like us, you're likely obsessed with how the customer is changing. Every time the customer evolves, a new set of business models is born. 

The gig economies of Uber, TaskRabbit Instacart were born of lots of different economic and technology forces in America, but one of those forces was a changing consumer who was more willing to engage with strangers, especially as the sharing economy and peer reviews became more commonplace. 

Then came the passion economy, with early ad-based models like Youtube, then sponsorship-based models maturing on Instagram, and now platforms like Patreon and Substack… with the common thread among all of these being a customer who was looking for a more direct relationship with the creator. 

Today we’re seeing the emergence of yet another model that’s challenging traditional work - something that early stage VC and Level Ventures partner Sari Azout calls the participatory economy - where fans actually participate in a creator’s success - and it's producing new brands like Foundation, Rally and Cent. 

In this week's Unseen Unknown podcast we speak with Sari about how this new model (and the ones that came before it) are shifting the frontier of disruption away from product and price, and instead toward the concept of customer happiness. 

Customer happiness, while often confused with an initiative or role, is actually much bigger and more complicated than it sounds.

It's a rethinking of how a company both creates and extracts value, organizes its people and practices, and how it positions its brand.  

We also speak with Ty Givens, customer experience strategist and founder of the The Workforce Pro, about engineering the human connection that turns customers into loyalists.

Ty and her SWAT team descend into the heart of companies and transform them from the inside out, with a focus on the human connection that turns customers and users into fans.

We explore how leaders can truly make customer happiness core to their brands and the second order effects that it can have on the company, its employees, and the overall landscape. 

This conversation will make you rethink brand building for the new economies ahead of us.

Enjoy.

You can also listen and subscribe on Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher and Simplecast.

Links to interesting things mentioned in this episode and further reading:

The (not so) good old days.

Here's what we've been consuming.

Nostalgia reimagined (Aeon): "In the past few years, we’ve seen a resurgence of nationalistic political movements that have gained traction by way of promoting a return to the ‘good old days’... If people have not experienced a past, how can they feel nostalgic about it?... The politics of nostalgia doesn’t capitalize on people’s memories of particular past events they might have experienced. Instead, it makes use of propaganda about the way things were, in order to provide people with the right episodic materials to conjure up imaginations of possible scenarios that most likely never happened."

The end of cultural icons: Why there will never be another Air Jordans (The Sociology of Business): "Welcome to the post-icon age. The 1980s had Air Jordans and Back to The Future. 1990s had Vans Half Cab and New Balance 1500 and Britney Spears. We have “re-editions,” “inspired by,” “brought back” and “in collaboration with.” We also have anti-icons, like Kanye West or Adam Neumann or Elon Musk, who are as known for their anti-social antics as for their creativity. The problem is not the crisis of originality."

The next great consumer companies won’t be exclusive clubs. They will be inclusive cults. (Laura Chau on Medium): "So what does it look like for a tech company, not just a single influencer, to lead a cult on the internet? Well, it might look something like MSCHF. Dubbed the “Banksy of the Internet” or “the most infamous internet brand you’ve never heard of,” MSCHF has built up a massive cult following through their subversive products and content."

Traditional Sports Look To Gamers to Reshape Viewers' Experiences (Wall Street Journal): "Videogame enthusiasts are using technologies such as live-streaming and virtual reality. They’re watching esports competitions while text-chatting with each other and commentators on the same screen, and strapping on VR goggles to socialize in virtual spaces with far-flung friends. Now, traditional sports leagues are paying attention."

Strategy Thought Of The Day

Jasmine Bina
Founder & CEO
Concept Bureau, Inc.