I came across a nice TEDtalk by John Gerzema, the Chief Insights Officer at Young & Rubicam and author of The Brand Bubble.

(If you are unable to watch this video go to the TED website)

Ok I know there are a lot of familiar things in there. But the key takeaway of this TEDtalk is of course the renewed focus on consumers. Not in the old meaning of buying machines but in the post-web2.0-revolution-credit-crunch meaning of the word consumer. What that meaning today is? Well we’re not completely sure. Those who say they know are just talking about one piece of the puzzle. Truth is that as marketers we have to rely more and more on our anthropological skills. Because that is basically the only way that we are going to find an answer to the question “who are today’s consumers”. John Gerzema brings one piece of the puzzle to the table in this TEDtalk. But there are so many people, marketing guru’s, semi-marketing guru’s, social media preachers, community experts and a dozen of other fancy titles contributing to the dialogue that it is becoming harder and harder to see which pieces fit and which don’t. What I remember from John Gerzema is that he believes consumers will lead us out of the crisis. Ok fair enough but isn’t that the only way an economy can come out of a crisis. More important however is the point that John Gerzema makes by saying that business not only have to provide value but VALUES. Something I like to call marketing as a service. Give consumers something in order for them to give you something. It sounds so simple and it’s one of the cornerstones of inter-human relations. However marketers often forget that a company-consumer relation or a brand-consumer relation isn’t actually that different from inter-human relations.

So to conclude, nice TEDtalk and definitely something to think about. Thanks for a piece of the puzzle!