Who is best placed to manage your brand...

Who is best placed to manage your brand: consultancies or ad agencies?

I note with amusement the squabbling between brand consultancies and advertising agencies about who is best positioned to manage brands now and more importantly in the future.

The logical answer is of course neither. The technological revolution has fundamentally changed the relationships between companies and consumers so that, as never before, consumers are sharing, discussing creating content about products, services and companies; ultimately driving the direction of the brands they love or hate.

This happens not in broadcast channels or is a one off event on company terms. This happens constantly and through interactive channels whenever the consumer feels like it.

Surely the agencies who are closest to, or part of these regular conversations should be the ones driving and managing brand direction. Already we are seeing that increasingly communication and brand insights are coming from interactive agencies who have this direct relationship with the audience.

Consequently clients, and informed agencies, are starting to put interactive at the heart of their approach. Dove's brand positioning and approach is constantly recreated, refreshed and repositioned by the thousand of daily conversations, comments and pictures posted by consumers on campaignforrealbeauty.com. Brand management for a world where brands are debated rather than consumed.