Handing over your brand

What do Bob Dylan, Albert Einstein, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Donald Trump have in common? Apart from bad hair, it's that one essential ingredient that precludes creative or commercial genius: passion.

Where there's no passion, there's no desire to crash right through the box of mediocrity and truly create or innovate.

There's nothing worse than trying to force a surly copywriter, art director or creative director for that matter, to work on a campaign for a product or service they just couldn't give a gorilla's armpit about.

And it shows. Sloppy design, unconvincing taglines, slipshod production and usually a dull, uninspired and unoriginal piece of rubbish. Or, occasionally, a work of award quality that has absolutely nothing to do with the brief, the brand or the consumer and everything to do with their reel... and their next job.

Judging by the bulk of creative work out there, I'd say there must be a seething mass of surly creatives locked away, grinding their teeth, cursing their clients and churning out the dross that disrupts our favourite websites, TV shows, magazine articles and clutters our mail and inboxes.

There are people out there who are truly passionate about brands and who would do anything... anything... for the opportunity to contribute to the creative process.

Just drop the name of a particular brand and their pupils dilate, they get goose bumps, they swoon, gasp, moan and may even start humping your leg.

Apple has them in stadium-filling hordes. Nike, Nokia, Honda and Singapore Airlines have them. And weirdly enough, although in smaller numbers, so does Daikin, Hyundai, Panasonic and Garuda. And Darlie toothpaste and Maggi noodles and Nikko pens. Very few brands don't have at least one foam-at-the-mouth fanatic.

The smart brands already know these people. They're not numbers or even a special segment on a database, they know them personally. They don't just charm them with freebies, they are making them, their ideas and their enthusiasm part of the brand's DNA.

The smart brands are making them part of the creative process too. They are inviting them to express their passion for the brand via photos, videos, illustrations, essays, blogs, conversations, rants, raves, poems, songs... in whatever form of expression they are most comfortable with. They are letting people mash-up and remix their brand. And they are welcoming their negative feedback as well.

And what the brand gets back is a reality check - a view of how the consumer really sees and interacts with the brand - and it's not always what the brand was hoping for. The disconnect can be startling and enlightening.

It goes by many names user generated content or consumer generated content. I prefer consumer co-creation, if only for my irritating love of alliteration.

And yes, I can hear you bristling. I know that your five-year-old could do a better job than this slavering bunch of brand huggers. Consumer co-creation is amateur, crude, trite, uncrafted, cheap, tacky and all the rest. But it has that one essential element all too often lacking in what we so-called professionals produce. And it has it by the bucketful - the real fifth ‘P' of marketing: passion.

I'm not advocating handing out pink slips to the entire creative department and crayons to everyone who gets a stirring in their trousers at the mere mention of our client's brand.

But I am saying we should all at least open the conversation. Give passion a voice, a canvas, a gallery, a stage. It won't always be pretty, but collectively it will come together to form an exquisite and emotive mosaic.

A great example is the Gmail collaborative video. The beauty of this spot is the simplicity of the idea. A simple, replicable visual mechanism that made it easy for Gmail enthusiasts to collaborate, to expand upon the idea and get truly creative with it. It was kicked off by the passionate staff at Google and finished by 1,100 equally passionate gmailers from 65 countries. They excelled, creating a truly gestalt effect, the whole being much, much greater than the sum of the parts.

And more than that, by inviting us to be part of the brand, even if we just passively view the efforts of those who collaborated, it makes us all feel part of the brand.

John Lambie is regional digital creative director at BatesAsia.