Dissatisfied with the brand offerings from corporations, consumers are
coming together to create their own brands and products. These
consumers are looking for something different; it can be a radical new
product, a personalized limited edition item and/or to be more engaged
in the process of production.
"Know
How" used to be exclusive; only corporations had it and they rarely
gave it away. There were things called 'trade secrets" and "corporate
espionage', now information is out and available and if you want to
make something it's pretty easy to find out how you can do it yourself,
or find someone who can do it for you.
One great example is Ladybank Whisky, a small distillery that's currently being built in Fife, Scotland.
Ladybank
will only supply whisky to its 300 owners. The distillery will double
up as a private members club where the owners can stay and check in on
the progress of their whisky at the same time.
There's also Nudo, an olive farm farm in Italy, where you get to own your own olive tree and the oil from it. 
Being
directly connected to your product makes sense for luxury foods and
beverages, but it could also work for other categories. Already, we are
seeing small batch manufacturing in categories that would have seemed
inconceivable 20 years ago, Tesla, the electric sports car is one
example.
At present, this new business models aggregate
consumers around a need by offering something different and unusual
from a product delivery perspective, but also from the level and type
of engagement offered.
It's likely that three models will new emerge to offer new types of brand creation.
New Aggregators
Like
the three mentioned above. New companies with a new vision and new
ideas will look to engage their consumers in quasi-ownership giving
them greater access and more involvement in the process of product
creation. However, a group of owners will remain firmly in charge.
Corporate Customization
The
incumbents will open themselves up to allow consumers to dictate a more
personalized product experience. Imagine P&G producing Tide to
match the specific needs of your family wash and your local water
supply.
Consumer Circumvention
Consumers may get
together to create their own products to order. The closest we've
gotten to date are the buying clubs that are now becoming popular in
China. Here, consumers use the internet to aggregate themselves into a
buying group to then go and negotiates a discounted rate from a seller.
It's possible that another form could emerge where groups of consumers
come together to get products produced on their behalf.
I buy this absolutely – as you say quasi-ownership gives consumers greater access and more involvement and is easy to set-up in new companies than to tack on for established companies where their ownership model cannot be changed. I would add that ‘consumers’ as we have known them from the industrial mass-production age could be dying and being replaced by ‘controling consumers’ – I think the web 2.0 jargon – if you can bear it – is the rise of the long tail (but like all new things the rise will be slower than the web 2.0 junkies hope; it’ll likely be more generational pace of change)
James – Founder Ladybank Co of Distillers
I buy this absolutely – as you say quasi-ownership gives consumers greater access and more involvement and is easy to set-up in new companies than to tack on for established companies where their ownership model cannot be changed. I would add that ‘consumers’ as we have known them from the industrial mass-production age could be dying and being replaced by ‘controling consumers’ – I think the web 2.0 jargon – if you can bear it – is the rise of the long tail (but like all new things the rise will be slower than the web 2.0 junkies hope; it’ll likely be more generational pace of change)
James – Founder Ladybank Co of Distillers