Authenticity Unbound - Kitty Kolding - MediaBizBlogger

Empowering enthusiasts of your brand to truly make it their own is scary, but when done right, it ignites powerful marketing and learning.

"Empowering consumers" and "authenticity" are terms you hear a lot today. Marketers have generally come to understand that they hold an increasingly important place in the relationships they are creating – and in some cases re-creating – with their customers. I think it's fair to say that most marketers agree they have become valuable – maybe even critical – components of successful consumer communication today.

At the same time, I think we also agree that empowerment and authenticity are terrifying to try and pull off. Marketers are stewards of carefully sculpted brand images, and putting those images in the hands of the uncensored masses can be as unpredictable and frightening as the current job market for fallen, unemployed marketers. So when we start mixing it up with consumers in the many new ways in which we can personally engage them, we have to decide just exactly how far we're going to go with this whole empowerment and authenticity thing.

While it is indeed risky for brands to let go, it's getting riskier not to, and there are ways of managing the chaos. My company, House Party, has established one method; there are many others. What we do is recruit carefully chosen consumer enthusiasts of Fortune 500 brands, and facilitate their throwing a 4+ hour party with their friends – several thousand parties across the country on a given night – built around that brand. We only choose hosts with authentic enthusiasm for the brand, and we don't pay them. We send hosts a box of stuff from their favorite brand that makes their party interesting, special and real. Then we stand back and watch.

Our party hosts and guests tend not to look like stock photography models. Their homes don't look like photo shoots. The grammar in their emails and blogs isn't always up to Harvard's standards. Yet our clients tell us that, with very few exceptions, these hosts and guests generate as powerful brand advocacy and customer insights as any marketing programs they've tried. By trusting carefully screened consumers, in a setting they design, to share their true love for a brand, our clients get an energized, revealing, productive group of loyalists. These people don't just get "okay" with influencing on brands' behalf. They become brand zealots – missionaries preaching the gospel.

We did an interesting event this year with SC Johnson's Ziploc, for a new line of storage bags beyond the sandwich – for pantries, basements, closets. Why would a thousand people go through a highly competitive, nationwide selection process to host a party focused on storage bags? Why would 15,000 guests attend? Well, the people we selected are deeply passionate about organizing their homes and their lives – voraciously so – and their Ziploc House Parties gave them a vehicle for sharing and celebrating this passion. And these people gave Ziploc fully authentic, wildly powerful advocacy and insights as a result.

It's scary letting consumers make our precious brands their own. But allowing them to experience and enthuse about a brand in an authentic way, instead of in a controlled, scripted, stock photography way, will get them much more engaged and persuasive in the way they champion the brand and urge others to take action.

Welcome Kitty Kolding as our newest MediaBizBlogger.

Kitty joined House Party in 2006 as SVP Sales, Service and Marketing. In March 2007 she was appointed CEO and has led the company to strong growth and profitable operations. Kitty can be contacted at Kitty.Kolding@houseparty.com