I’ve been reading a really interesting book, its called brand hijack. It basically outlines a fundimental change in the way we all consume and relate to brands. You may have recently seen the AOL ad campaign discussing wether or not the internet is a good or bad thing, well in the argument made for the internet, the narrator makes the statement,

“George Orewell was wrong – it us that has the power”

And its on this principle that brand hijack discusses, that we the general public are in control of brands, not some flashy marketing exectutive, or an out of touch focus group but the actual people like you and me that buy the product. AOL are allowing us to a degree to hijack thier brand, by allowing us to discuss the very idea of the internet within the forum of their brand. They are allowing the consumer to fill the brand with meaning for themselves and others.

I spose you could look at brand hijacking and say this.

If your brave enough, and you have a good idea you can give the framework of your idea to other people who can then fill that framework with thier own meaning, in the same instance they enrich the idea and in turn hijack it, it my not turn out the way you like it but you’ll still be selling your idea to enthusiastic takers, who feel “ownership” of your idea either from their own contribution or personalisation. The web seems to be the ideal place for brand hijacking or even idea hijacking.

I was wondering if you could have a website dedicated to ideas. Perhaps people could then collaborate on the idea online till eventually enough people want the idea/product and so then it goes into production. Its kind of turning New Product Development on it head, rather than doing market research then marketing a product that “might” fill a gap and be successfull why not luanch the idea first. If it gets taken up by enough people it will survive to become a viable product/idea.

Its kinda like open source software development for ideas…