“Companies expect users to come to their site, but don’t support creating an experience. Instead, the customer is given information. We need to turn websites into places where customers can play, learn, enjoy, build communities and exchange information. Ultimately, the experience should be so fulfilling that they are passionately interested in knowing more about your company and its products and then seek to belong to that brand.”
– Nilofer Merchant

Came across an article on Advertising Age talking about co-creation and personalized interests on web sites. Strikes a chord with us and why we started Substance as a digital brand studio. In order for interactive agencies to succeed, or really anyone involved in marketing and communications, they need to be less in the business of building web sites and more in the business of being conversation facilitators. And a web site is simply one way to allow this back-and-forth relationship between people and brands. There are so many other digital conversation-points that can strengthen the relationship… mobile, desktop, video- and photo-sharing, blogs, Twitter, games, widgets, gadgets…

It’s not about conversations across a table, either. You’ve got to be sitting on the same side, like around a campfire. If you’re sitting across the table, you’ll always have the table between you. (Yes, yes, the table is a metaphor… you get to pick what “table” means to you.)

Full article here: http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=118958