Today I’ve spent time with a company which has reinforced a view I’ve had for a while: The growth in participatory media is going to drive the evolution of products and services like never before.

Let me explain. The company I’ve been with today have a great product. Whatever way you want to measure it, their product is absolutely fantastic. They also provide an unheard of level of service in an industry where good service is largely a forgotten art.

Their brand is well thought-out and, as the brand action backs up the brand promise, it’s in really good shape!

The company has a significant level of repeat business but the nature of the product means that repeat business is unlikely to yield, in the short to medium term, the kind of growth they want to achieve. So they need new customers. And they want to engage them online.

The way people are now making use of the Internet provides nothing but opportunities for this brand. As you might expect, their customers love them and when given the opportunity they eulogise about the product and the service. They just need the right platform and the buzz will grow with only the lightest of touches from the brand.

Marketers have never controlled all the brand touch points, and clearly this has impacted on truly awful products and services, which have floundered and disappeared.

However they have controlled the message which has all too often glossed over the reality allowing mediocre products and services to survive. But as brands increasingly lose influence over the conversation, how long can those mediocre products and services survive?

In an environment where it’s so easy to exchange views, good and bad, some brands are already waking up to the fact that they can no longer control the way their brand is perceived so they need to allow, and even promote, participation. Of course there are now many examples out there, but Chevrolet’s make your own Tahoe ad is a perfect example of an extremely brave approach.

The next challenge though, and this is where the evolution comes in, is to make sure their products and services can stand up to the intensely cynical scrutiny of the online community.

When the spoof ads started flying many labelled Chevrolet’s attempt at engaging users online an example of a company getting involved in a medium it didn’t understand, but now those same commentators suggest this was a successful campaign.

Sales are up significantly. The reason? Well, whatever your views of SUVs it seems the Tahoe is actually a pretty good product. It has better fuel-economy than other SUVs in the US and it has over it’s long lifespan built up quite a community around the brand. For every spoof ad, there were plenty of positive ads that did the rounds.

So how brave can you afford to be? Well in order to answer that question you have to ask yourself a very simple question. Strip away your traditional marketing messages and brand campaigns and what do you have? Will your product or service wilt under the increasingly intense spotlight?

If so maybe it’s not your marketing mix you need to get right. It’s a brave new world out there and with or without you, the conversation is going to happen online.

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(Can your product survive this kind of scrutiny?)

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