A Controversial Message from Ad Agencies: Let Customers Help Brand Products

At the recent annual media conference of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) in Las Vegas, it was reported that the growing trend of web-based collaboration is encouraging leading brand name owners to engage with customers to the point that the customers "truly own [our] brands and our brand messages". At this meeting, for example, Microsoft's Senior VP of its Marketing Group, Mitch Mathews, was reported to have described how Microsoft is figuring out ways to engage customers using the Internet, for example, by creating ads specifically designed to encourage people to modify the ads: "Digital is enabling customers to participate in our brands". Many questions will arise for IP and IT lawyers and clients alike from such a trend. A critical one will be what impact does a trend towards collaboration with customers have on preserving existing intellectual property in the form of trade-marks and copyright? If customers do indeed "participate" in branding, will businesses and their lawyers be obliged to find new ways to ensure that such participation does not impair those rights? This trend is unlikely to recede, since advertisers are apparently allocating increasing percentages of advertising budgets to new media. Ms Mathews was reported to have said that by 2010 most of Microsoft's advertising will be in the online medium. For a news report of the AAAA conference, see: http://tinyurl.com/2qlu27 Summary by: The Editor