ChasNote

The printing and imaging group at HP has launched a new section of its wiki, Branding Bootcamp.

We — HP and this Community — will work to provide the answers, guidance, resources and camaraderie to help you develop the marketing materials you and your business need to succeed – without breaking the bank?

My first thought, What self-respecting control-freak business owner or brand manager would let an anonymous community crowd-source his or her brand materials? And then, I thought, genius. Intuit founder Scott Cook once said a brand is what a friend tells a friend about it, so why not let them — friends, partners and random people who care enough to provide input — build your brand materials from the get-go?

On the conversational nature of brands, Intuit founder Scott Cook says it best: “A brand is what friends tell their friends about it,” he told the audience at the Conversational Marketing Summit. His implication is that good marketing has always been conversational marketing; the internet just makes it easier to eavesdrop on the conversation our customers are having about us. The statement also reminds us that — despite the recent trade-mag headlines about the loss of control brought on by the rise of blogging — we’ve never really controlled the conversations our customers are having about us.

Given that Fortune, CNN and Money rank Intuit the #1 most admired software company, maybe Cook knows what he’s talking about.