During a recent call with Rob Kozinets, a marketing professor at York University in Toronto and a leading mind on online communities, we talked about the changes in marketing and Rob remarked that consumers use to be like mute slaves to businesses, listening passively while the one-way messages came at them.
As a follow up to our call, Rob reflected more about the mute slave metaphor — and its relationship to the character Nova from Planet of the Apes on his blog.
(The wild slave character Nova eventually gets her voice, much as people have today through social media, creating new relationships with businesses, new business models, and social change. Go Nova, go!)
PS — Rob’s book is Consumer Tribes.
