Brandaq: The End of Marketing

The goal, set by the late CEO Robert Goizueta, is to reach 4 fluid ounces. That is, Coke wants to meet 5.6% of your daily liquid needs. Since Coke's penetration into world markets is complete -- the red-and-white logo was already ubiquitous in the streets of Manila 20 years ago -- the company looks for more of your body fluid share, rather than for more markets. (Multiply 6 billion people by 72 ounces, and you've defined your market as limited strictly by the number of times a person can feasibly run to the bathroom in a day.) Well, Coke, you can have 24 of my ounces. Sign me up.

Maybe $961.42 doesn't sound like a lot of money, especially for giving up the freedom to choose. But do the same math on your coffee you drink, the cereal you eat, the cars you buy, the sneakers you wear, the golf balls you lose in the woods. Add up the toothpaste and the insurance premiums and the laundry detergent. Total your fast-food receipts. Now ask yourself, How loyal am I to those things? Probably depends on the balance. It adds up, and it gets complicated.

So we'd need an exchange to keep it all straight, a vendor-management clearinghouse to add liquidity and let us move in and out of contracts, verify purchases, and administer payouts. Call it the Brandaq. Or the Brandex. Or better, the BrandX.

Picture disheveled men in a Chicago commodities pit barking out your name and matching it to a sell order. Follow the sell order to your account statement in your online loyalty-brokerage account. Go buy a new Sony 20-inch FD Trinitron WEGA on Amazon.com using your Brandaq Visa account card. It's the end of brand management as a marketing function. Now brand management reports directly to the bean counters. No more pitchmen, no more consumers. The game becomes, Who can borrow at the lowest rates to lock in loyalty? And who will pay me more for my consumption?

All told, I figure I'm worth more than $50,000 in today's dollars to those brand managers who are savvy enough to lock in my loyalty right now. After taxes, even if I invested that cash in 30-year municipal bonds at 5%, I'd add half a million dollars to my currently underfunded IRA. Add in the wife and kids' take, and we're talking early retirement.

I have no Alex-type qualms about my brand consumption. I'm a major demographic. I'm in good health. I'm no credit risk. I've been a good consumer for 30-odd years, paid my Amex bills on time, sat through Super Bowl commercials, sang the Oscar Meyer jingle in public places, hung up on AT&T's telemarketers, played -- and lost -- McDonald's Monopoly game. I think I've proved my worth to the markets. And I still have a lifetime of value ahead of me. I volunteer to go first. Somebody cut me a check.

Jeff Belle (jbelle72@cs.com) is a freelance writer awaiting brand-loyalty contract offers from his home in San Francisco. Stay tuned for his follow-up essays featuring real reactions to the Brandaq concept from brand-marketing vice presidents of major brands.