Larry Light, McDonald's chief marketing officer, told an Association of National Advertisers meeting last fall that finding the "I" voice was key to the ad campaign's magic. He said too many campaigns used the "We" voice, and conceded that McDonald's almost fell into that trap again itself. Ultimately, however, they saw the wisdom in projecting its message from the consumer's perspective.
Whether the consumer's voice in the brand's advertising fully extends to a greater voice in the McDonald's dining experience remains to be seen, of course. So long as McDonald's limits the voice of its consumer to its ad slogan it is limited, like American Idol, merely to an impression that its consumers have assumed ownership of its brand. They really haven't -- the message still belongs to McDonald's whether the voice is yours, mine, or Kobe Bryant's.
Apple does something like that, too, although even more cleverly. Yes, its iPod allows us to create our own listening experience, but we can't even change our own damn batteries on an iPod, much less customize the device in any profoundly meaningful way. The same is basically true of its computers. We can only be as creative as Apple's "black box" allows us to be, and we all know who's really in charge.
One wonders whether Apple's command-and-control approach to product design will blunt its innovative edge somewhere down the line. At some point, some worthy competitor is bound to come along with not only a better story to tell, but also the courage to let its consumers change that story and feed it right back in an infinite loop of innovation.
It's like my mother once told me: "Creativity is about changing someone else's idea into your own."
Isn't that what we marketers try to do each and every day?
Maybe we would do it even better if we let our consumers in on the fun, Constantine-style.
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