A Big Mess at Kohl’s (or Corporations, Customers and the Cluetrain)

This fascinates me.

Mess

The Church of the Customer blog points out “The Not So Secret Shopper” who visited a Kohl’s Department store and found a mess. Cameraphone in hand, he documented the condition of the retail establisjment and blogged about it.

http://heehawmarketing.typepad.com/hee_haw_marketing/2007/01/hurricane_kohs_.html

The folks at Church of the Customer state:

Here’s the thing: 156 million Americans use high-speed cellphone networks that allow them to take pictures like this and post them immediately to a blog where, naturally, they can spread.

Pew estimates that 41 percent of American cellphone owners use their phones as content creation tools. That translates into about 64 million people in the U.S. alone who have the potential to be not-so-secret shoppers.

Take a look at Kohl’s reply. Is this the human voice of the company sharing the concerns of its community? Probably not!

I can’t help but wonder how this could play out in our world. How might we respond if someone snapped a few photos, shot video or the like of something “not quite right” in one of our libraries. (And it has happened.) Has your library marketing/PR department/person developed a plan embracing citizen jounalists, citizen marketers and human communication? I hope so.

Also, this post at COTC details how CBS has embraced YouTube. Again, fascinating.

And, yes, the hype is real.