Lifestyle Brands vs. Brand Lifestyles

How does a company like MySpace or YouTube go from nothing to a billion dollar enterprise in just a few years? In both cases, it can be argued that they have created a new market space (a Blue Ocean perhaps?). Putting aside the arguments about valuations and long-term sustainability for a minute, I think there is a deeper trend going on here. People are less interested in being aggressively marketed or sold to these days, but they will become active participants in the marketing process for the opportunity to express themselves.

MySpace and YouTube are built on the notion of sharing experiences online. However, these companies are becoming inextricably intertwined with people’s offline lives as well. During my wife’s last hair salon visit, the stylist’s boyfriend called and broke up with her because of something he saw on her MySpace site. The stylist was distraught and couldn’t stop talking about it (I can just imagine the look on my wife’s face as the stylist gesticulated wildly with scissors in hand!). Other people we know have met and fallen in love through connecting on MySpace. In politics, as Senator George Allen recently found out, pandering to one constituency quickly becomes a conversation with the entire country on YouTube. As more and more people are finding out, there is no differentiation between and online and offline personas. These are real-life events that will be forever associated with MySpace and YouTube.

This type of interaction with a company transcends the kind of “brand associations” that people have had in the past. The brand is no longer associated with a lifestyle… it is the lifestyle.