The buzz around the marketing water cooler this morning is about a report by Lisa Bradner of Forrester entitled “Adaptive Brand Marketing: Rethinking Your Approach to Branding in the Digital Age.”  In the report, Lisa makes the provocative statement that our industry should change the name “brand manager” to “brand advocate” as a response to the fundamental changes brought about by the digital age.  Further fuel is added to the fire with Ad Age’s story about the report called “Why It’s Time to Do Away With the Brand Manager.”

The Forrester report makes a compelling story and the subsequent Ad Age article adds further proof of why Brand Management is about to undergo its’ biggest change since McElroy wrote his infamous memo in May 1931.

But there is one particular point that I think needs repeating:

We don’t need to get rid of Brand Managers -  we need to “return to marketing as the focus of Brand Management.”

As my colleague Bob Gilbreath points out in the article, marketing needs to be something much more important than “one of the six things a Brand Manager does.”  Or as Bradner states, “So much of [brand managers'] time is subsumed by internal management, and so much of the creative process and planning is outsourced to agencies and other parties… [brand managers] really need to be in charge of the heart and soul of what the brand stands for. It does move you off the generalist track to be more of a pure marketer.”

I could not agree more with that statement.

In fact, this was the entire premise of one of my first posts on Hard Knox Life in April 2008.  At the time, I wrote that:

One of the biggest misinterpretations of brand management is that being a Brand Manager and being a Marketer are one and the same… If you love marketing, devote yourself to being the best marketer in the world and knowing how the world of media and communication are changing.  And if you love running a business/brand, then surround yourself with people that love marketing and are willing to devote the time to being a brilliant marketer.  Just don’t make the mistake of assuming just because you are one, means you are the other.

This same point is as true today as when I wrote that original post.  For the past decade (or longer), Brand Management has been more more about being a generalist and less about being a brilliant marketer.  But that has to change.  When suddenly we are faced with a world with 50 marketing choices instead of 5, we need to have pure marketers who can make sense of the chaos.

That doesn’t mean that we have to get rid of Brand Managers.  But it means that our entire industry needs to re-embrace what it means to be a marketer.

Over at Next Great Thing, they pointed to a new social networking report from Hitwise that says that in 2008, we will see the emergence of a “super brand advocate”.  As the report states:

Whether via a personal blog or as a key member within a community, super-advocates are well informed, opinionated and have the ability to make or break a product launch or ruin a hard-earned reputation.

However, NGT hits the nail on the head when they point out that “Super Brand Advocates” are nothing new.  In 2007, Yahoo & Mediavest put together a report on Passionistas that talked about Super Brand Advocates as people who “have both knowledge and a need to share it.”  It’s pretty common sense that some consumers are going to talk more than others…I’m sure you know a few o fthis people yourself.

But while Super Brand Advocates aren’t new, they are powerful and it is getting easier to connect and identify them.  Blogs, social networks, Flickr, Twitter, Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Tweetscan…all of these allow you to listen to your consumers.  And if you can listen, you have a better chance of hearing who is talking the most and/or talking the loudest.  These are your super brand advocates.  These are people like Jeff Jarvis who caused Dell a serious case of heartburn a few years back.  These are people like  Harriet Klausner who has written so many book reviews on Amazon.com that her comments are now highlighted in new book releases.

Every brand out there should be thinking about identifying these super brand advocates for your industry.  At the very least, you need to be aware of them so problems don’t pop up.  But if you use them the right way, they can be invaluable sources of consumer research.  The key is starting a conversation with them so you can really learn what they want from your brand.  This isnt about a simple focus group where you talk for 2 hours, give them a check and then leave.  It is about an honest conversation where you enroll these consumers into your brand.

For most of us, taking the first step isn’t easy but it will be worth it.  We’re not use to open conversations with consumers.  We are use to hiding behind the focus group glass and the safety of being anonymous.  But now is the time to break that glass.  Take the first step and do a blog search to see who is talking about your brand.  Plug your brand name into Tweetscan to see who is saying something.  Even think about engaging your PR agency or a company like Nielsen BuzzMetrics to monitor the conversation.  A good conversation is worth the time.