Brand Central Station

After posting my piece on Consumer 2.0, I received a Tweet from one of my friends on Twitter.

@BrandCentral – Consumers need to make companies stop taking us for granted.  We are your source of income – respect us, dangnabbit!

Not only did I find the Tweet to be interesting because I hadn’t seen “dangnabbit” spelled out in a while, but the sentiment of the post was indicative of a larger problem I see brewing for marketers in the future.  ”Engagement” is a big word circulating through the marketing universe at this time, but in reality, engagement requires two-way interactions between parties. Real interaction is built on a foundation of mutual respect.

And according to my informal survey of one and a just-released study of the nation’s political climate conducted by BIGresearch, Americans are feeling a little disrespected on all levels.

According to BIGresearch (via the American Pulse(TM) Survey), 57.6% of Americans say they don’t have a voice anymore in what’s coming out of Washington.  In a release from BIGresearch:

In a government with a Democratic stronghold, it’s surprising that 42.8% of people who consider themselves of the Democratic Party don’t think they are being heard on Capitol Hill. 74.5% of Republicans and 63.8% of Independents feel the same.

31.6% of Americans believe the U.S. Government controls their financial future and congressional leaders may want to hear this, because 43.4% of respondents feel they have lost control of their personal monetary prospects. 46.8% of Americans say they hold the key to their own financial future.

So what connection can be made between the feelings of Americans as consumers and as members of the greater, political/social fabric?  Here are a few things to consider:

1. Americans are undergoing a significant change in stature on the global economic stage.  During the consumption-crazed 80’s, 90’s and early 2000’s; Americans were pretty convinced we were unasailable.  With preeminence comes hubris and the eventual fall from grace is bound to hurt – whether it’s egos or economies.
2. Any crash hurts more when it occurs at high speeds.  We have technology to thank for an over-heightened sensativity to minutiea that might otherwise go by un-noticed.  Add to that the fact that all the noise created by our various media now chokes out the possibilities of creating national concensus through just a few, commonly-held forums.
3. Businesses, operating under a 19th century economic paradigm that you could call almost imperialistic, have focused so much on growth and scale that their leadership doesn’t always see a problem with taking billions of dollars in bail-out money with one hand while paying out millions in bonuses to executives with the other.
4. And probably most important, at least from my perspective.  As we’ve all become more consumed with managing all the new information, opportunities and demands on our time, we’ve seemed to drop the ball on civility, mutual respect and compassion.  The result has been the development of an “iPod Culture” where we’re all too busy listening to our own playlist to really talk with each other any more.

In short, we’ve lost respect for each other.

The good news, though, is that with the possiblity of change amped up on terrabytes of information and energy drinks they way it is, we can make things better.  It’s that fundamentally “American” value of hopefullness that has driven generations before and will continue to drive us forward.

It’s behind why some people voted for Barack Obama and others participated in Tea Parties.  It’s why there are still thousands of us who are still Cubs fans.

And as long as we have hope, there’s always a chance we’ll find respect again and share it.