The Kaiser Foundation recently released a study documenting the astounding fact that 8-18 year olds in the United States have increased their media use from 8 hours and 33 minutes' worth of usage per day in 2004 to 10 hours and 45 minutes' worth in 2009.

Regardless of whether you think this is bad news signaling the demise of our society, or good news intimating that our progeny are on their way to becoming more literate in a media-rich world, as business leaders we must all accept the new reality and understand what it means for managing our brands.

I will not recount here the popular cant of how the combination of the cell phone, the personal computer, wireless communication and overall miniaturization has lead to an anywhere, anytime, anything world. Instead, it's more illustrative to ask: when did companies have to begin dealing with this always-on consumer — and thereby continuous brand management?

I think the modern need for continuous brand management started with 1-800 numbers, which was the first time that customers could effortlessly call a company at will. 1-800's were invented by AT&T as "automatic collect calling", and while the concept took some time to catch on by 1992, 40% of AT&T's calls were 1-800 number calls.

What did this do to management? Well, the first thing companies needed to learn was how to have a dialogue — not just a monologue — with their customers.

Please read the entire article via the below link in a new window:  

http://blogs.hbr.org/sviokla/2010/02/brand_management_for_generatio.html?cm_mmc=npv-_-DAILY_ALERT-_-AWEBER-_-DATE

John Sviokla is vice chairman of Diamond Management & Technology Consultants, Inc. He is a former professor at Harvard Business School in Marketing, MIS, and Decision Sciences.