About.com, part of The New York Times Company, buys American review site ConsumerSearch.com, a review site for 250 product categories. The take-over of ConsumerSearch.com is the third in a short time frame. Earlier About.com already took over uCompareHealthcare.com and CalorieCounter.com (em). This way About lays the foundation for coaching brands. By regrouping the brands around themes like health, home or transport, and introducing new brands for these, a logical place arises for consumers to find anything they are looking for. Dialogues can be started, and brand relationships will come into being. For example, once you have entered your weight, sex and age, all kinds of questions about health can be answered in a personal context, and issues can be taken care of quickly. About.com can develop a couple of very strong coaching brands. An interesting starting point.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Lots of advertisers are partnering with Joost, the video distribution platform which is set up grand and globally. Among them are Coca-Cola, HP, Intel, Nike, Garnier Fructis, Kraft, Microsoft, Motorola, Nestlé, Hugo Boss, Sony, United Airlines, Visa, Opel , IBM, L'Oréal Paris, Nokia, Virgin, Vodafone (source: joost). It looks like these brands will first start advertising (unwanted disturbance of the consumer's video-experience), but I expect the cooperation to develop differently. These brands, especially those brands with a symbolic function, will produce not 30-seconds content, but 30-minute or even 30-hour content. We will love to watch this content when it suits us. It will transport us to the world of the brand and load it in a way never before possible. These partnerships form the first steps in that direction.

Dutch consumer organization consumentenbond has recently started to show all of its tests online. The organization originated in a time we saw many products on the shelves, of which we didn't have more information than the information provided on the box. In those days, people had less money, and consumers wanted to reduce the chances for a mis buy. A gap in the market the consumer organization jumped into. These days we have much more information, reviews of our friends and other people available to us through our mobile at any time. Besides, we can compare many more products than just the pre selection of the consumer organization. To my opinion, the consumer organization will have to extend their database (include all products), mark the products that have been tested and those that haven't been tested, invite consumers to add information to tests (or further involve them in the testing), and at the same time facilitate purchasing, for example through testing stores and linking to them. In the end, a business model only survives when it adds value to the lives of people. And once you have made your choice, you want to order directly, and get help in that process. If the consumer organization then also splits its activities in different brands, a nice foundation is laid for the development of several coaching brands.

Related trends

• Coaching brands