John Lilly, the COO of Mozilla and a guy I’m proud to count as a friend a collaborator, has written what I think is an incredibly insightful and important statement about how the world works today.  Writing in response to a recent speech given by Steve Jobs indicating that the future of the browser market could look like the pie chart shown above, John says (in part — please read his entire post if you have a chance):

There are a couple of problems, of course. The first is that this
isn’t really how the world is. The second is that, irrespective of
Firefox, this isn’t how the world should be.

First, it isn’t really how the world is. The meteoric rise of Wikipedia, Creative Commons, Linux and Firefox,
among many other examples, shows that today’s connected world is no
longer constrained by the monopolies and duopolies and cartels of
yesterday’s distribution — of the publishers, studios, and OS vendors.
Hundreds of millions of users, in every language around the world are
now making new choices. That Apple doesn’t feel this, even within the
familiar reality-distortion-field confines of Moscone Center,
illustrates much of the problem.

Second, it isn’t how the world should be. Even if we could somehow
put that movement back in the bottle — that a world of just Starbucks
& Peets, just Wal-mart & Target, just Ford & GM — that a
world of tight control from a few companies is good, it’s the wrong
thing to do. It destroys participation, it destroys engagement, it
destroys self-determination. And, ultimately, it wrecks the quality of
the end-user experience, too. Remember (or heard about) when you had to
get your phone from AT&T? Good times.

So here’s my point, to be clear: another browser being available to
more people is good. I’m glad that Safari will be another option for
users. (Watch for the Linux port Real Soon Now.) We’ve never ever at
Mozilla said that we care about Firefox market share at the expense of
our more important goal: to keep the web open and a public resource.
The web belongs to people, not companies.

This world view that Steve gave a glimpse into betrays their
thinking: it’s out-of-date, corporate-controlled, duopoly-oriented,
not-the-web thinking.

John is right.  This isn’t 1957.  What’s good for GM, or Apple, or Microsoft, isn’t necessarily good for all the rest of us formerly known as the audience.  If you believe in starting with the needs and desires of real people as a way to create real value and meaning in the world, then things like engagement and choice and self-determination are not just "nice to haves", but are critical means to an end, where the end is an informed, savvy, and free (as in liberty, not price) society.  As John says, "The web belongs to people, not companies."  Markets do, too.  So do brands. 

Web thinking is freedom thinking.  And it is the driver of modern, progressive marketing.

I’ve written before about the problems that speeding hybrid owners might pose for the Prius brand.

So, in the metacool spirit of seeking generative and productive solutions, how might Toyota incent Prius owners to behave in ways that enhance the brand?  I’ve been mulling over that question for a few months now, but over the weekend I spied the license plate pictured above in a local Whole Foods (no surprise there) parking lot, and it sparked a brainstorm of sorts:

1. Per the photo above, reimburse any owner who slaps an appropriately-themed custom license plate on a Prius.
2. For those short on imagination, provide a web-based green-jingle license plate character generator over at www.prius.com
3. Parking these things at Whole Foods is preaching to the converted.  Better to try and infect new communities, so hand out shopping coupons for Wal-Mart, Safeway, etc… to owners who do the license plate thing.
4. On the other hand, ego-gratification is a big driver of community-based marketing, so do a deal with Whole Foods whereby a highly visible parking spot near the front of the store is reserved for Prius owners who’ve done the license plate thing.  Which brings me to idea Number 5.
5. Issue owners who’ve done the Prius license plate thing a nice holographic-looking window sticker which says "Prius Maven Onboard".  It’s designed to sit inside the left corner of the vertical hatchback window, and is the cue to Whole Foods parking lot attendants not to tow your Prius from the designated Prius Maven parking spot.
6. Make the green color scheme free.  Charge extra for all the other colors.  Charge much, much more for black paint, which lowers the albedo of the Earth.
7. Better yet, paint the roof of every Prius white.  The better to bounce sun rays back and reduce the air conditioning load.  Plus, white roofs are in.  Critically, tell owners why the roof on their car is white (even if they paid $2,000 extra for black paint), so that they can educate their friends about the concept of albedo.
8. Provide a $1,000 rebate to any Prius owner who agrees to have a speed-limiter placed on the car.  This device would limit the top speed to 75 mph, because drag increases with the square of velocity, and if you want to save the planet, it helps to not drive though it like hell.
9. Sell the Prius as a service.  If I’m a Prius Maven, I’m not buying a car — I’m investing in a public confirmation and signal of my worldview.  What if Toyota could make the entire Prius brand cradle-to-cradle by maintaining it and taking it back in a completely holistic way?
10. Create a Garage Lifestyle Bounty.  If you trade in your H2 for a Prius, you get acclaim on a public website, and you get a license plate frame, like "My old ride was a Hummer"

This is just a brainstorm.  But increasingly I believe that word of mouth and infectious action is like a garden.  A garden will grow on its own, certainly.  But with inputs of energy and care, it grows that much better.  The Prius has already tipped — when you think "hybrid" you think Prius.  But even companies like Toyota should think about ways to actively tend and feed the garden.