When P is king

Reading Dazed and Confused this weekend I came across these two examples of what I'd term "casual participation" (or customisation).

Adicolor: a customisation kit from Adidas comprising a bunch of pens and spray paints giving wearers the chance to add their own designs to the shoes.

PSPHomeBrew: an online community of geeks providing peer-to-peer advice and ideas of how to mash-up various other bits of technology with your PSP - e.g. connecting your PSP to a Commodore 64.

The interesting thing is how both youth brands have approached the P-Generation (P is for personalisation and participation). Adidas have whole-heartedly embrassed it, whilst Sony are battling it to the detriment of their brand. I'd guess that the main reason for protecting their control of the PSP platform is for economic reasons, as they want to sell more Sony authored software and add-ons, however I'm also guessing that in the longer term this stragegy may well backfire on them to the detriment of longer term profitability.

Compare Sony's approach to Apple's opensource iPod approach, as typified by iLounge and you'll get what I mean.

I think the message is clearly don't battle the P, but go with the P . . . (that sounds super weird!) . . . if you don't believe me just check out the directions of Apple's share price compared to Sony's.