The proliferation of community-run opinion and review sites under the Web 2.0 banner might make many marketers anxious, with their carefully-tended brand identities at risk of derailment by the untethered mob. But how real are these concerns?

[This is a summary of a panel discussion between Norm Johnston, Managing Director Europe, Modem Media, who acted as chair; Alistair Beattie, Digital Director AMV BBDO and Paul Fitzpatrick, Head of Online and Digital Marketing Vauxhall]

The panel reflected a mixture of cynicism and enthusiasm about Web 2.0, with initial remarks suggesting that there was nothing new here. "It's the web with broadband... the promises about the internet that were made in 1998-99 about users getting involved are finally being delivered upon." A more sanguine definition came from Norm Johnston, who said it was about consumers creating and sharing rich media every day. The term has also proven a useful 'hook' - it has helped people to get a grip on ideas that have been emerging over a number of years. It's also encouraging people to talk about brands - which from Johnston's perspective represented a terrific opportunity for marketers.

Paul Fitzpatrick's experience of Web 2.0 through Vauxhall has been mixed. He acknowledged that his brand does not, by and large, attract a great deal of passion from the avant-garde Web 2.0 crowd and so perhaps his experience has been less impactful than might be the case with other brands. Vauxhall uploaded some adverts for the Corsa car range to YouTube that had a slightly cheeky, risque element. They didn't garner millions of views, but what did happen is that some users remixed the videos to make them considerably more risque than the brand managers at Vauxhall's parent company GM would ever be likely to allow. From Fitzpatrick's perspective, this was an excellent result.

He was concerned, though, that myths and misbegotten reputations might be perpetuated on user-driven sites. As an experiment, he asked Yahoo Answers whether he should buy a Vauxhall Astra or a Volkswagen Golf. The two cars had received comparable reviews from the mainstream motoring press. He got ten responses from Answers: five of them said that the Astra was rubbish, four of them said they were about equal but the Golf was slightly better, and one gave an account of what Fitzpatrick felt were the real pros and cons. Because the Astra's brand reputation is arguably somewhat less sexy than the Golf's, it seemed as though the new model was being condemned out-of-hand.

But perhaps there is less to worry about than might first seem to be the case. Vauxhall had to close a shift at the Elmsmere Port plant, and were very anxious about the blogger's backlash that might come as a result. In actual fact, the closure turned up just two results in Technorati over subsequent days, both of which were a rehash of the company's own press release. Beattie added that some research suggests that there is one blog reader per blog - and that the practice is unlikely to go mass-market until we lose the term 'blog'.

Alistair Beattie suggested that user-driven sites are self-correcting in some respects. If people go to these sites because they want a more 'authentic' opinion than might come from brands themselves or the mainstream media, then the drive to have the truth represented may be higher. Wikipedia may contain more errors than established encyclopaedias, but it is also much more swiftly corrected. Beattie recommended that brands develop a 'palette of soft metrics', tools such as Technorati that can be used to gauge the opinion of consumers. However, he cautioned that brands take a reality check before taking opinions too seriously. People with an axe to grind are liable to be considerably more vocal than happy, satisfied customers.

Addressing the idea that 'advertising is dead' because consumers are ignoring brand messages, the panel agreed that this Web 2.0 world is still very much about the minority, although they are a minority that are likely to be opinion-formers among their peers. User-created advertising was given similarly short shrift by Beattie: "A lot of advertising is bad enough as it is without inviting consumers to create amateur versions."

The panel agreed that user-driven sites give them the opportunity to connect with users far more directly than has historically been the case. They can 'adopt the body language of being willing to listen'. Vauxhall's high-performance VXR range sponsors a third-party forum, and the product manager goes on to the site every day to listen to opinions and answer questions. Such sites can give brands the opportunity of recruiting evangelists. This works better for VXR than other Vauxhall brands, because they are expensive and desirable, and so attract people with strong opinions and a passion for motors. Other cars in their range tend to be bought by people who want to get from A to B, and so don't attract the same levels of advocacy or criticism.

The discussion ended positively, though, with agreement that transparency was a good principle, although the extents and practicality of that remain to be discovered. Brands ought to feel free to experiment with social media since "Only liars need to be consistent".