Well this isn’t new, but the concept has reared its head in a variety of guises over the last few years - be it as the “super advocates” you describe or what Drew Peloso of ShyCast ( http://www.shycast.com/ ) calls a “quasi-celebrity spokesman”.
ShyCast have worked with brands like Ikea, harnessing the Ikea Hacks phenomenon ( http://ikeacontent.blogspot.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/ikeahacks/ ) to encourage people to play with the products. People are doing this themselves online but ShyCast smelled promotional budgets and formalised competitions with prizes and ‘brand sanctioning’/cooperation.
‘Brands’ can go 2 ways with this - they can woo community leaders as the games industry does, incentivising them to talk openly about their products, services (and brand image)…or…they can take the braver option (less appropriate in the software aena) and dive in to crowd-sourced research and open-innovation.
Lego Factory ( http://factory.lego.com/ ) is a great example - set up within Lego as an independent division they ’sit’ near sales and won’t even hear of the word ‘brand’! They listened to their passionate (some fanatical) consumers and responded - they built a system where they could design their own
Lego set from first block to box design. Their network of brand advocates are graded from gold to bronze (or something similar) depending on their skills, involvement and enthusiasm - it seems to be working a treat.

Don’t cajole - just care.

Doc Searls’ recent post suggests if PR wishes to remain relevant in an environment where networked markets get smarter faster than those that would spin them, the profession needs to define and satisfy a market for something other than spin. I think that means take the time to reshape the model based on what we, the people, take our time to tell you, big business, what we want.

I’m thinking fighting fire with fire is the best way. Can you imagine the message that big business would get (or have the opportunity to “get”) if thousands of their would-be customers sent them a message in a language they purport to understand? Is there a chance that their procedures would change if a group of folks started using their tactics to convey a very important, business dependent message? I’m thinking that’s what it would take.

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