Baked In

Brands must build a new relationship with their customers and the culture they participate in. The old rule was: Create safe, ordinary products and combine them with mass marketing. The new rule is: Create truly innovative products and build the marketing right into them. Today, the product is at the center of the conversation. It's within the product itself that a brand has the most leverage with customers. For many companies, it's high time to realize that collaboration is at the heart of this new paradigm. While collaboration with customers is key, the ability to collaborate internally is even more important. So where should companies start? They must take their brands back to their foundations, and realize that the message isn't separate from the product, but that the product is the message.