Business success, arguably, roots in a basic rule of three: Brands connect Products with People.

The most successful companies in the world make it a mission to not simply consider, but to excel in all three domains. The best work emerges in service of people, the products they need and love, and the brands they trust to deliver them.

Brands

A brand is the sum of all perceptions about a company, product or service. Great leaders build brands beyond reaching the right people with the right message, when and where they are receptive. Connecting people with products means delivering the brand promise coherently, across the end-to-end experience — from marketing inspiration to customer service, and return/recycling.

See examples » including the eBay brand restage, a complete ground-up development of an NGO brand, and more…

Products

Superior people understanding is a prerequisite for delivering exceptional digital or physical products, services or entire ecosystem experiences. Yet, meeting people’s needs or wants often doesn’t start or stop with a product or service delivery. Great companies and leaders carefully consider a number of customer journey stages preceding and following purchase (and even usage).

See examples » including “tools over rules” digital brand guidelines experience, process management workflow tools, and more…

People

Everything starts with people. Great companies and leaders make it a habit to continuously and deeply understand people, and emphasize with their evolving needs, attitudes and behaviors. This cannot stop with customers, but must translate into skills building for employees and partners, and other stakeholders. And it has to feed back into strategy design and of course product development.

See examples » including brand positioning guest lectures at INSEAD, #artsci presentation at Miami Ad School, and more…