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    The Trendsetter

    By Ryan Mathews

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    The End of Branding as We Know It

    Traditional branding is obsolete. Its approach is as out of sync with the rhythms of post-industrial commerce as a square-dance caller at a hip-hop club. The long-standing practice of projecting often-superficial claims and vaguely defined statements of efficacy onto a passive and unsuspecting public is an artifact of a past commercial era. The public no longer makes purchases with the same unquestioning belief.

    Rethinking Marketing and Organizational Design

    Just as branding has changed forever, so too must the marketing that supports brands and the organizational structures that birth and nurture them. The assumptions that formed the bedrock of classical industrial economics are all up for review.

    The combined force of multiple discontinuities is rapidly overtaking the entrenched bastions of:

    • Demographic determinism
    • The established wisdom of long-term longitudinal studies

    The Central Paradox of Modern Innovation

    In the midst of what can only be described as revolutionary change, the paradox of innovation struggles to resolve itself. This paradox is the dynamic tension that exists between two competing forces:

    1. Creatively deviant thinking: The drive to innovate and break from norms.
    2. The impulse to "get back to basics": The tendency to revert to familiar methods under pressure.

    Navigating this tension is a core challenge in the current commercial landscape. '''

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