The Brand Flip

Marty Neumeier, the brand expert who wrote The Brand Gap, argues that companies must move from a company-driven past to a consumer-driven future. Social media, he says, has confirmed his core idea that customers, not companies, define a brand. People no longer simply buy brands; they join them, want a vote in what gets made, and pitch in by promoting, contributing ideas or even selling. Neumeier lays out a set of shifts: from products to meaning, from segments to brand tribes, from protecting value to creating it, from satisfying customers to empowering them, and from cost-based to relationship pricing. Central to the book is the Brand Commitment Matrix, which organizes a brand's six primary components.

Vinod Khosla included it in his 2017 book recommendations, praising its treatment of branding and new brand values and predicting that it will spell the end for many incumbents.