Baked In: Creating Products and Businesses That Market Themselves

Synopsis

"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 consumers," "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. Baked In gives companies a step-by-step guide on how to adapt and succeed in this brave new world. Authors Alex Bogusky and John Winsor, of famed ad firm Crispin Porter + Bogusky, have worked with some of the most important brands in today's marketplace, including American Express, Best Buy, Burger King, Coca-Cola, Google, Nike, Microsoft, Patagonia, and Toyota, utilizing the tools they discuss in this book. Writing in a swift, informal, irreverent style, Bogusky and Winsor make readers feel like they're getting a front-row seat at a top-level marketing strategy session. In Baked In, they show how marketing can and must reinvent itself in the 21st century, using the tools at hand both from digital technology and networked media.