Regardless of how you define brand, most of us appear to agree that the world has changed and so branding itself needs re-branding. I think all the responses he

Regardless of how you define brand, most of us appear to agree that the world has changed and so branding itself needs re-branding. I think all the responses here address that with viable viewpoints. The mistake would be -- just as with implementing lean startup on the product side -- is to believe that there's a silver bullet or "one right way." The key is to digest the principles and eventually 'make them your own', so that you develop products, services and yes, brand, that are true to your values and authentic. There are a lot of variables at play here, not the least of which is, how "disruptive" is your startup endeavor? If you are truly disrupting a market or turning an existing market on its head, your methods around brand development differ versus re-segmenting [Steve Blank] an existing market, or merely re-branding an existing market, or creating new markets within the innovation efforts of existing large enterprises. IMO, to think that a brand definition is owned by the consumer is as foolhardy as to think it's owned by the business. This is why it's a relationship: it's two sided; it encompasses both the promise of the product plus the emotional impact the customer hopes to achieve with her relationship to the organization. This is pretty straightforward, actually. And, by the way, measurable. Customers don't share, endorse, show-off, or refer products they are satisfied with. And yet, products themselves most often can't achieve an emotional impact beyond 'satisfaction.' So what's the difference between brands that satisfy and those that generate passion? This is what The Lean Brand tackles. How do you discover and create a lean value stream that purposefully creates "satisfaction" from the product utility and "passion" from the emotional impact the entire organization delivers.