Traditionally, new product marketing assumes first-time purchases arise from an orderly chain of events, starting with the TV commercial to build awareness, but this isn't how shoppers discover new products today. It's time for marketers to change their practices.

His brand didn't tank because he smashed his car on a residential street he'd driven hundreds of times before or even because there was something fishy about the whole incident; it changed because he stonewalled.

Great retailers know they must be in the rhythm of societal trends. We know how contemporary Apple stores, Abercrombie, Sephora's, and Coach stores feel. But I want to talk about plain old grocery shopping.

Like a CSI episode, where the evidence at first is invisible but then magically becomes apparent to the talented investigator throughout the crime scene, the forensic evidence about what people want from retail and what keeps them up at night is right there in their shopping cart.

A little more than two years ago, just when online research had become a major source of data for marketers looking to keep their fingers on the pulse of consumers, Procter & Gamble’s marketing research leadership dropped a bomb.

The old branding model is past its "sell by" date. It is a product-centered model that comes from packaged goods in the '70s and '80s; offer differentiated benefits that a particular consumer segment is thought to care about. "My peas are picked at the peak of sweetness"...that kind of thing. This model is breaking down as people try store brands and find they are "fit for purpose" at a better price. Now what?

Change the model.

A reality check from Tina Turner for brand managers: most customer/brand relationships are marriages of convenience not finding a soul-mate. There are plenty of annulments, divorces, and lots of sleeping around.

There's a problem with the theory of the long-tail: people want choice, but they don't want too many choices.

Let's start with what we know about media habits, structural changes in advertising practices, and advertising effectiveness.

Credit: Paul Carlon

Traditionally, new product development has been a linear process. The "new product" team creates many alternative versions of the core idea, winnows them down in various stages of testing and re-development until a winner emerges and gets launched.

And then expect 4 out of 5 to fail.