It is fine to have a strategy, as long as you can modify it – even give it up. The smart brand develops superflexible strategies. Changing its marketing mix every day, it operates like a modern software organisation that has replaced linear, static planning with agile, decentralised methods that can be readily upgraded.

The smart brand is open and adept at managing the loss of control. Instead of trying to do everything in-house, it works with others (including other brands), identifying and activating connections that are mutually valuable.

The smart brand remains ephemeral because it understands that, despite the deluge of aggregated and personal data at its disposal, it is more about sensing than hard knowledge, more art than science.

Hyper-connected, hyper-social, distributed and omnipresent, the smart brand anticipates desires, senses mood shifts, preempts knowledge, and quickly directs attention to significant market events and conversations – because whenever something happens or is being talked about, the smart brand is already there.