Today, brands are largely product-centric -they are statements about the vendor or the products offered by the vendor. Brands say: Buy this product because the vendor has a reputation for high-quality products or excellent service or because the product itself is a reliable or low-cost product.
In an environment where return on attention becomes the key measure of performance, a new kind of brand will emerge-true brands and customer-centric brands. Check out also this interesting Wharton School video:
Customer-centric brands have two components-they assure the customer that the vendor knows and understands that individual customer better than anyone else does, and they promise the customer that the vendor can tailor products and services to meet that individual customer’s needs better than anyone else can.
These brands thereby assure customers that they will receive a very high return on any attention they focus on the owner of the brand. They also offer the promise of increasing returns-the more attention the customer gives to a brand, the more the brand owner will learn about the customer, and the stronger the value of the brand becomes to the customer.