Thanks for the comment. You’re right about those examples I gave. They were pretty lame. Fact is, this is a case where brand theory is ahead of brand practice. That’s why I said in the post that as examples they barely scratched the surface of what multi-threaded brands can do. I don’t think we’ll see good real world examples until 2008. Most companies are still so locked into traditional brand modes they won’t explore multi-threaded brands until they feel their own brands being disrupted from below by joint ventures of competitors + customers. Those joint ventures will be the first flush of multi-threaded brands.

To answer your question, “What’s new here?”: Basically, a new concept of brand for the digital age, based on applications that deliver value, rather than on systems of brand identity. It’s where the brand has evolved from a media mode (identity + attributes + campaigns + messaging) into a direct value enabler for customers, i.e., a “means.” In other words, brands as personal applications, largely digital. It’s brands that come from programmers more than they come from art directors. A brand “thread” is a way for a brand to advance customers via a stream of direct value. The customer can do more and be more thanks to the functionality of the thread.

Multi-threaded brands are very different from sub-brands. Where a sub-brand *is* something, i.e., a slice of brand essence, a brand thread *does* something—it’s an action with a deliverable.

In 5 years, when we all have cheap, powerful iPhones, large swaths of brand context and brand value will flow through such devices. They will be in there as brand threads—as apps, not ads. Brand threads give companies with small brand budgets a chance to disrupt larger competitors by directly accessing customers from below.

The lengthy “how to” portion of the post explains what goes into a thread. Threads can move a brand into new contexts in a lightweight, agile fashion by delivering value directly. They sidestep conventional media campaigns. They use a new customer model, too: the customer as a partner and participant in the brand (as an app user) instead of being a passive audience to a brand spectacle or show.

Widgets and mashups are prototypical brand threads. As a hypothetical example, Nike could provide a widget that helps all runners schedule and track their mileage, workout regimes, etc. Runners could “live” inside this widget. Nike could treat this widget as a sub-brand, but that’s not the point. The point is what the widget enables the runner to do. As a brand thread, Nike would use the widget to get deeper into the runner’s personal context.

The bottom line is that in the digital age a company’s brand becomes a method for discovering and delivering value to customers. That’s where multi-threaded brands come in.