eter Drucker, management guru and visionary, observed that 'the aim of marketing was to make selling superfluous'. The observation remains valid in spite of all the changes that have happened since. But in the context of marketing in the 21st century, it opens up a new reality for brands. Traditional marketing, as we know it, by and large talks to consumers. But at the centre of the new reality is the unnerving fact that consumers do not buy products, shoppers do.

Retail has always been a secondary function to brand marketing. It was just a point of distribution where consumers descended once they were ready to buy a brand built by marketing in their minds. But it is just about time for that established perspective to take a reality check. ... more