Brief: Digital Intermediaries Rewrite Rules Of Business Again

Hyperadoptive consumers are signing up with new digital intermediaries like Foursquare, Magic, and Uber in an effort to get more of what they want. It wasn't supposed to be this way. The original narrative of the Internet was that its increased efficiencies would disintermediate distributor relationships, not lead to the rise of entirely new agents. Four new types of digital intermediaries have risen, some very recently: Their business models combine digital disruption economics and hyperadoptive consumers to build digital relationships that will ultimately alter the way consumers interact with brands of every type. In this brief, we show smart CMOs how to lead their companies to copy the best tactics of these digital intermediaries and tighten their brands' connections to their customers.