Why your brand, product, and channel teams keep clashing (and how to fix it)
The Y-Model: A Simple Framework to Align Brand, Product, and Channel
Let me tell you a quick story.
A few years ago, I found myself in a meeting where the Brand team, the Product team and the Channel team were all pitching overlapping activations for the same campaign. Tension, turf wars, confusion. Classic silo behavior.
So I grabbed a marker, walked to the whiteboard and drew a big Y.
That moment turned into a shared framework we came to call the Y Model. It’s a simple but powerful way to align cross-functional teams around the one thing that actually matters: the consumer experience.
Here’s the idea in a nutshell:
Product creates value
Brand gives it meaning
Channels deliver it to the consumer
Where those three meet, that central intersection of the Y, is where the consumer feels the full experience. Miss that and you’re just another team throwing noise into the void.
Examples of the Y Model in action:
A limited-edition product extension launched with both a narrative (Brand) and a clear omnichannel plan (Channel)
A campaign that uses product attributes to unlock a new brand voice, delivered seamlessly across paid, owned and earned media
An e-commerce initiative treated not as the end of the journey, but as a platform for experience that unites all three workstreams
The full explainer, including what Audi and a dropped baton at the Olympics have to do with all this, is live now:
Read the full article on Medium
Let me know how your teams are thinking about collaboration. I’d love to hear how this lands in your world.