When Seth Godin talks about taking a closer look at the product and not the advertising ( in Purple Cow), it made a lot of sense to me. Many a times, you can't create a great product company without a great product. Period.
Nike is launching Nike Free 5.0- A barefoot like breakthrough shoes. In fact, 5.0 is a scale between 1 being the traditional Nike Shoes and 10 being barefoot. The scale 5.0 refers to how close it is to the barefoot experience. Interestingly, that even leaves room for Nike to improve the product rather than get satisfied with it. They seem to have taken a leaf out of software companies that release new improved versions year after year. I think this is a great idea. It puts pressure to improve the product year after year.
Wired carries an article to what lengths Nike has gone into research & testing before developing such a product.
Fix the product first. The customer picks-up the product and its benefits even before you tell them so.