What are some best practices you recommend for bringing brand creative and product design teams together in a collaborative setting?

Okay, this is a fun one, so I'm going to start here. As a former UI designer (at Pixo and Tellme Networks**), this is probably the most fun you'll have in product marketing. You're bringing together three functions that thrive on different kinds of creativity. Words, emotion, and structural design all coming together. 

Other than "strap in and see what happens," there are a few things you can do to escalate the fun and the output of this dynamic mix:

1. Don't start cold. For a group to really gel, you need equal parts trust, common ground, and some practical familiarity. I would *not* recommend doing this as an icebreaker or new team get together. But, because product marketing can be the neutral ground between these teams, you can build those relationships over time. Small projects and product reviews; brand and product messaging exercises, product launches, even critical comms situations. 
2. Do set a goal or focus. A lack of limits limits creativity. Start the team with a clear objective for the conversation, and define some constraints (together). This will keep the team focused without having to resort to judging or blocking ideas along the way. Constraints naturally create good editing. For example: "We're here to define the emotional impact we want our product to have on customers." Or, "we want to introduce our product to a completely new vertical. How could we introduce ourselves uniquely?"
3. Write everything down. Don't lose ideas that are before their time just because you've moved on. 
4. Do it regularly. This shouldn't be a once-a-quarter-summit-of-ideas. Treat these teams like an extended writers room. Encourage everyone to bring problems, concerns, small ideas. One of the best things we ever implemented at Tellme was our weekly Design meeting. It wasn't a comms meeting or status, but "bring something to the table you want to workshop." We dramatically improved the product, the service, and the company every time we met. It was infectious. 

** https://sharebird.com/h/product-marketing/q/how-open-would-your-company-be-to-hire-someone-with-category-management-experience-for-a-pmm-role-lets-say-the-person-has-worked-on-product-development-gtm-sales-enablement-and-campaigns-for-their-category?answer=NVJzUv85VK&utm_source=questionanswer&utm_medium=share 

I love this one! I love it because I'm so proud of the work our teams have done to improve product design <> brand design collaboration at Appcues over the last couple of years. Here's what we did:

• Establish a #design Slack (insert new chat tool here) channel and ensure all designers are invited. Start sharing all finished designs, from sales PDFs to UI updates, there as a habit. If you're feeling really wild, make it visible to the whole company. Just make sure all designers are on board with that first. :)

• Scheduled bi-weekly design reviews between product designers and brand designers. Both teams share designs in progress, ask questions, provide feedback, etc. This helps ensure design consistency and excellence. It also often inspires new ideas.

• Speaking of new ideas, these reviews highlighted a need for shared component libraries. The product design team still has its own design system for in-app, but the teams recently co-developed a shared library of iconography, for example, so now the icons we use are consistent across every prospect and customer touchpoint.