Perhaps the single biggest distinction between the Silicon Valley elites & the rest of the world is their ability to design & dominate a category – and few understand that better than chief evangelist, Christopher Lochhead. He rejoins Moe to recap five years’ worth of insights since the release of Play Bigger.
The Art of Seeing What Others don’t See
There’s no shortage of marketing hype in the world today – whether it’s coming from the self-proclaimed experts or just individuals and organizations barking reasons on why they’re ‘the best in the world’ at what they do. Our society is inundated with it, and if you’re breathing, you’ve undoubtedly seen or heard such a sentiment in the last day or even hour.
Needless to say, legendary marketing is the exact opposite of that – It speaks a different language all together, and rarely is it ever hype. Six years ago, Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Kevin Maney, and Christoper Lochhead introduced me to a new marketing discipline they call Category Design – which at its essence shifts the perspective from competing in an old game to defining an entirely new game and newer playing field. Their seminal book – Play Bigger not only gave us the blueprint for modern company building; more importantly, it challenged us to never lose sight of the problem{s} we’re solving.
Lochhead has become a wonderful friend, and without question, the one individual whose voice and marketing philosophy I trust above anyone else. I was thrilled to chat with him recently to catch up on Category Design six years later, his two world-class podcasts, his new newsletter, and the most recent impact areas that has him fired-up. Here’s a glimpse of what we discuss:
- Category Design 2021 – what we learned, where we’re heading?
- The art of defining a category.
- The Category Design scorecard.
- The role that super consumers play in dominating a category.
- Evangelizing a point of view.
- What does a radically different business model look like?
- What zoom taught us in 2020 about dominating a category.
- The one question every CMO should be asking?
- What legendary CMOs do?
- Having a lens to see what others don’t see.
- Resources:
- Lochhead dot com
- Lochhead Podcasts
- Category Pirates Newsletter
- Play Bigger book