A Marketer's Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The "Better" Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy

1. Have A Radically Different Point Of View

The Lightning Strike Strategy

Other times, new categories are named by what they’re not. Henry Ford called the first car a “horseless carriage.” He used a modifier to remove the existing category’s most valuable asset (there is no horse), raising the question, “Well if there’s no horse, then how does it run?” Ah, now the customer is willing to be educated! They have entered “Th

apparel company? Products don’t speak for themselves (regardless of how often this belief gets Tweeted around Silicon Valley). Products exist within the context of the category. Our favorite example here is the wheel—arguably the most impactful “product” on planet earth. Well, it took 300 years to turn the thing on its side and start using the prod

Step 1: Tell the truth about the existing category by placing a differentiating word in front.

“Well hang on, before I let you go,” the decision-maker on the other end of the line says, “I’m curious. Then what is a Category Design Consultant?”

You. The category designer.

Dam The Demand is not a product-to-product comparison. It is a category vs category debate, and involves telling the truth about the legacy category and using the enemy’s strengths (acknowledged by them and everyone in the category) against them.

They are doing their darndest to respond to the RFP of the industry—when they should be doing their damnedest to Dam The Demand, stop customers in their tracks, engage in business Aikido, and redirect the momentum of the category in the direction of their choosing.