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Lochhead on Marketing

Lochhead on Marketing

Christopher Lochhead

Lochhead on MarketingTM is the award winning, chart topping podcast for entrepreneurs, marketers, and category designers with a different mind. Most people do not like it.
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Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Lochhead on Marketing episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Lochhead on Marketing for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Lochhead on Marketing episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Lochhead on Marketing - 108 Advice for 30 Year Old Marketers
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04/21/21 • 7 min

In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, let us talk about some advice for 30 year old marketers. I have been asked this question a bunch of times, so I just put together my response as a LinkedIn post. A lot of people though it was a great list, so I thought I’d share it with you. Making the List As said earlier, this list was originally a LinkedIn post, and it’s a list of practical advice for 30 year old marketers. There were some who asked if it was in a certain order, and one outright challenged me to do so. I did not want to do that because I wanted to present them as ideas. Because what might be important for me might not be for others. Sure enough in the comments, different things on the list resonated with different people. Though there is an argument to be made about creating lists in certain order, so as to elicit something close to a call to action. “It seems we live in a world of prescriptions, where people want to do lists and more and more inane sort of business and marketing advice. You know, the seven things Elon Musk does before breakfast. And we've gotten to a place where a lot of content about business, about self-help, about marketing is very pablumatic and sort of at a prescription level, do this, do that, etc.” – Christopher Lochhead While we do create prescription type articles, mostly on what you should and shouldn’t do, that’s not how we work most of the time. Our job is to give people ideas, and with those ideas, they can come up with different combinations or new ways to approach things. We feel that having something close to a to-do list hinders that process. The Advice for 30 Year Old Marketers That said, here’s the list of Advice for 30 Year Old Marketers, in no particular order: Do legendary work Position yourself or be positioned You're not too young to be a CMO, or start a company Stop giving a shit about what other people think of you, it’s a trap Thinking about thinking is the most important thinking Most marketers have been recruited into the cult of the brand Categories make brands, not the other way around Marketers who create new demand, are most in demand They are called category designers Nobody legendary is working on their “personal brand” The most influential people in the world are not “influencers” Only work on legendary teams If your company is not going to be a category queen, quit Be very careful who’s content you consume 90% of what we get taught about marketing is BS Learn to write Make friends with other Superstar 30 year old’s One day, you might rule the world together It goes by fast, soak up every second Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on MarketingTM! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.
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Welcome to a very special episode of Lochhead on Marketing. This episode is based on a recent Category Pirates newsletter that we wrote, which was about Big Brand Marketing and why it doesn’t work. It is also available as a mini eBook here. Think of this episode as more of an audiobook than a podcast, as I will be reading the article for you. Without further ado, let’s get to reading. The Brand Cult A meaningful percentage of marketers, entrepreneurs, and executives are in what we like to call “The Brand Cult.” They’ve been taught the best (aka: “the most well known”) brand wins. Even though the data shows this is not true. Ford spends $2.5 billion per year on brand advertising, with a market cap of $50 billion. General Motors spends $3 billion, with a market cap of $70 billion. Meanwhile, Tesla spends $0, but has a market cap of $700 billion. In 2011, Google spent almost $600 million building and launching a social network to compete with Facebook and Twitter called Google+. If “the best brand wins,” how come Google+ failed? After all, Forbes named Google the 2nd “most valuable brand in the world” in 2020. Comcast spends more than $5 billion on branding and advertising each year. And yet, Comcast has long been considered “America’s Most Hated Company.” There’s even a Wikipedia page dedicated to the company’s inadequacies, titled “Criticism of Comcast.” (United Airlines is a close second, if you ask us.) So if branding and “shouting from the rooftops” is the key to winning the game, how come $5 billion per year can’t solve Comcast’s problems? Maybe they need $10 billion? Though sharing data with a cult member is about the worst thing you can do. That’s because facts are upsetting to feelings—particularly facts that disprove everything you’ve been taught to believe. Well, here’s a fact: Categories make brands. Not the other way around. How The Brand Cult Began In 2011, The Atlantic published a piece titled, “How Brands Were Born: A Brief History of Modern Marketing.” “In the 1950s, consumer packaged goods companies like Procter and Gamble, General Foods and Unilever developed the discipline of brand management, or marketing as we know it today, when they noticed the quality levels of products being offered by competitors around them improve. A brand manager would be responsible for giving a product an identity that distinguished it from nearly indistinguishable competitors.” Note that last sentence. From our perspective, the obvious response and clear “no brainer” solution to being “nearly indistinguishable” is to get different: design a new space, come up with something new, and make others play a game you created. But that’s not what most “marketing & branding experts” decided. Instead, they said, “Let’s ignore the fact there is nothing unique about us, our product, or what we do for the world. Instead, let’s do some branding.” As if sprinkling some kind of magic dust on your “brand” (changing the colors, the font, the logo design, etc.) is going to drive a breakthrough in growth. Or, even worse, “Let’s call ourselves a community. Let’s use big, all-encompassing, undifferentiated language to make ourselves appeal to everyone. Something like, ‘We are an authentic, purpose-driven brand.’” Thus, “the brand cult” was formed—and The Big Brand Lie began. If you’d like to hear the rest of the article, download and listen to this episode. You can also check it out at Category Pirates. Who knows, you might find that you have a little pirate in you as well. ?‍☠️ Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to som...
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The electric vehicle category is a giant new mega category that is completely changing the transportation landscape. Rivian is a startup who has yet to ship a product, yet somehow is pioneering a differentiated category in EVs. It is also on the verge of what will likely be a massive, multi-billion dollar IPO. In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, Al Ramadan and I unpack all of it through the category lens. He has been blogging about this lately, so it seems fitting to invite him and have a conversation about it. If Al’s name sounds familiar, that’s because he and I co-founded Play Bigger Advisors, and coauthored the book, Play Bigger together. So sit back and enjoy this dialogue between two category design enthusiasts as we share our thoughts on Rivian’s new upcoming massive IPO. Al Ramadan on Rivian and the Upcoming IPO Al shares his thoughts on Rivian, and what they are doing for the Electric Vehicle category. He describes its founder as something of a combination of Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, and thinks he is a remarkable entrepreneur. He then talks about the upcoming IPO they have planned to release around Thanksgiving. “A couple weeks ago, they announced that they're going to do this IPO around Thanksgiving. And it's an IPO, not a spec. All of the other EVs are going out with specs. And the zinger was that the market cap was going to be $80 billion. Bigger than GM, bigger than Ford. But it was just this moment in time where you look at this thing is like, “what, they haven't shipped the vehicle”. And they've valued more than Toyota's entire SUV line and Ford or GM, it just doesn't make (sense). That's just crazy. And so the category designer in me sort of took over and started dissecting all of their filings and I came up with a few insights that I think is worth sharing. ” - Al Ramadan The Potential of the Rivian IPO For something that has not even shipped the product yet, it seems amazing that they are valued so highly. For it to do so well at this point, it must’ve hit all the right notes and laid out its potential to be able to grab the attention of investors and consumers. “What they miss always, is what the real drivers of market cap are. Which is, number one: what's the potential for this category? Number two: do we believe that this company can prosecute the magic triangle company; product, company, and category and earn 76% of the economics? And number three: when we look at their numbers, metrics, financials, etc., are we comforted about the first two things? And if the answer to all of those is that you got a company who's designing a market category, that right now looks like that has the potential of almost infinity.” - Christopher Lochhead Al agrees with this points, and further explains how this new IPO is changing the vehicle industry, and how the transactions and support will be implemented once it comes out. Up until now, most EVs still operate in the traditional car dealership model. Rivian seeks to create a new category centered not just on the cars, but the services provided with it. Reactions to the Rivian IPO One of the things that piqued Al’s interest was how certain people or companies reacted when the valuation for the Rivian IPO went out. One particular instance was Elon Musk tweeting about it, saying that they should at least put out a product before the IPO. It seemed illogical that someone like him would be alarmed by this, especially if you’re perceived as being the king of a certain category. Yet for a brief moment there, it seems that he has shown concern over the matter, and saw a challenger on the rise. According to Al, it’s right that he would be concerned. Because if you look at it, Rivian seems to be taking the Electric Vehicle category and evolving it to something that can make their current category obsolete in the future. While the implementation of which remains to be seen, it’s definitely enough to be concerned about.
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Lochhead on Marketing - 131 Maybe The Most Important Equation Ever
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10/27/21 • 9 min

On this episode, let’s talk about what might be the most important equation in business and in marketing. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing, the number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Maybe The Most Important Equation Ever I want to share with you a little bit of math that I learned very early in my career. It was incredibly eye-opening, and has been a bedrock that I have tried to stand on ever since. And the equation goes like this: Results do not equal No Results plus an Excuse. Now, this might seem obvious, but if you look around, you’ll find the contrary to that. You might also think, what’s the harm of having a great excuse when you can’t achieve the results you want? Well, here’s the interesting thing: That mindset can perpetuate. Over time, you’ll start thinking that it’s perfectly okay to not reach the result you want, as long as there was a valid excuse not to do so. Who You Are in Business Here’s the AHA moment in business, entrepreneurship, and in category design: Who you are is based on your results. It may sound harsh, but think about the people that you work with, particularly those who you admire. Chances are, you respect and admire them the most because they can be counted on to produce results. If we use sales as an example, it’s easy to see one’s value for the business. That is, if they hit their target numbers or not. If they do hit their numbers and beyond, they are recognized and rewarded for it. You also gain the reputation as someone who achieves their goals, or if you already have said reputation, it is further reinforced. The reason this matter is, in marketing and category design, there are winners and losers. In every category, there tends to be one category king or queen who gets roughly 70% of the market, and everybody else are fighting for roughly a quarter of it. So train yourself. The excuse doesn't matter when it's on the line. The most legendary people produce results no matter what. That's the mindset. Don’t be Afraid to Ask If you’re a product manager, developer, or engineer, it can be easy to measure goals and objectives. You either meet the requirements, or you don’t. Though for marketing, the goal or objective might not be as clear. If you’re not sure about the goal of your marketing is, don’t be afraid to ask. After that, make sure the rest of your team is clear to that goal. That beats running around doing things that might not even be related to your goal, which wastes time and resources. So to recap: Results do not equal No Results plus an Excuse. Results equal Reputation. Which means you are your results and your results drive your reputation. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on MarketingTM! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.
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Lochhead on Marketing - 132 3 Meta Problems With Facebook
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11/03/21 • 12 min

This episode is based on the top 1% Category Pirates ?‍☠️ newsletter. On this episode, let’s talk about at least three Meta problems with Facebook. How, in light of their recent situation, they managed to launch a new category out of nowhere. The question is, was it a legendary move? Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing, the number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Launching Meta There’s an interesting thing that most people don’t realize and has not been reported on the mainstream press. That is, never in the history has a trillion dollar publicly-traded company launched a new category, that is so forward-leaning. So whatever you want to say about Zuckerberg, what he pulled off there was legendary and by the book, at least from a purely category design perspective. That said, given the fact that the new category is the metaverse and the fact that he named renamed and rebranded the company as Meta is genius. When you tie your company name to your category, you have real staying power in that category. The 3 Meta Problems with Facebook With that out of the way, there are at least three very serious problems with this launch. Ignoring the Elephant in the Room Zuckerberg ignored the elephant in the room, and just launched Meta in spite of recent situations developing even as we speak. If you’re interested in this, The Wall Street Journal is keeping an ongoing series on the matter called The Facebook Files. The most glaring one is the recent whistleblower that exposed the company as someone who exploits its users and their data. Yet for Zuckerberg to just get up and launch a new category, brand, and giant demo is incredible, and not in a good way. Pretending that Facebook does not have a self-inflicted existential wound doesn’t make it go away. The fact that he didn’t address it is stunning. It shows how much out-of-touch they really are. Mercenary, not a Missionary Zuckerberg’s announcement made it clear that he’s a mercenary, not a missionary. This is where he drops off on being a legendary category designer. Because category designers, as you know, are always on a mission. While making money, building highly-valuable companies, and being economically successful is what we’re trying to do in business, entrepreneurship, and marketing, most legendary category designers and innovators are on a mission to make a difference. They use their category, and therefore their company and products to do so. If you listen to the Metaverse presentation, it’s 100% about Facebook. They are not solving a new big problem that they have a solution to. There wasn’t a new big opportunity and a way to make a difference for others. Sure, there was an innovation on how VR and the tech behind it was being used, but he never anchored it to why it matters to us. This is because the new category of Facebook’s Meta is not about us, the users. It is solely for them, and how it benefits Facebook. If you listen carefully, it’s all about me, me, me. That is classic mercenary talk. Public Trust Out of the three problems, this one should be the most obvious. If you simply Google around, you’ll find that Facebook is the least trusted social media company. Yet in the whole presentation, he has not mentioned anything about trust, or try to comfort us in anyway. So the question is, can one of the most nefarious companies in history convince the world to bet their digital lives and future on a dubious, distrusted bedrock of technology from Facebook, without even building trust. He didn’t even try. Like the first problem, he didn’t even address it. If you’d like to hear more about the 3 Meta Problems with Facebook, download and listen to this episode. We’ll also go into a deep dive about Meta and the issues surrounding it in Category Pirates. So stay tuned. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
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On this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, we go on a deep dive into category design, community building, to starting a company and becoming a category leader with Sangram Vajre. Sangram Vajre is the co-founder of Terminus. He is also the author of a WSJ bestselling book called MOVE: The 4-Question Go-To-Market Framework. We touch on the different startup marketing topics, including how to avoid the SaaS Valley of Death. We also talk about how to build a scalable marketing and sales model. Most importantly, we talk about how to leverage your competition to build your category. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing, the number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Sangram Vajre on his Bestselling Book, MOVE Sangram shares the one question that he always gets when he talks about his book. That is, why did he put THAT specific quote on the cover? The particular quote was made by me, and it read: “Love the guys, but hate this book.” Sangram explains that he has a good reason for putting it up right in front for everyone to see. “I think you and I both know that everybody feels like they're walking on eggshells. They can't say anything. Everything has to has to be politically correct. Everything has to be in agreement. I think people have forgotten a good way to discourse. That it's okay for two people to have completely different opinions. And that’s the point of being people. Otherwise, we’ll be animals eating each other.” – Sangram Vajre Coming in from Another Angle Sangram then explains that while his heart bleeds category design and creation, he believes that not every company should be a category creator. To him, there are some that are not destined to be category creators, and that is fine. They could still be a better company; they just have to approach it from a different angle. That’s where his book, MOVE, comes to play. “There are 99% of the companies out there in the world, who probably are following suit to become a better company. And this book is for them. If you want to build a category, go and read Play Bigger. But if you want to build a great high performing revenue team in your organization, I hope you'll take a look at my book.” – Sangram Vajre Sangram Vajre on Engaging the Community to Create a Bestseller Sangram talks about his process on making this bestseller of a book. He says that he has always believed that without a community, you’re just a commodity. “I truly believe that every company needs to think about building a community before they think about the product they want to build. Because your community is what's going to give you the float that you need to get your business going.” – Sangram Vajre So consult the community, he did. He would send out early parts of his book and asked people for their feedback. Those that gave him feedback, he made sure to acknowledge in his book. So when the book became a WSJ bestselling book, his community who gave their feedbacks are now part of it, which gave his community an even greater sense of belonging. To hear more from Sangram Vajre and how to become a high-performing company in your market, download and listen to this episode. Bio Sangram Vajre is the co-founder and chief evangelist of Terminus. Before Terminus, Vajre led the marketing team at Pardot through its acquisition by ExactTarget and then Salesforce. He is also the author of Account-Based Marketing For Dummies and is the mastermind behind #FlipMyFunnel. Links LinkedIn: in/SangramVajre Twitter: @SangramVajre Check out his book: MOVE: The 4-Question Go-To-Market Framework We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on MarketingTM! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.
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Lochhead on Marketing - 134 The Problem With Most Marketing Plans
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11/24/21 • 11 min

In this episode, let’s talk about the problem with most marketing plans, and what you can do about it. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Planning Based on the Past Let’s talk about the problem with most marketing plans: mainly, most of them start with last year’s template. The big problem with most marketing plans is they take last year's marketing plan and they extend it forward. In category design, one of our favorite expressions is to reject the premise. In the end, we challenge ourselves to push and poke and stretch our thinking. Also, just because it worked in 2020 or 2021, it is not evidence that it will work in 2022. More importantly, when you start your planning by rejecting the premise, you create a blank sheet of paper. Crowding Out Innovation It is also difficult to create a different future when the past is your lens. So if a prior marketing plan is the start point for a plan for the future, by definition you're taking the past and figuring out how to re-implement it going forward. That might be feasible for maintaining certain market margins and the like, but it risks crowding out innovation in your marketing plan. We’re also not telling you to reject the past and just YOLO your future. Going forward, you should have a dialogue on what worked and not worked based on the data from the past, find a way to highlight those points, but at the same time look for things that have not been explored in the market. That way, you can produce a breakthrough in a new field or even create a new category out if it, without having to go for broke. Three Pillars of a Great Marketing Plan Once you have rejected the premise and open yourself up to thoughtful data-centric analysis of what works and doesn’t, it’s time to think about going forward. How do you design a marketing plan that creates the future of your choosing? To do so, try to anchor it around these three pillars. Information Wars: This is what sets the strategic context. It’s the combination of ways in which you educate the world about the category you’re designing, and learning from your Superconsumers to accelerate your effectiveness both in the air and on the ground. This is more focused on POV marketing / word of mouth than anything else. Air Wars: In many ways, marketing is “Sales at scale.” Air Wars are the high-level strategic marketing you do in service of the new and different category you are creating in the world. All the while positioning yourself as the leader. These efforts are more focused on demand creation. Ground Wars: This is tactical marketing (often at the point-of-sale and heavily integrated with sales) that supports your strategic efforts marketing the category and driving near-term revenue. These efforts are more focused on demand capture and lead generation. If you want to learn more about these three pillars, check out this Category Pirates article about it. Conclusion So in closing, what would I leave you with? Don't use the past as a template for creating the future. Allow yourself to think in unconstrained, super creative, super innovative ways around “what is the strategic context?” “What's the POV that you are using to drive your category and your brand and ultimately, the success of the company?” How are you scaling through air wars, so that you begin to make your strategic point of view move from being a new thing to an of course. And the ground Wars is all about how you make the cash register sing and drive near-term revenue. And guess what? To succeed, you got to get all three right. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketi...
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In this episode, let’s talk about Sales Kick Off. Since it’s that time of the year where most sales, marketing, and executive teams are working on sales kickoff events for the new year and/or a company kickoff event. While most people work on the practical and tactical aspect of things, there’s a strategic question that we need to address. If we get the answer right, it can lead to a very successful sales kickoff and a successful year. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Sales Kick Off Events Like most companies, you are also probably working on this as early as the 4th quarter of the year. If you’re in a well-established company, you probably have all the basics down, in terms of systems, workflows, and all related processes. While those parts are also important, the focus in these kinds of kickoffs is the context that it operates in. Why are you doing this sales kickoff? Is it for something new, or maybe an important change in your company that will affect how you interact with your clients and customers? Why Should I Stay? That said, we have a very unique context going into 2022. You have probably heard about the “Great Resignation”. People have been quitting their jobs to find better work or pursue other careers. Those who stayed are probably getting recruitment emails from competition due to this sudden lack of high-value individuals in certain industries. So heading into 2022, the context of your sales kickoff needs to answer the question, “Why should I stay?” In order to answer that question, you should look on what truly motivates people. The first point is, people who are invested in the company are motivated by a mission. They want to feel like they’re a part of something greater than themselves. That what they do for the company makes a difference. The second point is that they want to feel connected to their colleagues. Granted, this is harder nowadays due to COVID and social distancing. So instead of being physically around people, find a way to align people’s goals, so that they get to interact with each other while having the same mission. This ties to the first point as well. If your company is still on a full remote capacity right now, you can also be creative with technology. Instead of socializing in the pantry like before, set up zoom meetings for your team where you can just talk about the recent activities you have done outside of work. Or maybe share what you have been doing lately, so that other people in the team are aware of your contributions and could help with your struggles. In the situation where we're primarily using a digital first native digital way to do that, think about using the technology and creative ways to bond people to each other into the mission and point of view. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on MarketingTM! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.
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Lochhead on Marketing - 136 Rivian IPO Through The Category Lens
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12/08/21 • 66 min

In Lochhead on Marketing episode 127, we talked with Al Ramadan, Co-founder of Play Bigger Advisors and co-author of Play Bigger, the book. On that episode, we unpacked the upcoming Rivian IPO. Now that Rivian has gone public, we thought it would be cool to get together again, and unpack what happened through a category design lens. Specifically, how Rivian was able to use their IPO not just as a financing event, but a category-defining event. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. The Rivian IPO: An Update after the Launch Al Ramadan recaps what Rivian IPO was during the public offering, which had a market cap of $60 billion at the time. This was already a very impressive number, considering that it was still an IPO. What people didn’t anticipate is that after Rivian’s launch, they blew well past that and now sits over $100 billion in valuation. As a result, they are now the third largest automotive company behind Tesla and Toyota. All in all, it is an incredible IPO, and one to observe in the future as it develops. Betting on Potential vs Performance Despite all that, there are those who are still skeptic of what had happen, and consider it as a fluke or a big risk. But it all boils down to betting on the potential of an idea, rather than just prior performance. Right now, some investors are seeing things in a new light. “I think it's hard for investors to understand because that's been just been the way they are. They look at multiples of revenue or multiples of trucks shipped, or all of those other vital metrics within an organization. But the new investors I think, are starting to look past that.” – Al Ramadan Paving the Way into a New Category What Al finds interesting is that currently, 70% or more of the market cap for the electronic car category is cornered by Tesla. Yet Rivian might have to potential to great its own category within it, and be the category king for it. Because Rivian is not just planning on the electronic cars and trucks. They are also including everything else that comes along with it. We’re talking charging networks and stations, dealerships, and the like. It’s taking into consideration the whole ecosystem, as supposed to just that one product. “So if you go into this with the mindset of like, I'm going to value this as an automotive industry as it was over the last 125 years, you're gonna miss big time.” – Al Ramadan To hear more from Christopher and Al and their thoughts and updates on the Rivian IPO, download and listen to this episode. Bio Al Ramadan is a co-founding partner of Play Bigger Advisors and coauthor of the book, Play Bigger. He also co-founded Quokka Sports, which revolutionized the way people experience sport online. Al then joined Macromedia and Adobe, where he spent almost ten years changing the way people think about great digital experiences. At Adobe, Al led teams that created the Rich Internet Applications category and helped develop the discipline of experience design. In the early ‘90s he applied data science to Australia’s Americas Cup — an innovation in sports performance analytics. His work in sailing led directly to the idea for Quokka. He lives in Santa Cruz, California. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on MarketingTM! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.
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On this episode, we welcome Mike Bruno, Senior Category Designer at Play Bigger. Today, we dig into what it takes to make Category Design your career, and how incredible it is working with some of the most advanced technology companies in the world on category design. Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind. Mike Bruno and his first year as a Category Designer Mike, who has been a category designer for about a year and a half, started his career working in agencies and social advertising. Transitioning into category design was a return to a beginner mindset for him, which he found interesting. In his previous role, he helped people solve problems and develop strategies based on business objectives and existing products. This experience translated well to category design, where the front door is identifying the problem that the category solves uniquely. Mike also mentioned that category design involves many new concepts and a broader aperture, as it requires structuring not only the client's business but also influencing the entire market. While it was a humbling experience trying to figure it all out, he also had a sense of familiarity, knowing how to approach problems and strategize effectively. Overall, his first year as a category designer was challenging and exciting, with a mix of the familiar and the new, which kept him engaged and interested in the field. The way people think about Category Design Christopher and Mike discuss the challenges of transitioning from traditional marketing to category design. They emphasize that category design involves creating new markets rather than catching existing demand. Mike points out that realizing someone invented categories was a facepalm moment for him, but it made him realize the importance of solving unsolved problems. Christopher and Mike also talked about the power of not doing anything, meaning finding a category that has already been solved, and how this is often underestimated in the business world. They use Apple's example of launching a new category called "spatial computing" instead of just a new product like most marketers do. They compare it to Magic Leap, which failed to create a category despite having inspiring visions. Mike believes Apple succeeded because they could bridge the gap between their vision and the technology needed to achieve it. Mike Bruno on the Difference between Category Design and Product Design Christopher and Mike discuss the difference between launching a product and category designing a market category. They use the example of Magic Leap, which had a product but failed to category design the spatial computing market. Christopher explains that category design involves framing, naming, and claiming a new problem, creating an ecosystem of partners to solve that problem, and evangelizing the solution. Mike shares his surprise about the comprehensive nature of category design, realizing that it's not just about coming up with a new term but involves a rigorous process to make the category successful. They also mention Apple's success in category designing the spatial computing market, positioning themselves for significant market cap growth while other players who only launched products may miss out on the opportunity. To hear more from Mike Bruno and his experiences as a Category Designer, download and listen to this episode. Bio Mike Bruno Mike is a Senior Category Designer with a background in psychology and communications strategy. He finds hidden problems and unspoken truths, and connects those with companies, brands and products to drive businesses and, importantly, the people they serve. Mike’s style of Category Design is simple, straightforward and playful. His work is equally influenced by the behavioral sciences, business theory and imagination. Carl Jung on one shoulder, and Dav Pilkey on the other.
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How many episodes does Lochhead on Marketing have?

Lochhead on Marketing currently has 211 episodes available.

What topics does Lochhead on Marketing cover?

The podcast is about Marketing, Podcasts, Education and Business.

What is the most popular episode on Lochhead on Marketing?

The episode title '029 Disagree and Commit' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on Lochhead on Marketing?

The average episode length on Lochhead on Marketing is 23 minutes.

How often are episodes of Lochhead on Marketing released?

Episodes of Lochhead on Marketing are typically released every 7 days.

When was the first episode of Lochhead on Marketing?

The first episode of Lochhead on Marketing was released on Jul 26, 2019.

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