Lochhead on Marketing

In this episode, Christopher Lochhead discusses the 5 traits of legendary brands⁠—different, stands for something, point of view, consistent and prioritizes category creation. We’re positive marketers will learn a lot from this mindset-oriented podcast! 1. Be Different   Legendary brands are unique, interesting and groundbreaking. Marketers must continuously ask themselves how to become different from their existing competitors. “When you hear most CEOs, CMOs, entrepreneurs, business people, talk about their differentiators⁠—most of what comes out of their mouths is a comparison from their competition⁠—as opposed to a distinction from their competition.” – Christopher Lochhead 2. Stand-up For Something Moreover, legendary brands have a mission, they stand up for something. Interestingly, more legendary companies of today are committed to creating more impact in society. It is often called a “double bottom line”, where they also build projects with a social or human impact. “You got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.” – Christopher Lochhead quoting singer/songwriter John Melencamp 3. Point of View  Legendary brands have a point of view. A company should have a true north that they believe in. A lot of brands have provocative POV and it has proven to skyrocket their revenues, especially when they associate with personalities who have strong positions and opinions. 4. Consistency Because POVs don’t change, this brings us to the fourth trait, which is consistency. Legendary brands do not deviate from their core, but they can evolve and embrace new things. “Legendary brands are consistent, their colors, their point of view, and if you will, the place from which they come stays the same.” – Christopher Lochhead 5. Category First Arguably, for Lochhead, the most important trait of a legendary brand is category-first. These brands do not attack the category, in fact, they promote it. They help improve the category by expanding and leading the category in different ways. “Most legendary marketers know that categories make the brand, not the other way around.” – Christopher Lochhead To hear more about the 5 traits of legendary brands and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 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 ⁠— which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2006 for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Link: Lochhead.com We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

On today’s episode of Lochhead on Marketing, Christopher Lochhead delves into the concept of category creation. He discusses why legendary entrepreneurs, CEOs, and marketers see category creation or category design as the new approach to winning. What is it? Category design is a new management discipline that is focused on creating and monetizing new markets. Moreover, Lochhead sees category creation or category design as a radical differentiation of oneself. “Winning today is not about beating the competition. The most legendary entrepreneurs, CEOs and marketers are the people who invent a whole new game by defining a new market category, developing that market category and ultimately executing, so that they dominate it over time.” – Christopher Lochhead  Distinguishing Oneself Legendary marketers and innovators refuse to be in comparison to what came before them. Due to this, customers look at legends as unique, or someone who broke or took a new ground. Most importantly, legendary marketers want others to be compared to them. They are the agenda setters. They’re the ones defining the game and the rules. Moving the World Legendary marketers educate the world about an idea or a problem. Therefore, they provide a solution in a completely different way. They also have the ability to create value and urgency around the idea or problem. “When the world accepts your point of view about a problem and solution, you change everything. That is what category design is about.” – Christopher Lochhead Lochhead also discusses the fact that categories are everywhere. Further, he states that category comes first and the brand comes second. According to him, “category is the human filing system that we have, so we can relate to things and most importantly, value things.” In the end, Lochhead poses the question any marketer should ask oneself, “are you playing someone else’s game or do you have the courage in creating and designing your own category?” To hear more about category creation and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 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 ⁠— which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2006 for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Link: Lochhead.com We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

For the second episode of Lochhead on Marketing, Christopher Lochhead dives into what makes Legendary Marketing, legendary. He discusses the 10 attributes of legendary marketing ⁠— which range from creating demand, dominating a niche market to leveraging technologies and changing the world. 1. Creates Demand Rather Than Capturing Demand In all imaginable areas⁠—books, conversations, podcasts or discussions⁠—marketing is described as “having a market and capturing the demand to increase revenue and growth for your company.” Legendary marketing, though, is more interested in creating new demand. They are focused on setting that agenda. 2. Designs and Dominates a Giant Category That Matters Legendary marketing design and dominate their own categories. On creating this demand, they position themselves as unique and distinct. They may also opt to create a new category or sub-category of an existing market category. “When you’re the first in a new category, people are drawn towards you.” – Christopher  Lochhead 3. Creates a “Before” and “After” Legendary marketing creates a distinct before and after. When a customer experiences legendary marketing for the first time, the expected initial reaction is “Wow, I just saw something! That’s incredible!” That is Legendary Marketing. “Remember the first time you heard Netflix, it presented a provocative idea which is: why do you have to go to a video store if you could go to a website?” – Christopher Lochhead 4. Mobilizes People to Think and Act in New and Different Ways Legendary marketing is not just about evangelizing a product. It is about mobilizing people into action and getting them to change their actions. This would mean hundreds of people for small enterprises or even millions of people, for big multinational corporations. 5. Causes Competition to Have Emergency Board Meetings Rick Bennett, the marketing assassin of Silicon Valley says that his advertising campaigns aim to freak out the competition and manage the psychology of the bad guys. This is one of the attributes of a legendary marketing campaign. “When the competition sees this, how are they going to react and will they have an emergency board meeting?” – Christopher Lochhead 6. Makes You Think “I Wish I Had Done That!” Millions of businesses fail because they are undifferentiated. Christopher says legendary marketing focuses on finding their own niche and dominating it, regardless of how simple or basic their product or service is. “There is a bakery that scaled to 250 locations and sells franchises because they niched down. Its called Nothing but Bundt Cake. You’d say, that is such a simple idea, they niched down. Instead of being a generic bakery that fails, they dominated its niche market that they created.” – Christopher Lochhead  7. Creates New, Enduring Value Over-Time It is a must for any CMO, C-level executive or anybody in Marketing—as well as entrepreneurs—to create enduring value, which is measured by employees, customers, and investors, partners and even the ecosystem. 8. Leverages New Technologies Technology today allows marketers to know, in real-time, what’s resonating to the customers and what’s not. A lot of data is now readily available for companies to ensure we attract the right customers and build relationships with them, in a measurable way. “If you’re a marketer, you would want to be a technology genius ⁠— understanding these technologies and specifically how they can impact, attract and retain and build long term relationships with customers.” – Christopher Lochhead 9. Makes a Giant Impact Outside and Inside Legendary marketing creates an impact both internally and externally. Legendary marketers believe to inspire both customers and employees. “The most important thing marketing does is inspire your own employees to do legendary work, to build legendary products and services and take care of customers.” – Christopher Lochhead 10. Changes The World The greatest marketing inspires. It does change the world and it moves things forward. To hear more about legendary marketing and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 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 ⁠— which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2006 for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Link: Lochhead.com We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

It’s an awesome day to be legendary! This is the first episode of our new podcast, Lochhead on Marketing, hosted by our very own, Christopher Lochhead. In this episode, he talks about who is this podcast for and what sets it apart from other marketing podcasts. Join us as we define what makes this podcast, different⁠—ultimately, what makes it legendary! Who’s Who in Marketing Entrepreneur and VC partner Christopher Lochhead is an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups. He is a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and co-author of two bestsellers: Niche Down and Play Bigger. To add, he a dyslexic high school drop-out who started his own company at the age of 18. Christopher sees his setbacks as his springs to success—the farther he’s pulled down, the higher he is launched to the top. “I have a unique perspective in working with early-stage companies, being an entrepreneur myself. Since then I have done a lot of advising and investing and I focused a lot on podcasting.” – Christopher Lochhead Who is this podcast for? This is the podcast for the pirates, dreamers, and innovators⁠—those who want to introduce the world to new ways of doing things. These people want the world to be different. They want to explore what it takes to produce legendary results. Basically, this podcast is for anybody who wants the world to be different. Entrepreneurial marketers, Founders, CEOs—of course, CMOs and business leaders who want to design and dominate their own market categories—would benefit highly from this podcast. “This is for people who give a sh*t about winning! People who want to create the game, not play someone else’s.  People who want to move the world from the way it is, to the way they want it to be” – Christopher Lochhhead What more should you expect? The show Lochhead on Marketing will examine the strategies behind what makes legendary marketing, legendary. Moreover, this podcast will share not only the strategies but the mind-set required for winning. Most of the episodes will be short and practical and will have simple take-aways. “Having some marketing savvy, particularly around designing and dominating categories is an incredibly important skillset, regardless where you are in the C-suite” – Christopher Lochhead Who is this podcast for? It will be for both B2B and B2C markets, especially now that these two concepts are merging in terms of marketing ideas. We will feature technology as well, as it is one of the key drivers of the industry. Technology enables marketers to be precise in measuring reach and accessing new mediums, just like podcasting. To hear more about who this podcast is for and more relevant information from Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 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 ⁠— which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 2006 for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: Lochhead.com We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!