Forget Brand Marketing: 3 Audiobooks to Create Value and Attract Customers

If brand marketing doesn’t work, what’s a marketer to do?

Dear Friend, Subscriber, and Category Pirate,

Let’s think deeply about this “branding” word the business world loves so much.

(Remember: Thinking about thinking is the most important kind of thinking.)

BRANDING. What did this word originally mean? 

It meant “livestock branding.”

“The practice of branding—in the original literal sense of marketing by burning—is thought to have begun with the ancient Egyptians, who were known to have engaged in livestock branding as early as 2,700 BCE. Branding was used to differentiate one person’s cattle from another’s by means of a distinctive symbol burned into the animal’s skin with a hot branding iron. If a person stole any of the cattle, anyone else who saw the symbol could deduce the actual owner. The term has been extended to mean a strategic personality for a product or company, so that ‘brand’ now suggests the values and promises that a consumer may perceive and buy into.”

OK, let’s think about this for a second. 

The marketing world thought it would be a good idea to borrow a word that meant “burning a symbol into a cow” to represent the act of claiming customers as your own. Hmmm…. So branding is a violent, painful approach to showing a living being as belonging to you. 

That sounds about right.

Enduring most branding efforts as a customer is painful.

• Maybe this this is why advertisers use the term “impressions” as a feeble proxy for a real outcome when selling advertising to corporations? 

• Maybe this means brands think of customers as their own property?

• Maybe this is why companies that spend billions of dollars in brand advertising per year also happen to be the companies at the top of the “most-hated” lists?

If brand marketing doesn’t work, what’s a marketer, an executive, or an entrepreneur to do?

The marketing playbook is being rewritten by category designers bold enough to challenge the status quo.

This isn’t about tweaking your strategies.

It’s about obliterating the old ways and rewriting the marketing playbook. It's about completely reimagining what it means to connect with consumers and dominate markets. It's about being so unique that traditional comparisons become meaningless.

Here’s what this shift in marketing philosophy looks like:

• Redefine the Battlefield: Stop fighting over the same old territory. Discover how to identify and claim new lands, where you set the rules and the competition is irrelevant.

• Invent, Don't Improve: Learn why the biggest leaps come from invention, not iteration. It’s about pioneering entirely new solutions that make old metrics obsolete.

• Create Your Own Game: Find out how to build marketing strategies that aren't just better, but different. This means thinking like a creator, not a competitor.

• Lead, Don't Follow: Understand how to lead markets with bold visions that pull consumers toward you, instead of pushing messages out in hope.

• Value Creation over Self-Promotion: Dive deep into why creating real value for customers beats shouting louder about your brand. Make your mark by solving problems, not just selling products.

When you embrace these principles, you change the game.

If you’re ready to be a marketing leader who thinks different, listen to these 3 audiobooks:

The Big Brand Lie Audiobook

The "Me" Disease Audiobook

The "Better" Trap Audiobook

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Here’s a quick breakdown of what you’ll learn in each audiobook.

The Big Brand Lie: How Categories Make Brands & Why Brand Marketers Never Believe It

Question everything you’ve been told about branding. This audiobook will show you why the real power doesn’t come from your logo or slogan but from carving out and owning your category.

• Expose the Branding Myth: Discover how the focus on branding often obscures the importance of category creation.

• Learn from the Giants: Analyze case studies where category innovation, not branding, determined market dominance.

• Shift Your Focus: Get practical advice on how to invest in creating categories rather than merely enhancing brand visibility.

Expect to walk away with a new framework for thinking about marketing, branding, and how to truly captivate and dominate a market.

The "Me" Disease: Why Personal Branding Is A Lie (And How Some Of The Smartest People In Business Fell For It)

Cut through the noise about personal branding. This audiobook is a reality check for anyone obsessed with self-promotion over real value creation. It’s time to shift the focus from ‘Me’ to ‘We’ and make moves that matter.

• Debunk the Myths: Examine how personal branding promises more than it delivers and often distracts from genuine value creation.

• Understand the Impact: See how the obsession with personal branding has reshaped professional landscapes and personal identities.

• Discover Authentic Alternatives: Learn to build influence and professional success based not on self-promotion but on authentic contributions.

Prepare to challenge everything you thought you knew about building a personal brand. This audiobook provides practical strategies for those looking to make a meaningful impact without creating “content-less” content.

The "Better" Trap: Why Comparison Marketing Leads To Fighting For Only 24% Of The Market

Dive deep into the pitfalls of comparison marketing with this eye-opening audiobook. Perfect for anyone looking to understand why being "better" isn't always better.

• Challenge the Status Quo: Uncover why trying to outperform on features or price often traps companies in a cycle of diminishing returns.

• Rethink Market Strategy: Learn how to shift focus from competing within established categories to creating entirely new markets.

• Escape the Comparison Loop: Gain insights on how to leverage unique value propositions that set you apart without directly competing.

This isn’t just another critique—it’s a radical call to innovate beyond the conventional. It’s about breaking free from the “better” trap and venturing into market leadership by forging paths where none existed. Get ready to redefine success.

The goal of these AI audiobooks is progress, not perfection. 

We expect there to be quirks and oddities in these artificial intelligence audiobooks. They can have Tourette’s Syndrome with random yips. Intonation and inflection appear to change randomly when you re-render the text. Volume can go up and down unexpectedly. 🔊 (Please let us know if you hear anything inaudible in a comment so we can re-render and fix it.)

→ You can dive into the full archive of AI audiobooks here.

But if you’d rather listen to a human narrator, check out our audiobooks on Amazon.

Arrrrrrr,

Category Pirates

Eddie Yoon

Christopher Lochhead

Katrina Kirsch

PS: Help like-minded pirates “think different.”

If reading this opened your mind to new and different thinking, share it with a friend or click the ❤️ button on this post so more people can learn about Category Pirates.