SuperBowl, Taylor Swift, Blue Ocean?, 7 (Non-Obvious) Marketing Questions, The Power of WOM & Scooby Snacks. (2024)

Thanks for reading 🙏

Welcome to this Different Newsletter.

Thanks for reading Different by Christopher Lochhead 🏴‍☠️! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

For entrepreneurs marketing leaders and category designers with a different mind.

Disliked by many
Enjoyed by the (different) few

WOM is really about putting the right words (POV) in the right mouths (Supers) in the right places (Super-Geos).

The people who are most likely to want to talk about your product, service, platform, or idea (category) are people who are obsessed with that kind of thing.

They’re Superconsumers.

And they’re not doing word-of-mouth marketing because some company hypnotized them.

They’re talking about the product, and more importantly the category, because they heard the Point Of View, internalized it, tried it, experienced a transformation of some kind, and are now over-the-moon excited to help other people experience the same transformation they did.

But not all WOM marketing is the same.

So let’s walk through the different levels:

The 5 Levels Of Word-Of-Mouth Marketing

Level 1:

If you want negative WOM, sell to the customer. This guarantees they won’t tell anyone about your product/service.

Level 2:

If you want to open the door for WOM, create the perception that everyone else is buying. This is what happens when you see a restaurant that’s jam-packed with a line down the street.

You just assume it’s good.

Level 3:

If you want to spark WOM, help the customer realize the benefit your product/service solves is the opposite of what they thought was possible. In other words, “wanna hear something weird” WOM is incredibly effective at piercing through the noise.

Level 4:

If you want WOM to catch fire and spread, help the customer understand how this thing will transform their life. Educate them on the bigger mission.

What does their life look like after using this product/service?

What does the world look like if tons of people start using this product/service?

Level 5:

And if you want WOM to spread like crazy, help the customer make money.

When the product/service is awesome, and it allows them to transform and live a different future, AND there is economic value, WOM spirals out of control.

But WOM doesn’t do you any good if random people all over the world are talking about your category.

What you really want is a small group of people, who live inside a (Digital or Analog) Super-Geo.

They should be evangelizing your category such that other people in this Super-Geo can’t go anywhere without hearing about it.

This gives you the illusion of being “everywhere.”

As a result, “the right words” keep coming out of “the right mouths,” and revenue begins to accelerate exponentially as the result of proximity.

Super-Geos are portals to new dimensions—and when you find one, you suddenly “live in the future.”

A Super-Geo is a specific place (Analog or Digital) where a group of Superconsumers is together:

Geographically (Chicago or a suburb east of Atlanta, etc.)

Digitally (a Discord channel, a Facebook group, a gaming chat room, etc.)

Affinity (a neighborhood that is predominantly Catholic, Jewish, or Hindu. Or a spot where all the local surfers, artists, or bankers hang out.)

Vocationally (a club, a fraternity or sorority, a shared specialized school, etc.)

These are areas of extreme demand density.

This is how a tiny zip code, on a relative basis, becomes exponentially more profitable than anywhere else you serve customers.

Or how a single Facebook Group, Discord channel, or email newsletter partnership can yield 50x more ROI than any other marketing channel.

What you’re doing (whether you realize it or not) is tapping into a Super-Geo full of your Superconsumers—who buy more, at higher prices, more often—and bring more people to the category and your brand.

This becomes a virtuous circle, creating WOM at scale.

Once you have superconsumer WOM at scale in a super geo, your category (and thus new demand) tips.

Revenue rockets.🚀

And you.

Are on the fast track to category designing a new market and becoming a Category King (earn 76% of the space).

So please.

Pretty please.

With whiskey on top 🥃.

Make WOM the foundation of your marketing.

🏴‍☠️

Shalom my friend,

Christopher Lochhead

😎 ☠️

(dropping this newsletter on a Sunday... to minimize the number of people who'll read it 🤔🏴☠️)

The legal warnings.

(and the Scooby Snacks 🐶)

Warning: All newsletters contain nuts 🐿

The creator of this (experimental) LI newsletter:

-can’t find his hat

-does not possess a GED

-was thrown out of school at 18

-was likely hangin’ out with Mary Jane

-is considered radically incompetent (by many)

-possess multiple learning differences (aka superpowers)

The Economist calls Christopher Lochhead, “off-putting to some”.

Book reviewers on the internet have called his work:

“Very shallow”

“Incredibly mediocre”

“Easily one of the worst things I've had the displeasure of listening to.”

And one of the all-time greatest business book reviews:

“This book reads more like an MLM or cult brochure.”

For more on Radical Reliance, read this.

I’m just doing my rock and roll duty.

You become tech entrepreneur the day you get.

The technology business is winner-take-all.

Because in tech, one company (Category King) earns 76% of the total category value.

Everyone else fights for the 24%.

Most people can not read and think at the same time. Learn how to here.

There are (random) strategically placed spelling, grammar and formatting mistakes in this newsletter.

If you think Taylor Swift is breading goblins (at scale) in order to harvest their estrogen to sell to “The Globalists” as life extending juice, then consider these strategic mistakes part of a secret code that unlocks Federal Government servers in Bumsquat Youdaho to the files that prove the Statue of Limitations was made by goblins.

If you’re not a Taylor Swift is breading goblins person, the errors herein exist because Lochhead is lazy… and wants to write in an unfettered, real(ish) time way and an editor would slow the roll.

Don’t forget to tell 2 people you love, about 2 podcasts you love.

Sharing this newsletter (broadly) makes you’re a sexy beast.

Do not drive automotive vehicles or operate heavy equipment within 12 hours of consuming this (experimental) newsletter.

For the love of God. Get the f*ck out of the left lane 🏎️

(Can you say f*ck in a business newsletter?)

(They don’t say f*ck in HBR?)

SuperBowl, Taylor Swift, Blue Ocean?, 7 (Non-Obvious) Marketing Questions, The Power of WOM & Scooby Snacks. (3)

(double prius f*ck-job)

Contrary to Internet rumors, “The American Journal of Alternative Executive Medicine” is not the secret funder or publisher of this newsletter.

We in no-way-shape-of form are associated with The American Journal of Alternative Executive Medicine”

(We are solely funded by Bad Tuna Industries)

Sharing this newsletter (broadly) makes you’re richer.

Have you heard Ramones play Spiderman?

The stuff in this (experimental) newsletter that sounds nuts, ill-conceived &/or poorly written… I did that on my own.

(Probably after an IPA and a bourbon)

That said,

Most of the ideas, research, frameworks (and even big chunks of the writing) are as a direct result of (or completely lifted from) my partnership with Eddie Yoon & Katrina Kirsch 🏴☠️ (aka Category Pirates)

Subscribe to Category Pirates (our real newsletter) here.

Beware of marketing advice from someone who has never designed and dominated a new market.

If you're not enjoying this (experimental) newsletter, You’re (safely) in the majority..

The future of marketing is not funnels, it’s communities.

Are you trying to build a legendary category leader in B2C?

If you are, you’ll love this podcast with my buddy Matt Bertulli, cofounder & CEO of Lomi. (the fastest growing new kitchen product in over a decade)

Ever notice, much business content is like a Marriott lobby.

-Fine

-Functional

-& Forgettable

And nobody ever said,

“That was a legendary Marriott lobby.”

All that said, if (by some breach of your better judgement) you are enjoying this fine Italian Chianti Classicosmooth read, with just the right level of AD/HD insanity…

you might get fired up about our real work:

books, paid/real newsletter, and/or podcasts.

Meatloaf is underrated.

New category: Sausage vending machines booming in Germany

You can learn the most powerful (underground) skill in business: category design.

Paul McCartney’s Stolen Bass Guitar Returned After 50 Years

California girl gets license to own a unicorn

Foul-mouthed parrots are unlikely stars at a British zoo

(my kinda birds)

Billie Jean King reminds us,

“Champions keep playing until they get it right.”

(Is this newsletter still going?)