Name: Renegade Marketing
Rating: 4.2 (150 reviews)
Author: Drew Neisser

What’s in it for me? Learn how to build meaningful, original brands that cut through the noise.

Every day, we’re bombarded by information. From the moment you check your phone in the morning until you fall asleep, you’re absorbing content. Every day, there are 5 billion new Google searches, 4 million new blog posts published, and 500 million tweets posted. Never has the human brain been so overloaded.

As a marketing executive, your sole purpose is to break through that wall of noise. To have a message so distinct that people are able to absorb it. And – even more importantly – to remember it.

This is something that Drew Neisser knows very well. Over his four decades in the industry, he’s worked with huge corporations like IBM as well as cutting-edge start-ups. He’s witnessed marketing technology change beyond recognition. And he’s made it his mission to stay ahead of the curve.

The marketing company he founded, Renegade, has a simple slogan: “Cut Through.” Its campaigns are designed to help companies cut through the information overload to deliver simple, effective messages to its clients.

Neisser has also interviewed over 425 leading chief marketing officers (CMOs) in the field. From these interviews, as well as his own experience, he’s distilled the four key characteristics of really successful marketers. These are: courageous, artful, thoughtful, and scientific. Together, these characteristics create the anagram CATS.

In this Blink, you’ll find out about Drew Neisser’s transformative approach to B2B marketing, and how you, too, can develop CATS qualities and apply them in your own company.

In this Blink, you’ll learn

how to create a company mission statement even your grandmother can understand;
why words without actions are useless; and
how to build strong teams and get the rest of the company on board with your wild ideas.

Have the courage to craft a distinctive identity.

Today, marketing executives are trained to make marketing ever more complex; they have more data to work with than ever before, go to fancy training academies, and are given huge teams to work with. They’re told to imagine their target audience as having different personas and to try to tailor their message to fit every different audience.

But, here’s the thing: you absolutely cannot be everything to every person. If you make your message too all-encompassing, you actually end up confusing the consumer and pleasing no one. In order to be successful, you need to have the courage to have a simple pitch that’s different from your competition.

Let’s look at an example from the building industry. Neisser’s apartment board decided they needed to renew the hallway carpeting, and invited bids from different companies. The first two companies proudly stated that they worked for big restaurants, corporations, and private apartment buildings. The third company, JMPB Enterprise, made a different sort of pitch: it said that it worked exclusively on private apartment carpeting and offered no other services. It showed its expertise by naming specific problems it encountered on the job, namely complaints from residents about dust. Furthermore, it showed how it had solved that problem by budgeting for nightly cleanups and using special vacuums. By the end of the pitch, the board was sold. JMPB Enterprise had a unique selling point, and it could state it clearly and simply.

In the beginning, JMPB Enterprise had to turn down a lot of work because its target market was so specific. That was very scary, but over time it turned out to be its key selling point. It had dared to be different, and it worked.

The first letter in CATS stands for courage. To be courageous, renegade marketers need to be willing to cut through the noise and craft a simple, distinctive identity. And if something’s not working, they have to have the courage to pivot to something that does.

Making changes takes courage. But, in reality, failing to make the change can be riskier. Look at Netflix. The streaming giant was once in the business of mailing out DVDs. It invested in streaming well ahead of the competition and became a market leader. Blockbuster, on the other hand, was way too late to join the streaming game. This former entertainment giant went bust because it didn’t embrace change.

So, what kinds of changes are you willing to make to cut through the noise and make your company unique? In the next chapter, you’ll discover how to artfully articulate your company’s unique purpose — and make sure that it's shared by everyone in your organization.

Master artful communication.

Have you ever had the experience of reading a company’s purpose statement and afterward being none the wiser about what it actually does? Sometimes it feels like marketers think it’s more important to sound smart than to communicate with the customer.

But, in reality, that will just turn people off. No one cares whether you know how to use big words. The success of your branding lies in your ability to communicate, which takes us to the second letter in CATS: artful communication.

Thoughtful execution makes for engaged employees and loyal customers.

In the last chapter, you heard about how to craft a distinctive brand identity. And, even more importantly, how to get the rest of your team on board by developing your listening skills. This is a good segue to the third letter in CATS, which stands for thoughtful execution.

Once you’ve got a meaningful mission statement, how do you translate it into providing excellent customer service?

Embrace a scientific method to measure your results.

Imagine you’re a motivated renegade marketer, bubbling with fresh ideas, and dying to take your company in exciting new directions. Then imagine you present your ideas at a board meeting, only to have your CEO throw most of them out and slash your budget in half.

This scenario takes place in many companies and may be the reason that most CMOs only last a couple of years on the job. Too often, especially for B2B companies, marketing is seen as something frivolous and nonessential – about clever logos and pretty colors, instead of the core business model.

Key ideas in Renegade Marketing

What is Renegade Marketing about?

Renegade Marketing (2021) is an incisive guide to becoming a cutting-edge B2B marketer in today’s frenetic corporate climate. It distinguishes four key characteristics of very successful marketing executives and shows you how you can apply them in your own company. Most importantly, it demonstrates how to create meaningful brands that are embodied at every level of your organization.

About the Author

Drew Neisser is the founder of Renegade, the award-winning exclusively B2B marketing company. He’s helped dozens of companies create unbeatable brands and shared the stories of over 400 inspiring CMOs on his podcast Renegade Thinkers Unite. Neisser publishes a regular column for Ad Age and has been featured on ABC News, CNBC, and CBS Radio.