A primer on category design for emerging B2B brands

June 29, 2024

Category design has become a buzzword, but the underlying idea is serious: the most valuable companies don't compete in existing categories, they define new ones. Apple didn't win the phone category; it defined the smartphone category. The question for emerging B2B brands is whether category design is the right move — or a costly distraction.

Category design is appropriate when your product genuinely represents a new way of solving a problem, when the existing category is crowded and undifferentiated, and when you have the capital and patience to educate a market. It's the wrong move when you're an incremental improvement on an established category, when buyers already have a clear mental model, or when your resources are better spent on demand capture than demand creation.

The mechanics of category design are editorial, not just promotional. It requires a point of view, a manifesto, and a body of thought leadership that reframes how buyers think about the problem. This is why so many category-design efforts fail: they're treated as a messaging exercise when they're really a publishing discipline.

If you choose this path, commit for the long term. A category is built over years, not quarters. The brands that succeed — the ones that become synonymous with their category — are the ones that treat category design as the core strategy, not a marketing campaign layered on top.