Names are a powerful way to get into people’s brains. Give something complex a sticky name, and it becomes much more memorable than all the details. It turns into a shorthand that customers, investors or the media can refer to. That’s why we give new market categories a name when we practice strategic category design.

But we’ve found that it’s also impactful to name what we call a “villain” and a “thing.”

Defining the Problem: The Villain

Category design pushes companies to clearly and emotionally describe the problem they solve. The key is go deep, and really wallow in all the ways this problem causes pain or costs money. And then, consolidate all the points made about the problem by giving it a utilitarian yet attention-getting name.

Here’s a great and utterly familiar villain name: tooth decay. Yeah, it causes all kinds of problems, from toothaches to bad breath. But it all gets summed up in a phrase we all know. For a company, the villain is what the new category of product or service defeats. Tooth decay, in this case, gets defeated by the category of product called toothpaste. 

Other good villain names might include climate change, processed food or spam (as in the kind in your email inbox). Some of the great classic TV commercials teed up a villain name that could be fixed by a new product. One that comes to mind were the 1970s ads that tormented people with the idea that their clothes would have “ring around the collar.” The way to beat it? Wisk detergent. 

We worked with Israeli company Ripples, which makes a digitally connected machine that can download and print any kind of image on the tops of drinks such as a cappuccino or beer. Ripples created a category of “beverage-top media.” The villain? The “naked drink gap.” (Why would anyone want to serve a naked drink when it’s really an attention-getting space where a message can be delivered?)

The “Thing”: A Defining Feature

Once the villain has been named, there’s one other item that sometimes – though not always – gets identified and named in category design. We call it “the thing.” 

The thing is an idea, concept or feature that will be an integral part of the category, as defined by the rules set by the category winner. A thing is not the category itself, but something that makes the category special. For instance, when Apple set the dominant design for the smartphone category, a vital component of the category was a thing called the app store. The app store tag line, “there’s an app for that,” propelled the category to what we now know.

“Things” in Action

In our work with clients, maybe half the time an obvious thing arises from the POV sessions. 

While in a category design session with software company BigPanda, we landed on a thing called Level Ø Automation. 

BigPanda makes software that automatically sorts and prioritizes problems that come into the IT department, often at big data centers. Some of this automation has been done for years. When we worked with BigPanda, the company was taking that automation one step further: the AI-driven software could solve the simpler, less critical problems on its own. 

In our workshop, we got talking about the traditional prioritization levels of IT support that signaled how difficult the problem was. They were – still are – called L1, L2, L3 and so on. An L1 problem might be routed to a lower-level IT tech. If that person can’t fix it, it gets escalated to L2 – for a more experienced pro to handle. BigPanda’s new category of software was creating a new level of IT support before the old L1 – a level where problems get sorted by AI and either resolved or are escalated to the traditional human-based support levels. 

In the session, we chimed in to give it a name: LØ. That would be the new thing that would make the category special. To IT people, it is instantly understandable. It gave potential customers a clear way to understand BigPanda’s solution, and (like the app store) LØ helped distance BigPanda from a sea of competitors who were simply adding features to existing IT operations software. LØ became a strategic asset.

Another “thing” came into being as we worked with a startup called Twos. The company’s founders started out by creating a robust app for, as they called it, “writing things down.” Most of its early customers were using it to make to-do lists. Some used it to jot down random thoughts or other bits of information they wanted to remember.

But list-making apps were not a new or exciting category. Twos wanted to elevate itself out of that categorization and develop something different. The arrival of useful AI could make that possible. Twos could offer a way to make lists that take action. You write down something you want to buy, the AI deciphers it, and pops up a link where you can buy it. Write down a movie you want to see, and it finds where it’s playing or streaming and tells you. Together, we came up with a name for that thing: personal active lists, or PALs. 

For Twos, the PALs concept resonated so strongly with users that it elevated Twos beyond just a cool app and into a movement advocating for a simpler, more intentional way to manage life.

The Power of the Complete Package

Again, there’s not always a thing that plays a role in every new market category. But seeing and naming a thing can be a powerful way to set the rules for a category and easily communicate what’s special about it.

Put all these pieces together – a powerful, emotional POV narrative with a forward-leaning category name and maybe a sticky label for a villain and a thing – and a company has a foundation for everything else it will do. It has a story to tell itself about who we are, why we need to exist and flourish, and where we’re taking our customers. It has alignment around language – the terms and phrases that can be used in every kind of company communications. It has a guide for the product team, a guide for investor pitches, and a guide for what kind of talent to attract. 

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Want to talk about your Thing or discuss your Villain? Book an office hours session with damp and Kevin here.