Renegade Marketing

Why do most marketing campaigns fail to connect or make an impact—even when budgets are big and creative talent is top-notch? In Renegade Marketing: 12 Steps to Building Unbeatable B2B Brands, Drew Neisser argues that business-to-business (B2B) marketing has become bloated, overcomplicated, and out of touch with what truly matters. His central claim is that effective marketing requires courage, creativity, empathy, and discipline—the courage to cut through clutter; the creativity to stand apart; the thoughtfulness to prioritize employees and customers; and the scientific rigor to measure what matters.

Neisser distills insights from hundreds of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) into a clear and pragmatic framework he calls CATS: be Courageous, Artful, Thoughtful, and Scientific. Within this structure, he explains twelve actionable steps that any marketer can adopt to build impactful, purpose-driven brands without losing their soul or their sanity.

The Four Traits of a Renegade Marketer

Each letter in the CATS acronym captures an essential dimension of modern marketing leadership. Courageous strategy means aligning your brand behind a purpose worth believing in while cutting unnecessary complexity. Artful ideation emphasizes storytelling, design, and creativity as organizational—not just marketing—tools. Thoughtful execution prompts companies to engage employees first, then empower customers to become advocates. Finally, Scientific method underscores the importance of measurement, automation, and experimentation guided by disciplined curiosity. These traits combine to empower marketers to challenge norms and lead meaningful change, both inside their organizations and within the markets they serve.

Neisser argues that today’s B2B marketers must stop chasing shiny objects—tech tools, jargon, endless campaigns—and instead rediscover the fundamentals of clarity and humanity. Courageous simplicity, he insists, is the most radical act a marketer can commit.

Why Marketing Needs a Revolution

The problem Neisser identifies is that B2B marketing has become a tangled mess of tactics detached from strategy. CMOs, often under immense pressure from results-driven CEOs, churn through roles without leaving meaningful impact. Neisser points to research showing that 80% of CEOs don’t fully trust their CMOs, and tenure averages only a few years. In this climate, marketing leaders default to complexity and conformity rather than courage and creativity.

Instead, Renegade Marketing reframes marketing around purpose and clarity. You can simplify your work by cutting away the nonessential. You can stand out by focusing on a distinctive story. And you can build loyalty by delivering on promises through service. Neisser’s book teaches how to become not just a marketer of products, but a leader of organizational change—a “renegade” who puts meaning ahead of metrics while still driving measurable growth.

From Courage to Science: A 12-Step Journey

The book unfolds in four parts, each corresponding to a step along the CATS journey. In Part I: Courageous Strategy, you clear away unnecessary clutter, dare to be distinct, and define your brand’s purpose. Drawing from stories like Panasonic’s Toughbook (a laptop literally run over by a Hummer on live television) and Arrow Electronics’s “Five Years Out” campaign, Neisser shows how risk-taking pays off when guided by clarity and conviction.

Part II: Artful Ideation emphasizes collaboration and creative focus. You learn to “Welcome We” by involving your team early, “Perfect Pithy” by distilling your story to eight words or fewer (such as Case Paper’s witty “On the Case”), and “Delight by Design” by embracing aesthetics and brand voice consistency.

Part III: Thoughtful Execution focuses on internal and external behavior: engage employees first, cultivate customer champions, and sell through genuine service rather than sales chatter. Neisser highlights how companies like Deloitte, ParkMobile, and State Street Global Advisors transformed marketing by engaging hearts and minds before launching campaigns.

Part IV: Scientific Method reinforces analytical discipline. Effective marketing blends measurable experimentation with human empathy—measuring the right things, automating smartly, and fostering a culture of perpetual testing. Through stories from CMOs like Eric Eden and Nathan Rawlins, Neisser demonstrates how balance between creativity and analytics leads to sustainable growth.

Why It Matters

Ultimately, Renegade Marketing is an antidote to burnout and cynicism in modern business life. It rejects the idea that marketing is about pushing products or chasing quarterly quotas. Instead, Neisser reframes marketing as leadership—a call to inspire both customers and employees to embrace change and purpose. His playbook invites CMOs to stop seeking perfection and instead adopt courage, simplicity, and creativity as daily practices.

“Renegade marketers don’t just think differently—they inspire others to act differently.”

By the time you finish the book, you don’t just understand what it means to be a CMO—you understand what it means to be a change agent. Whether leading a start-up or a global enterprise, Neisser’s message rings clear: courage and clarity are the ultimate marketing superpowers.

Neisser begins the first phase—Courageous Strategy—by zooming in on the fundamental challenge of modern marketing: complexity. Most marketers are drowning in ideas, tools, and tasks. In Chapter 1, aptly titled “Clear Away the Clutter,” he compares today’s digital chaos to an overflowing closet. We’ve added tool after tool, channel after channel, until we can no longer tell what really matters.

The solution, Neisser insists, is radical simplification. Like the organizational expert Marie Kondo, he invites you to declutter not just your office or MarTech stack, but your entire marketing mindset. Great marketers, he argues, focus relentlessly on a few strategic priorities that bring real joy—and real results.

The Power of Simplicity

To illustrate, Neisser shares the story of David Friend, a serial entrepreneur whose company Wasabi took on Amazon Web Services with a shockingly simple promise: faster and cheaper cloud storage. Friend taught students to write their brand promise as if it were billboard copy—eight words or fewer. His company name, “Wasabi,” matched the product’s heat and clarity.

It’s an example of courage through simplicity. Rather than dressing his brand up with jargon, Friend cleared away noise and won loyalty through clarity. Simplicity isn’t naïve; it’s strategic sophistication, achieved only by fully understanding complexity and then conquering it, as Steve Jobs described in Apple’s famous mantra: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

The Costs of Complexity

Neisser’s research shows that in most organizations, complexity doesn’t make marketing more effective—it dilutes it. In surveys of over 200 CMOs, 85% said marketing had become more complicated in recent years, but only a fraction felt it had become more effective. Many couldn’t summarize their brand story in a single sentence, and only 38% believed their messaging was distinct from competitors. The data revealed an uneasy truth: activity doesn’t equal effectiveness.

The key, Neisser says, is ruthless prioritization. Say no to projects, audiences, or technologies that don’t advance your core mission. Delegate what can be done by others and carve out time for deep, creative thought. As he writes, “In a time-constrained world, focus is your only friend.”

Focus as a Superpower

Decluttering isn’t about doing less for the sake of efficiency—it’s about doing fewer things extraordinarily well. Using examples from Panasonic’s Toughbook launch—a risky live demo that put a laptop under a Hummer’s tires—Neisser shows how focusing on one bold idea can power immense success. The campaign distilled purpose (showing the ruggedness of the laptop) into a single unforgettable act of courage. That clarity helped Toughbook become a $500 million brand.

“Out with complexity. In with focus.”

Neisser encourages marketers to craft a “Clutter Pledge,” committing to fewer strategic goals, courage to say no, and dedicated time for big-picture thinking. This pledge becomes both a practical tool and a philosophical stance: the discipline of subtraction in a world obsessed with addition.

Once you’ve decluttered, you must stand apart. In “Dare to Be Distinct,” Neisser urges marketers to resist conformity—the enemy of originality. Differentiation isn’t just a branding concept; it’s an act of courage. To win in B2B markets crowded with lookalike messages, you must define a unique position and stick to it, even when it means saying no to the masses.

From Better to Different

Neisser reminds readers that being different beats being better. Drawing from Caroline Tien-Spalding of Aptology, he explains how distinctiveness creates a gravitational pull around your brand. Trying to out-engineer or outspend competitors leads to an endless arms race, while being distinct gives you something that lasts longer than technological advantage: emotional clarity.

He illustrates this through a fascinating story about JMPB Enterprises, a New York construction company that decided to specialize only in hallway renovations for co-ops and condos. This narrow niche allowed them to dominate their field, winning 70% of pitches and commanding premium prices. By daring to say no to other work, they became the only logical choice for a specific need. Their courage to narrow was their power to grow.

Category Creation and Corporate Courage

Some brands take distinctiveness even further by creating their own categories. Neisser highlights leaders like Scott Brazina (Impact) and HubSpot (with “inbound marketing”), who build entire industries around new ideas. Category creators don’t just compete within existing markets—they redefine them. This strategy requires audacity, deep customer insight, and close coordination between marketing, product, and leadership.

Yet, as Neisser notes wryly, “It’s not really a category until you have competitors.” True distinctiveness attracts imitation, so a company must continually innovate to stay recognizable—visually, verbally, and emotionally. As the Arrow Electronics story demonstrates, bold ideas can humanize even the most technical fields. Their “Five Years Out” campaign, showcasing ex-racer Sam Schmidt driving a semi-autonomous car despite paralysis, transformed Arrow from a parts supplier into a symbol of human innovation.

Distinctiveness isn’t a marketing tactic—it’s an organizational truth that runs from product to purpose.

By daring to be distinct, you evolve from being a vendor to a visionary. The best marketers, Neisser insists, don’t just advertise—they alter perception.

In Chapter 3, Neisser takes the next bold leap: connecting distinctiveness with purpose. Great brands, he argues, must stand for something bigger than themselves. Purpose isn’t just a tagline; it’s the moral compass of the entire organization. And in B2B marketing, where products can feel abstract, anchoring identity in purpose drives both profit and pride.

Big “P” and Little “p” Purpose

Neisser distinguishes between two kinds of purpose. Big-P Purpose means taking on a social mission—like Ben & Jerry’s activism or Patagonia’s environmental passion. Little-p purpose focuses more on your product’s role in improving customers’ lives. For example, Panasonic’s “Toughbook” embraced a little-p purpose—protecting mission-critical work—but executed it with big-P conviction. Whether your purpose is saving the world or saving someone’s day, the key is authenticity and follow-through.

Neisser cites State Street Global Advisors’ ‘Fearless Girl’ statue as an emblem of purpose done right. The sculpture, representing female empowerment in finance, became a viral global symbol and literally changed corporate boardrooms by prompting companies to add women directors. Yet State Street also faced internal reckonings—and improved diversity as a result. Purpose works when it forces real action.

Courage with Consequence

The most authentic purpose-driven brands make bold decisions that back up their promises—sometimes at a financial cost. Bank of the West, under CMO Ben Stuart, stopped financing coal plants and other environmentally damaging industries. They literally divested a billion dollars to stay aligned with their values. The result: a sharper brand identity and stronger resonance with sustainability-conscious customers. As Michael Porter famously said, “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”

Purpose also empowers internal culture. Companies like Utak Labs adopted a unifying identity, calling themselves “Control Freaks” to express an obsession with quality. This “story statement” reshaped everything from packaging design to employee recognition, turning obsessive precision into a badge of pride. Purpose, when pounced upon, becomes contagious.

“You don’t have to save the planet—but you must make a meaningful promise and then keep it.”

Whether you embody big-P altruism or small-p focus, what matters is alignment: every employee, product, and message must reflect why you exist. Without that consistency, “purpose” becomes posturing. Pouncing on purpose, therefore, demands courage—to stick with it and make it real.

Marketing success in isolation is impossible. In “Welcome We,” Neisser insists that marketers replace ego with empathy. The most effective CMOs don’t seek credit—they seek alignment. They co-create vision with HR, finance, and sales; involve employees early; and measure success collectively. Marketing isn’t a solo performance—it’s a team sport.

From Me to We

Neisser showcases CMOs like Dara Royer of Mercy Corps, who turned budget constraints into strengths by training field employees to conduct brand research themselves. This not only saved money but built buy-in throughout the global nonprofit. When the rebrand launched, everyone felt ownership because they had literally helped create it. Similarly, Aetna’s David Edelman proved that powerful messaging requires internal consensus. His “You don’t join us. We join you.” campaign only worked after six months of cross-departmental workshops anchored in empathy.

Building Internal Alignment

Practical steps include befriending your Human Resources leader (to align on employee engagement), your CFO (to agree on measurement), and your Head of Sales (to coordinate real-world insights). Internal collaboration turns branding from an aesthetic task into an organizational transformation. CMOs who adopt this approach, like Kathy Button Bell at Emerson Electric, enjoy extraordinary longevity—over two decades in Bell’s case—because they act as “cogs” driving company culture rather than isolated storytellers.

“Anything is possible if you don’t care who gets the credit.” – John Costello

Ultimately, “Welcome We” reframes leadership as facilitation rather than domination. By engaging others in co-creation—from research to rollout—you turn marketing from a department into a communal mission.

Few marketers can explain their brand in a single breath. Neisser challenges you to do exactly that. In “Perfect Pithy,” he reveals the art of crafting a brand story so clear it guides every decision. A purpose-driven story statement—under eight words—acts as your North Star, uniting employees and customers behind one memorable truth.

He contrasts a missed opportunity—Family Circle magazine’s unused “Where Family Comes First”—with a triumph: Case Paper’s “On the Case.” The latter galvanized internal culture, redesigned the company logo, inspired humor in communications, and even became a recognition program for employees who go above and beyond. A short phrase became an operating system.

The Process of Distillation

Through vivid examples from SurveyMonkey (“Power the Curious”) and NI (“Engineer Ambitiously”), Neisser demonstrates that brevity doesn’t mean oversimplification—it means essence. The best statements clarify what you do (the what), how you do it (the how), and why it matters (the why). Lindsey Pedersen’s nine criteria for great brand promises—big yet narrow, empathetic, functional yet emotional, sharp-edged, and deliverable—become the benchmark for excellence.

Crafting your story requires both introspection and iteration. You explore customer insights, simplify messages, eliminate unnecessary sub-brands, and synthesize data into a statement that any employee can recite with pride. Your story should feel both inevitable and inspiring—the line you could only have written after understanding everything.

“If it takes more than eight words to explain your brand, keep editing.”

A perfect pithy statement is more than marketing copy—it’s the soul of your organization, expressed simply enough to stick.

Marketers often focus outward, but Neisser warns that the real transformation begins within. Chapter 7, “Engage Employees First,” argues that if employees don’t believe your brand promise, no one else will. Before you launch campaigns, you must align, inspire, and educate the team that represents your brand every day.

Internal Buy-In Before External Buzz

Neisser shares how brands like Acoustic and Deloitte used marketing to build internal cohesion. When IBM spun off its marketing tech division as Acoustic, new CMO Norman Guadagno partnered with HR to host global virtual meetings that unified employees around a common identity—“Marketing technology reimagined.” Similarly, Deloitte’s Diana O’Brien created Deloitte University to train consultants in empathy, storytelling, and leadership, proving that brand begins with people.

Engagement also protects resilience: during the pandemic, companies like ParkMobile kept morale high through newsletters, innovation contests, and humor even as business halted. Engaged teams, Neisser notes, recover faster, create better service, and project authenticity customers can feel.

Measure What Matters Internally

Renegade marketers back internal engagement with data. Employee surveys, open feedback, and metrics like eNPS (employee net promoter score) track pride and alignment. Simple questions—“How easy is it to explain what we do?” or “What four words describe our culture?”—reveal blind spots and spark dialogue. As AppsFlyer’s Ran Avrahamy teaches, pride, not perks, is the ultimate indicator of engagement: “It’s about identifying with values and feeling love for colleagues.”

“Employees make your promise real.”

When employees understand and live your story, they become your strongest advocates, customer experience improves, and recruiting costs drop. True marketing starts at home.

In the final stages of execution, Neisser declares a timeless truth: the best marketing doesn’t just tell—it helps. In “Sell Through Service,” he builds on Benjamin Franklin’s adage, “Well done is better than well said.” To cut through skepticism, you must give before you get—share insights, resources, and tools that make your audience’s life easier.

Marketing as a Service

American Express’s Small Business Saturday exemplifies this principle. What began as a campaign to support local retailers became an enduring movement that generated $143 billion in spending over a decade. Neisser’s own company, during the pandemic, created CMO Huddles—free peer-support meetings that later grew into a thriving community. Both illustrate that authentic service converts attention into loyalty.

To implement this mindset, start by mapping your buyers’ challenges, then anticipate and answer their questions before they ask. Provide tools that simplify decision-making: ROI calculators, research reports, and unbiased category guides. Brent Adamson, coauthor of The Challenger Sale, calls this “making buying easier.” When you reduce friction, you create trust—and trust leads to sales.

The Give-to-Get Economy

Examples abound: Tungsten Network’s “Friction Finder” offered a free diagnostic tool that generated leads while helping customers. Park Place Technologies lived its story—“All About Uptime”—by developing predictive AI to prevent server failures, demonstrating its promise in action. Even creative stunts like HSBC’s “BankCab” campaign proved service-minded marketing can entertain and inform simultaneously.

“The less we try to sell with our marketing, the more we seem to sell.”

Selling through service transforms marketing from noise into a gift. In a world tired of being sold to, generosity becomes your greatest differentiator.

The Scientific side of CATS closes the loop between inspiration and evidence. Creativity without data is guesswork; data without creativity is lifeless. Neisser’s final chapters—“Measure What Matters,” “Automate Attentively,” and “Test to Triumph”—show how scientific discipline fuels sustained innovation.

Measure What Matters

Many CMOs measure what’s easy, not what’s important. Neisser advises aligning your metrics with your CEO and CFO to ensure marketing isn’t a mystery. He emphasizes three categories: employee engagement (are teams aligned?), customer advocacy (are they renewing and referring?), and brand health (are you known, liked, and trusted?). From NPS scores to lifetime value ratios, the key is to track fewer, smarter indicators that link activity to the bottom line.

Automate Attentively

Marketing technology, or MarTech, can either accelerate or smother creativity. Neisser cautions against over-investing in tools without staff to manage them. As CMO Eric Eden notes, every dollar spent on software demands three in staffing. Keep tech costs below 10% of your budget and conduct regular audits to ensure everything adds value. Automation should deepen relationships, not depersonalize them.

Test to Triumph

Finally, experimentation sustains relevance. Neisser urges reserving 10–20% of the marketing budget for experiments—trying new media, experiences, or programs. Trish Mueller of Home Depot encouraged a “Big Swing” award for courageous innovation, celebrating lessons learned even from failure. Modern marketers must treat every campaign as a living lab, with curiosity as their compass. “Rinse and repeat” becomes the mantra for perpetual growth.

“The biggest risk in marketing is not taking one.”

From courage to curiosity, Neisser’s final message is clear: think like a scientist, act like an artist, and lead like a human. Test to triumph—and let creativity and data dance together.