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Category creation is more than naming a market position. Bernd Leger, Charles Groome, and Jakki Geiger explain how a customer problem, executive commitment, analyst participation, internal education, and sustained investment can turn a claim into a recognized category. Their experiences reveal what companies may need to prove before asking the market to adopt something new.
A new phrase on a website does not automatically create a category. A category becomes meaningful when buyers recognize the problem, analysts understand the market, competitors participate, and the company can support the promise.
In a CMO Huddles Studio conversation, Bernd Leger, then CMO of Cornerstone OnDemand, Charles Groome, then a marketing leader at Biz2Credit, and Jakki Geiger, now CMO of Arango, discussed the discipline behind category creation.
Bernd described how Cornerstone moved from learning and talent management toward “workforce agility.” The work began with what the company called the workforce readiness gap, not with the category name itself.
That sequence matters. A category narrative gains relevance when it gives buyers language for a problem they already experience or an important change they can clearly recognize.
The problem also needs meaningful consequences. Without urgency, business impact, or a different buying decision, the category may remain an interesting phrase rather than an active market.
Bernd framed the effort as an organizational transformation:
“This is not a marketing exercise. This has to be a change management company exercise with true support from the CEO and the leadership team.”
Executive support gives the category a chance to shape investment and operating decisions. Without that commitment, the company risks promoting a promise that its product and customer experience do not consistently deliver.
Jakki brought the decision back to the potential size of the prize:
“When you’re creating a new category, you have to check your marketing ego at the door and really listen in to your customer all the time.”
Customer interviews can reveal whether the proposed category clarifies the problem or creates more work for the buyer. They can also show which parts of the narrative feel distinctive and which sound disconnected from existing priorities.
A company may lead a category, but it cannot be the only party recognizing it. Analysts, customers, media, partners, and eventual competitors help establish whether the market is real.
Cornerstone involved employees, customers, an executive advisory council, and analysts in developing the workforce agility concept. Bernd acknowledged that recognition could take years rather than arriving at launch.
The market may provide signals such as:
Category creation requires education, repetition, operational change, and sustained investment. It may not be the right growth strategy for every company.
“There’s no point in doing it if you can’t be number one. There’s a ton of heavy lift, time and effort.”
A company may find greater value in differentiating within an established category. The central question is whether creating a new market frame provides enough strategic advantage to justify the time and organizational effort.
It is the process of establishing a recognized market around a distinct problem, approach, or solution.
A company can introduce and lead the idea, but broader recognition from buyers, analysts, partners, and competitors helps make it a category.
Recognition may take years because the work includes market education, internal alignment, product delivery, and external validation.
No. Strong differentiation within an established category may be more credible, efficient, and useful to buyers.
Listen to the full category creation conversation.
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