When you're messaging for a product that doesn't fit into a category, is it better to utilize messaging that alludes to products they're familiar with to make it easier to digest or to be bold and describe it as something new?

What a great question! I've been a part of some of these 'category creator' products/services and your question is at the forefront of any work thats gone into shipping those products! I'm not sure there's a 100% right/wrong answer to this but in my experience it's really come down to how much brand cache you feel you have that can build/sustain something like building and creating a new category. We often here the examples such as Netflix, Uber, and AirBnB as changing the landscape of their industries but the reality is they didn't create net new categories..they evolved them! I think its important when creating these to be able to help the end customer be familiar with (a) category..while redefining it enough that they see it's quite different! For Airbnb (and I'm just making this up!) that might have been simply stating that one wants to book accomodation (easy, understandable etc) for an upcoming trip..BUT..maybe its nicer to stay in a home with creature comforts vs a stuffy hotel (the differentiator). So you've grounded the customer in something familiar and then giving yourself the platform to introduce them to doing it differently!

When messaging for a product that doesn't fit neatly into an existing category, the approach you take can significantly impact how your audience perceives and engages with your offering. Both utilizing familiar references and being bold with new descriptions have their merits, but the most effective strategy often depends on the specific context and nature of your product. I see this as two sides of the coin:

Anchoring on Known References: If your product has similarities to existing solutions but offers unique benefits, leveraging familiar references can help streamline explanations. It's a shortcut and the anchor will do some of the heavy lifting for you. Helps your audience understand where to bucket or categorize your product.

Emphasizing Disruption and Uniqueness: When your product represents a significant departure from existing solutions or creates a new market category, being bold with a disruptive description is essential. You still can anchor on the familiar to orient your audience, but you should be able to articulate your value in and of itself independent of references.

Best way to figure out the right path is to talk to customers and then test your way in.

It is a balance. At the core, you need to be bold and describe something new. You are doing something differently than the "old way" and you need to be assertive on why your way is best. You can allude to product they are familiar with as the "old way" to anchor the story.

For example:

Here is big problem

Here is how people were solving it for a long time

Here is how the problem evolved or how the old solution was bad

Here is my new awesome solution.

So you're basically category building -- that's both exciting and intimidating! Exciting because you are doing something ground breaking and you get to shape the narrative vs fit into an existing one. Intimidating because the burden of educating the market will fall on your shoulders, and that takes time, money, patience and a lot of feedback from the market to know if your message is resonating. Be humble and be prepared for lots of pivots as you test and learn. I wouldn't recommend dumbing down your positioning by aligning to something existing; it sounds like you have a unique opportunity on your hands.

I've recommended April Dunford's a few times in this AMA, and if you haven't read Obviously Awesome, run out and get it. It's a quick read and a great tool. I've used it to help me with product positioning for a more mature product and category, but I think it's probably even more helpful for the use case you're in.

When it truly unique, I prefer to go bold. Being able to say you're first is such an asset and is always my preference when it comes to product features because they have an impact beyond within the product—something new can drive press which can be incredibly impactful. Make the description clear, but don't shy away from the fact that you're offering something no one else has.

Love this question. But I don’t want to conflate messaging with positioning. Your positioning is who the product is for, what need it addresses, and how. Messaging is the words on a page you use to describe those things in public-facing mediums.

So even if your product doesn’t have a category name, the pain it solves and who it solves that pain for should already be something well-understood. The language you choose should be well aligned with both. Comparison can help if your product was built to fill a gap in existing tools—but it can also box you in based on the comparison tools capabilities. If you’re like a CRM for engineering team, but also do “other stuff”—that analogy in your messaging could do you more harm than good.