OUTTHINK. OUTPOSITION. OUTLAST.
OUTBRAND
Better Gets You Compared.
Distinct Gets You Chosen.
OUTBRAND gives leaders 15 essential marketing principles for making sharper choices, building positions competitors cannot easily take, and creating work people remember, trust, and choose.
In a world where tools make average easier to produce, judgment becomes the advantage.
From Chris Aarons, Wall Street Journal and Amazon bestselling co-author of The Digital Helix, award-winning University of Texas McCombs School of Business professor, and advisor to teams at leading brands and startups.
Preorders include free OUTBRAND Workbook companion tool for applying the 15 principles.
Published by Wiley.
Due out September 2026.
Marketing Has a Strategy Problem Disguised as an Output Problem.
THE PROBLEM
OUTBRAND is a 15-principle decision system for better marketing under pressure. It helps leaders make sharper choices about positioning, customers, emotion, proof, content, and growth, especially when speed, tools, dashboards, and internal pressure pull teams toward average.
The ideas behind great marketing are scattered across decades of books, research, client work, classrooms, and practitioner conversations. OUTBRAND sequences them into one system your team can run, so you reach the sharper move before the obvious one wins.
THE POINT OF VIEW
The Thinking Behind OUTBRAND.
AI made average free. Average is now the most expensive choice.
PRINCIPLES 1–5
You can't get different results thinking the same way as everyone else. AI hands every marketer the same average answer. Strategy is the set of choices the tools cannot make for you.
PRINCIPLES 6–10
The goal is not to be slightly better. It is to own a position competitors cannot or will not take. Only beats best.
Outthink the Category.
Outposition the Competition.
PRINCIPLES 11–15
Outlast the Trend.
Tactics get copied the day they work. Trust compounds for years. The last five principles build the trust that holds when the trend moves on.
AI can copy tactics. It cannot copy conviction.
INSIDE THE BOOK
About OUTBRAND
OUTBRAND is not a tactics book.
Tactics expire. Platforms change. Best practices get copied. OUTBRAND gives marketers and leaders 15 decision principles they can use when the answer is not obvious, the pressure is high, and the safe choice will make the brand easier to ignore.
Each principle helps your team make sharper calls about customers, positioning, emotion, proof, content, channels, and growth.
OUTBRAND answers the questions That average marketing avoids.
How Each Principle Works
What position can we own that rivals cannot or will not take?
1
The shift
The contrarian call most teams miss, in one line.
What should we refuse to copy?
2
The proof
The research and numbers behind it.
What proof will make the market believe us?
3
What worked
A brand that lived the principle and won.
What do we protect when pressure pushes us toward the generic middle?
4
What failed
A brand that ignored it and paid.
5
The tool
The questions to run the principle on your own work.
Fifteen principles. One system your team can run the week it arrives.
Tactics expire. Algorithms change. Platforms evolve.
Principles Live On.
The strategist behind OUTBRAND.
ABOUT CHRIS AARONS
Chris Aarons is a marketing strategist, author, and a professor at the University of Texas McCombs school of business. He helps leaders make sharper marketing decisions, build positions competitors cannot easily take, and stop confusing more activity with better strategy.
Across three decades of work with leaders at Microsoft, Amazon, Adobe, Coca-Cola, HP, Cisco, and USAA, Chris kept seeing the same pattern: Smart teams with real budgets still produced average marketing because they lacked a decision system under pressure.
Proof
Earned in the Field.
Proven in the Classroom.
30 Years
Advising leaders, challengers, and Fortune 500 teams.
6x Teaching Awards
Undergraduate, MBA and Executive teaching award winner.
20+ Marketing Awards
Effectiveness awards for client campaigns.
Bestselling Author
WSJ and Amazon Bestselling Author
Co-author of The Digital Helix.
"Helped our company grow from a $5 million-a-year startup to a $150 million-a-month powerhouse. When it comes to strategic thinking and finding innovative ideas, Chris is one of the best around."
Morris Miller, CEO of Xenex, formerly CEO of Rackspace.
"Chris generated a tremendous amount of customer insights and packaged them into actionable tools that helped us close more business than any other sales enablement initiative."
Andre Chernih, Amazon.
"He tightened the connection between sales and marketing, resulting in more conversions and revenue, and brought the thought leadership we needed to cut through a crowded market."
Jason Denzin, Actian
$5M Startup to $150M a Month Business
Delivered More Business Than Any Other Initiative
MORE CONVERSIONS, MORE REVENUE, REAL CUT-THROUGH
HirED ACROSS THREE COMPANIES
"I have engaged Chris at three companies on critically strategic projects. Particularly impressed by his ability to analyze information, define the right approach, and deliver the best results for an organization."
Kelly Hirner, DXC Technology
Keynotes & Speaking
New Ways Of Thinking
Delivered in the Room.
Chris Aarons has spent three decades at the intersection of psychology and marketing effectiveness. His keynotes move teams away from tactical fatigue and back to the core principles that build defensible brands.
Available for corporate leadership summits, marketing conferences, and executive workshops. Chris delivers mindsets and frameworks that survive the proliferation of AI and average marketing.
In-Demand Keynotes
Keynotes That Change How Teams Decide.
OUTBRAND: How leaders build a decision system that eliminates mediocre marketing before it ships.
Escaping the Efficiency Trap: How smart organizations make more work and still become easier to ignore.
Decision Razors: How leaders make better calls when every option is imperfect.
Every talk is built around your industry, your audience, and the specific challenges in the room.
Advisory
The Book Is the System.
Advisory Work Is How Teams Apply It.
Chris works with leaders who need sharper positioning, stronger customer insight, tighter sales and marketing alignment, and a clearer way to decide what deserves to ship.
Positioning Pressure Test
Clarify the position you can own, the claims to stop making, and the proof the market needs to believe you.
Customer and Message Strategy
Find the moments, motives, objections, and proof points that move buyers from interest to action.
Marketing Decision System
Turn OUTBRAND principles into rules your team uses to judge campaigns, content, channels, and sales enablement.
BULK ORDERS
Bring OUTBRAND to the Whole Team.
Order in volume and your team gets the full system, plus time with Chris.
TEAM
5–24 copies
The full Companion Pack,
plus a 30-minute group strategy call.
Built for organizations
ORGANIZATION
25+ copies
The full Companion Pack,
plus a 90-minute working session.
The Principle Preview
Get the OUTBRAND Preview
Get the 3-Principle OUTBRAND Preview
A practical look at three principles from the book, with questions you can use to pressure-test your own marketing before it ships.
Preorders include free OUTBRAND Workbook companion tool for applying the 15 principles.