Most GTM leaders today are trying to reverse engineer revenue by staring at dashboards and hoping the numbers reveal a blueprint for growth.

They run correlations. They hunt for attribution. They squint at lag metrics.

They tell themselves:

 “If A moves, and B moves, then A must cause B.”

 It’s the modern equivalent of:

 “My knee creaked, therefore it will rain.”

 But nature doesn’t work like that. Markets don’t work like that.

Meaning doesn’t work like that. And category DEFINITELY doesn’t work like that.

 Because brand is correlative, but category is causal.

 Revenue correlations are nice to have. But causal architecture is a must-have.

 Let’s go deeper.

 1. The Four Layers of Market Reality

In GTM we confuse four things constantly:

1. Category → The causal structure of meaning

2. Brand → The correlative flavor of meaning

3. Content → The activity surface of meaning

4. Pipeline → The measurable outcome of meaning

   When people conflate these layers, they produce flawed thinking like:

• “Brand drives pipeline”

• “More content = more demand”

• “SOV proves brand strength”

• “Downloads validate brand strategy”

These are correlation loops, not causal arcs. A correlation loop says:

 These two things move together.

 A causal arc says: This force shapes reality and everything downstream of it.

Nature has causal arcs. Markets also have causal arcs. But most GTM teams confuse the two.

 2. Brand is Correlative

Brand is powerful. Brand strengthens:

• memory

• emotional imprint

• trust

• recall

• recognition

Brand influences the probability of revenue. But it does not determine revenue.

Brand lives in the mind. Category lives in the market.

Brand shifts preference. Category shifts physics.

Brand is the weather. Category is the climate.

Brand can “help.” Category inevitably pulls.

Brand = correlative. Category = causal.

Confusing the two is the root of most GTM delusion.

3. Category Sits On The Causal Arc 

Category determines:

• how people think

• what problem feels real

• what solution feels legitimate

• what budget becomes available

• who the buyer becomes through adoption

• what the value narrative will be

• how the market allocates attention

• what meaning is attached to the product

• what alternatives are considered relevant

• what the market sees as “the way the world should work”

Category is not flavor. It is physics. When you shift the category, you shift:

• causality

• inevitability

• memory formation

• budget formation

• buyer identity

• worldview

Category is the gravitational mass. Brand is the color of the planet.

Category makes revenue inevitable. Brand makes revenue probable.

That is the difference.

4. Why Correlation Worship Fails.

Modern GTM teams confuse “movement” with “meaning.”

Example:

 “Share of Voice goes up → pipeline goes up → therefore brand drives pipeline.”

 This is as flawed as saying:

 “I jumped, I landed, therefore gravity comes from my legs.”

Or:

 “My knee creaked → therefore rain is caused by joint tension.”

 It’s superstition disguised as science. Correlation without causal architecture is noise.

Correlation inside a causal arc is signal.

But people skip the causal arc entirely and jump straight into:

• dashboards

• trendlines

• lag metrics

• uplift modeling

Revenue correlations are useful. But they do not explain the world. Only causality explains the world.

5. What Nature Teaches Us About Causality

Nature does not say:

“Gravity works because you walked today.”

 Nature says:

 “Gravity is a universal law that operates independent of your activity.”

 Nature does not say:

 “The sun rises because you meditated at 6am.”

 Nature says:

 “Orbital mechanics don’t care about your schedule.”

 Nature does not say:

 “Rain falls because your knee creaked.”

 Nature says:

 “Thermodynamics governs precipitation.

Your knee is responding to pressure, not causing weather.”

When GTM teams confuse correlation with causation, they’re basically doing:

 GTM knee-forecasting instead of revenue physics.

Category is the thermodynamics. Brand is the humidity.

Content is the wind. Only one of these determines the weather.

6. Brand Works Inside Category, Not Above It

Brand strengthens:

• trust

• recall

• confidence

• familiarity

But brand cannot override the category.

Examples:

• A brilliant Blockbuster brand could not save the DVD rental category once streaming became the causal arc.

• Kodak’s brand strength could not override the digital photography category.

• Blackberry’s brand power could not overcome the touchscreen smartphone category.

7. The GTM Rule Most Leaders Forget.

 Revenue follows causality, not correlation.

 Brand correlations are:

• supportive

• helpful

• promotive

• confidence-boosting

But they are NOT:

• origin points

• causal triggers

• inevitable forces

• foundational shifts

The market moves when the category changes. Not when a brand becomes louder. Revenue correlation is nice to have. Causal architecture is a must-have.

Market Cap: The Market’s Proof of Causality

Most people think Apple’s trillion-dollar market cap comes from its brand.

They imagine it’s the emotional loyalty, the design aesthetic, the store experience, the “warm and fuzzy” halo effect. That’s correlation.

Here’s the actual causal engine:

Market cap is the market’s scoreboard of belief that a company can continue to be a causal origin point.

Investors don’t pay for nostalgia or sentiment. They pay for control over the future, and category creators are the only companies that have it.

Brand reflects affection. Market cap reflects dominance.

Brand tells you people like the company. Market cap tells you the company defines the market.

Apple isn’t valued at $4 trillion+ because of its advertising. It’s valued at $3 trillion because:

• it defined the smartphone category

• it defined the mobile computing category

• it defined the app ecosystem category

• it defined the wearables category

• it defined the consumer health category

• it controls a vertically integrated hardware-software platform no one else can replicate

Category supremacy → investor certainty → massive market cap. Brand didn’t cause the valuation; category power did.

If “brand” were the engine, then Disney, Rolex, Coca-Cola, and Louis Vuitton would all be trillion-dollar companies. They aren’t.

Why? Because brand doesn’t create market cap, category leadership does.

Market cap is not a brand metric. Market cap is a category metric.

It is the purest expression of the market saying:

Brand amplifies within the category. But only category creates the gravitational pull that investors reward with valuation.

Once you understand this, everything else becomes obvious:

• Strong brand + weak category = collapse (Blockbuster, BlackBerry, Hertz)

• Strong category + weak brand = still growing (Zoom early years)

• Strong category + strong brand = dominance (Apple, Tesla, Amazon AWS, Microsoft)

Brand is correlation. Category is causation. Market cap is the proof.

Summary

 Let’s put it plainly:

• Category = Causal meaning 

• Brand = Correlative meaning

• Content = Accelerated meaning

• Pipeline = Realized meaning

Brand strengthens the signal. Category reshapes the system.

Brand is what people remember. Category is what people believe.

Brand helps you go faster. Category changes the direction of the entire market.

This is why the deepest truth in GTM remains:

• Correlation may or may not numbers.

•  Causality moves markets.

And if you’re not designing the causal arc?

You’re forecasting the rain by listening to your knee.

So yes you can MMM the heck out of this but if its not on the causal arc its not a must have it’s a nice to have.

Because as nature teaches us if something is on the causal arc the results are self-evident. If its not well then we create a category called attribution (oh the irony).

If brand could outrun causality, the dinosaurs would’ve survived the asteroid.

But even 160 million years of dominance can’t save you when the category itself goes extinct.