Please Stop Lumping Product Marketing in with Brand

Even within marketing teams, product marketing is often very misunderstood.

Ask ten marketers what a product marketer does, and you’ll likely get ten different answers,  especially from those who haven’t done the job themselves. Despite the explosion of certifications, training programs, and communities, the role remains elusive. And that confusion doesn’t just come from sales or engineering or leadership. It exists inside our own function.

This lack of clarity isn’t just frustrating. It’s limiting. It leads to misaligned hires, mismatched expectations, under-leveraged talent, and product marketers being left out of the strategic conversations where they could have the biggest impact. 

I’ve felt this throughout my career, but a recent moment reinforced this disconnect for me. I was filling out a lead form for a marketing newsletter, and the dropdown asking for my role offered only one relevant option: “Brand, Product, and Services Marketing.” All grouped together. That single line, meant to “personalize” my experience, erased the very differences between these specialized disciplines that drive value in very distinct ways.

It was a small moment, but it illustrated a much bigger problem: product marketing is still being conflated with brand marketing. And this has to stop. 

Brand Marketing vs. Product Marketing

Let’s be fair: the lines aren’t always black and white. In fact, brand and product marketing have grown more similar in a few key ways:

• Customer-Centric Storytelling: Both functions now focus on storytelling that places the customer not the company at the center. The line between brand promise and product value has blurred.

• Strategic Alignment: Brand and product marketing increasingly collaborate to ensure that the product experience delivers on the brand promise.

• Customer Journey: Brand marketers are no longer confined to top-of-funnel awareness, and product marketers now shape perception earlier in the buying journey.

But despite these areas of overlap, there are still fundamental differences, and it’s critical that our peers and leadership understand them. So I’ve broken it down the way my brain works best: in a table. 

And for those of you who prefer pretty pictures: 

Enterprise Product Marketers: An Overlooked Tribe

For those of us in B2B product marketing, the misunderstanding runs even deeper.

Enterprise PMMs are responsible for stitching together positioning, enablement, competitive insights, market intelligence, and launch strategy all while translating deeply technical products into clear, compelling narratives. We’re embedded across sales, product, and customer success. And we’re expected to influence revenue and roadmap.

Yet most of the training content out there (yes, even Product Marketing Alliance) still assumes a B2C, CPG-style environment where launches are campaign-led, and product stories are simple.

As a result, many enterprise product marketers are left to build their own playbooks, evangelize their role in every meeting, and justify their existence to peers who simply don’t understand what they do or why it matters. And until you’ve done it a few (dozen…hundred) times, it’s a daunting experience. 

Why does this matter? 

Look. It’s not about protecting a title. It’s about setting teams and businesses up to succeed. Think about it: 

• When you don’t understand what product marketing does, you can’t hire the right person. You don’t know what skills to look for, what interview questions to ask, etc. 

• When you conflate brand and product, you risk giving someone the wrong mandate. Asking someone to do something they either don’t have the skills for or don’t enjoy is a recipe for disaster.

• When you overlook product marketing’s strategic value, you leave growth and alignment on the table.

Together, We Can Change the Narrative 

If we want product marketing to thrive, especially in enterprise, we have to finally move beyond legacy definitions. We need to stop force-fitting every marketer into “brand” or “growth.” We need to recognize the spectrum of roles that exist, and the specialization each brings to the table.

How? Let’s build more nuanced definitions. Let’s create better resources for enterprise PMMs. Let’s educate hiring managers, peers, and leadership on what product marketing really is and why it’s vital. 

Because when product marketing is misunderstood, companies and marketing teams lose out. But when it’s empowered? It doesn’t just support the business, it transforms it.