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Marketing has never been more complicated. Your plan doesn’t have to be.

Every strategic marketing decision, in order.

Brad B McCormick teaching PB² GOST³ at Southern Methodist University, pointing to Budget on the projected slidePB² GOST³ is the planning framework Brad B McCormick has taught at Southern Methodist University every semester for 11 years. His students call it Peanut Butter Ghost. Yes, we know ghost has an H. Being easy to remember is the whole point of marketing. The peanut butter is the tangible facts. The ghost is the elusive part, and it's where most of your budget, blood, sweat and tears go. Companies that grow make all nine decisions, in order. Starting at T is why marketing stalls.

Stalled marketing starts at the bottom step

A new channel. A new tool. Another campaign. Tactics without strategy are noise, to buyers and to AI.

Strategy runs top down: business, then brand, then marketing, then channel, and only then the tactic.

The Strategy Staircase:

Every step depends on the one above it, and every step starts with the customer.

With PB² GOST³, no strategic decision gets skipped or made out of order.

Nine decisions, for any industry, size or budget. The first is People, because every business exists to create and keep a customer.

The “peanut butter”

The tangible facts about who you sell to, why they'd choose you, and what you can spend. These inform every decision below them.

  1. PeopleWho is our buyer, and what problem do we solve for them?The single most important question

    • Why People comes first. Peter Drucker said the purpose of a business is to create a customer. Ted Levitt added: and keep one. Whatever the industry, every strategy starts there.
    • FOMU beats FOMO. A buyer’s Fear Of Messing Up by buying the wrong thing is bigger than their Fear Of Missing Out by not buying. So make choosing you the safe choice.
    • F.R.E.D. persona. Fears, Results, Expectations and Desires: what could go wrong if they buy, what it lets them do, how they want to be sold, and how they hope it changes their business.
    • Start small. Win one segment first, then expand.

    TestCan you name your best customer's fear and desire without naming your product?

    Read the People page

  2. BrandWhy buy from us instead of our competitors?

    • Sweet Spot. What customers need, what you do well and competitors don't offer. Lead with one strength: Product, Story, Experience or Price.
    • Distinguishable to people and AI. A buyer, or an AI tool, should be able to tell you apart from your closest competitor in one sentence.
    • T.O.P. claims. Therapeutic, Original, Provable.
    • The category decides. New categories reward being different. Mature ones (HVAC, law, banking) reward being distinctive and remembered.

    TestCould a competitor run your headline tonight without changing a word?

    Read the Brand page

  3. BudgetHow much money do we have to spend?

    • Rule of thumb. What you spend on marketing today, and how you spend it, is roughly what it takes to maintain the revenue you have. To grow, one of those has to change.
    • SOV = SOM. Share of voice and share of market even out over time. Outspend your share to grow.
    • CMO Survey. Marketing runs 6.4% to 17.2% of revenue, by sector and company size.
    • 60/40. Established brands: 60% brand, 40% sales activation. New companies flip it.
    • Marketing is broader than advertising, especially with AI.

    TestCan you pay the full entry fee for every channel you plan to fund?

    Read the Budget page

The “ghost”

What has to move and by when, then how to get it done. It's the elusive part, and skipping it is why marketing stalls.

  1. GoalWhere is the business going?

    • Ansoff Matrix. Where growth comes from. Market penetration (current offer, current customers) is where to start. Product development, market development and diversification each add risk, and diversification is the riskiest box.

    TestWould the owner recognize this number as theirs?

    Read the Goal page

  2. ObjectiveWhat must marketing move, and by when?

    • F.R.Y. Design each campaign around one.
      Frequency gets existing customers to buy more often.
      Reach creates new customers.
      Yield gets existing customers to spend more.
    • S.M.A.R.T. "Grow registrations 15% by March 1," not "increase registrations."

    TestIs there a number, a date and a straight line back to the goal?

    Read the Objective page

  3. StrategyHow, and what first?

    • Harvest demand versus build demand. Harvesting (sales activation) captures the demand that exists today. Building (brand) creates demand for later. You need both.
    • The 95/5 rule. Only 3 to 5% of your audience is ready to buy right now. Make sure the other 95% remember you when they are.

    TestCan you name what you are deliberately not doing this year?

    Read the Strategy page

  4. TacticsWhich channels, which tools?

    • Paid, owned, earned. The brand pays, the brand controls, or the customer controls.
    • Reach, depth, relationship. The stages of every campaign. Tactics without strategy are mush.
    • Signals across surfaces. AI reads your website, profiles, reviews and press together, so every surface should carry the same claim.

    TestDoes every line item trace back to the strategy?

    Read the Tactics page

  5. TrackingHow do we know what’s working and what needs to be fixed?

    • Track, analyze, optimize. Set up tracking before you spend, read what it means, then improve. Testing lives inside it: you can’t test what you aren’t tracking.
    • The O-Ring. Marketing funnels are systems, and systems run on multiplication. One step at zero, like an unanswered phone, zeroes the whole chain. Fix the weakest step first.

    TestDid the business move, or only the dashboard?

    Read the Tracking page

  6. TeamWho owns each step?

    • A name on every step, including whoever answers the phone.
    • VUCA. Volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous markets need teams built like basketball, not football: flatter, faster and without silos.
    • Hybrid teams. Internal people plus agencies and freelancers, with AI built into production and decisions wherever it helps.

    TestWho answers the phone at six o'clock?

    Read the Team page

Nine decisions, then one plan

Each letter is a strategic choice: what you'll do to grow, and what you won't. One focus at each level. Put the nine together and you have a plan: who, how much, when and in what order.

Skip this work and go straight to doing things, and marketing rarely pays out like an ATM. Write the decisions down, share them so everyone works from the same page, and expect to revise them as results come in. As Eisenhower put it, plans are worthless, but planning is everything.

The whole plan in one sentence

Get [the people] who [fear or want this] to [take this action] by [this claim, run as this play].

If you can't fill in every bracket, you've found the letter to work on next.

Not sure how many you've made? Get your benchmark, then see how many of the nine key marketing decisions you've made.

Where it comes from

PB² GOST³ was built in SMU's continuing education program, for working professionals who need frameworks they can use the next morning. It's designed to work for B2B and B2C companies, startups and enterprises alike.

Brad also teaches it to business owners through TSB Academy, Texas Security Bank's executive education series, and it's the backbone of the Brand Truth Workshop. Download the one-page cheat sheet.

Giant LEGO bricks outside LEGO headquarters, and a younger Brad B McCormick marked with a red square

From the classroom

Can you guess the first rule I saw at LEGO headquarters?

In 2008, I was sitting in a conference room at LEGO headquarters in Billund, Denmark, waiting for the client. On the wall was a list of ten ground rules. The first one stayed with me. It helped shape how I think about marketing, budgets, and business strategy.

Take a guess. Read the story. →

Common questions

What is PB² GOST³?
A planning framework that puts every strategic marketing decision in order: People, Brand, Budget, Goal, Objective, Strategy, Tactics, Tracking and Team. Brad B McCormick built it in his Southern Methodist University classroom, where he has taught every semester for eleven years. His students call it “Peanut Butter Ghost.”
Do we really need all nine decisions?
Yes, and in order. Choosing tactics before you’ve settled who you sell to, why they’d choose you and what you can spend is the most common reason marketing stalls. A first pass at all nine fits in one 3-hour work session, and the Brand decision usually takes the most work.
How is this different from a marketing plan template?
A template gives you boxes to fill. PB² GOST³ gives you nine decisions in a fixed order, and each one has a test it must pass, such as “Could a competitor run your headline tonight without changing a word?” If an answer fails its test, the plan isn’t ready.
How do we know which decisions we’ve already made?
Start with the free Marketing Budget Benchmark at 10louder.com/benchmark. After you see what companies like yours spend, nine quick questions show how many of the nine key marketing decisions you’ve made and which to fix first.
Where does AI fit into PB² GOST³?
AI is a channel buyers now ask and a source of signals to track, so it lives in Tactics and Tracking rather than in a separate strategy. AI tools repeat what a brand’s signals say most consistently, which is why the Brand decision does most of the work.

Make the nine decisions with your leadership team in the room.

See the Brand Truth Workshop Or book a call