If you’ve studied advertising for any length of time, you’ve probably heard of Eugene Schwartz and his 5 stages of market sophistication.

It’s one of the most widely referenced frameworks in the industry and for good reason.

Schwartz was the first to explain how a market evolves over time in response to competition.

How claims escalate.

How mechanisms emerge.

And how eventually, products stop being the focus, and identity takes over.

This model changed how generations of marketers thought about messaging. It became a kind of “Rosetta Stone” for marketing and copywriting.

But here’s the thing no one ever questions:

Why does it stop at Stage 5?

Remember how I just said that sophistication explains how a market evolves over time in response to competition?

Do you think the market has evolved in response to competition since 1966?

By a little or a lot?

There are only 5 stages because of one simple fact:

Schwartz’s model stopped evolving because he passed away. 

But the markets didn’t.

Yet for some reason, no one ever thinks to pick up where he left off. Today’s markets are saturated beyond anything Eugene could have imagined.

There are more stages beyond identity.

And once you see them, you’ll realize everything you’ve been taught about positioning yourself and your products…

Must evolve too.

If you’ve ever felt like your messaging is strong but just… “doesn’t hit”, you might still be running the positioning of yourself or products through that 1966 framework.

It might be time to discover the true endgame of market sophistication and what stage your market is really at today.