Monthly Archives: January 2019

Branding and the better deal.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I read somewhere “people will naturally gravitate to a better deal.” Two Cheese Whoppers for the price of one is a better deal. Chevy Family Pricing is (probably) a better deal. $100 off a Deuter Backpack, better deal. 

Thirty years ago, you had to promote a better deal in the newspaper, on TV, or at point of sale. Today, your network of friends and online cohorts can share a better deal in a nano. If you know where to look online better deals abound. But better deal viewed through a pricing lens is not the full story.  

Brand strategy uses science to position products and services as a better deal, sans promotional pricing. Branding answers the “Why?” your product is a better deal than the competitor’s. The why used to be random and of the cultural moment; often something conjured up by ad agents.  Doritos are better than potato chips because they bounce around the room and hit people in the eye (from a Super Bowl spot years ago.) Yeah, no.

Branding, the verb, uses a discreet organizing principle to convey positive associations based on endemic product values that preclude consumers from buying other people’s products. This doctor is better than that doctor. That four-wheel drive car is better than this. My beer is better than yours.

People will gravitate to a better deal, if and when marketers help define what that better deal is – outside of price alone.

Peace.

 

 

Art of the Deal.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I’m always on the lookout for discovery questions that provoke interesting insights. Because a good deal of my discovery work takes place with corporate management and sales, I use a number of questions about business ideals, including perceived and real good-ats. Knowing what a company thinks it’s good at is critical to effective strategy and sell-in of that strategy.  

Lester Wunderman’s obit was in the NYT today. Towards the end it spoke of his art collection. African Dogon art was his thing. Though not in the formal arsenal of questions I use for executives, I’ve been known to ask people about their “art.” Though I’ve never asked about an art collection. Hmm.  Mr. Wunderman’s art collection has sparked some wunderment (sic).

Here’s a new discovery question:

“Fast forward 20 years and think about a room filled with company artifacts from today – a historic view of accomplishments, milestones, even art. What’s in that room?”   

Can’t wait to try this one out.

Peace.

 

 

Brand Planners and Movie Directors.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

It is movie awards time again. The Golden Globes just finished up and got me thinking about roles and responsibilities. How can a director win, yet the movie or an actor not?  If it is so well directed, why isn’t the movie a winner?

Since metaphors are a part of the brand planner’s tool kit, I asked myself to project the brand planner’s role in marketing, using the movie business as an analog.  Actors are the tacticians I guess, playing roles consumers experience. Set designers and costume people are production people and grips. The producers of the film are the marketing executives. Script writers deliver copy. That must leave brand planners as directors.

You never see the director in the work, you just see the work. A movie director is in charge of flow, performance quality, story and emotional resonance. And certainly more. It may be the most important job in movie making, yet also the least appreciated. Me thinks that’s the case with brand planning. Behind the camera, behind the scenes. Movie first, product first. Works for me. Any better thoughts?

Peace.

 

Brand Strategy Boil-Down.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

My wife suggested reusing an Amazon bag for shipping something to my mom. The wifus is a smart lady. There was a lot of noise on the outside of the bag including printed bar codes, markings, and UPS truck soot.  Her idea was to put a new label over the old Amazon label and let it fly. Save a tree, use a proven vessel, a good idea.

I suggested turning the bag inside out, which I did. The inside was pristine gray.

This story is a bit metaphoric (sophomoric?) for my approach to brand planning. When doing discovery, you want to look at all sides. Inverse. Obverse. I’m sure there’s another verse.  The point being, and this is certainly true for creative problem solving, more perspectives are energizing.  Sometimes typos can be informative. Especially so for me.  Sort of like the 3M person who spilled mixatives and created the Post-It note. (Is mixative even a word?)

Brand planners know their own process. Amass information then do the boil-down. Everyone should boil from a bigger pot. Let the fun begin.

Peace.

 

Strategy Is The Cool.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

When I was a kid in advertising someone suggested I take a copywriting course. Not always one in love with advice based on a criticism, I still took it to heart. After spending a couple of years with writers I decided that nothing would be cooler that to tell people I was a writer. Life didn’t work out that way. Today I’m a strategist.  A very cool title.

In marketing you are either a strategist or a tactician. In marketing, tactics are what make the world turn. What makes the cash register ring. Tactics are the ballast of budgets.  Heroes are made through tactics. But strategy — strategy is the air tactics breathe. The water that feeds the cells. The protein for the amino acids.

Strategy is the real cool.

Peace.

 

Apocryphal Brand Craft

By
Steve Poppe
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0


I was reading some marko-babble on a research company website the other day and my bullshit meter went off. The sentence that woke it was “Turn your brand into a religion.”  Yeah, no.  

Most marketers would warm up to a sentence like this. Who doesn’t want a fealty to their brand that sticks to the soul? But face it, it’s an overpromise. When we are talking this type affinity we are talking about a product or service, not a brand.  I’ve brought Hellman’s Mayonnaise all my life. The New York Times is my only life-long newspaper subscription, my tents and ski jackets are all Marmot. Not because of the brand managers, but because of the product. Read: product preference.

It’s aspirational to want an almost religious attachment to a brand, that I get. But when you put brand before product, it’s because you don’t have a really good product. Once you remove the brand from the product and promote the former, thinking it’s some ethereal and malleable construct, you’re kidding yourself. You are storytelling.

Brand management is hard work. It’s scientific. Measurable. Rules-based. But religion? Yeah, no!

Peace.

 

How to measure brand effectiveness.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I am not in the brand awareness business. I am in the brand association business. And to take it one step further I am really in the brand benefit business.

Brand awareness is simply recall of a name, logo and/or package. Marketing begins with awareness. It’s the price of admission.

Brand association takes awareness a step further in that consumers are asked to play back certain context and associations with that recall. It might be category association, e.g., Coke is a cola, Cowboys are a football team, or perhaps the association may extend beyond what a brand “is” to a quality, Apple offers product innovation, for instance.

But the third level, the one I refer to as Brand Benefits walks consumers beyond rote awareness and context features to benefits they need, desire or cherish. I’m not talking Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I’m talking endemic product or service needs. But importantly, these brand benefits must be few (three to be precise) and constant. They are brand planks. 

To measure the success of a brand, you must track awareness of brand benefits. If consumers can play back your planks in unaided recall testing you are winning the branding war.

Peace.

 

 

Apple Lethargy.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Apple needs a shot in the arm.  I’m not talking a Lee Clow/Steve Jobs image campaign, I’m talking a new breakthrough product. Actually, maybe a Lee Clow ad campaign directed internally at employees wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Something to get designers and engineers jazzed up.  Where the innovation at? Where’s “What’s next?”

Tim (O’Brien?), no Cook…that’s right, needs to stir up his people and get them looking beyond the dashboard. When lagging Chinese sales of your flagship product is the news of the day, the luster is off the Apple. Come on girls and boys, design shit. Shit that will change the clothes we wear. (Things we carry? Hee hee.) The furniture we buy. The mobility we employ.

Apple is not known for reacting. It is known for acting. Let’s boogie Tim Cook. Dark side of the moon stuff.  Apple TV ain’t it. Apple cars ain’t it.

This is the earth’s brand. More Musk, less tusk (as in elephant).

Peace.

 

 

Stuff Isn’t Software.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Pent-up demand is a marketer’s dream.  But it can be disruptive. The fact that Tesla Inc. did not manage it well for its automotive business is no secret. When Elon Musk, in order to get his cars to buyers around the country, began manufacturing his own auto-hauling trailers and subsequently purchased three trucking companies, you had a clue planning was incomplete. It doesn’t bode well for his space travel or subterranean tunnel companies, either if you ask me.  You can’t do logistics 90% of the way; manufacturing isn’t the software business.

As a brand strategist, production logistics are on my radar, but only when a problem.  A key to marketing is creating demand after manufacturing logistics are in place and future proof. If you can’t scale your supply with the demand, start smaller. Do a regional launch. Tesla in California and a couple of close by states would have made more sense. In the 70s, people drove cross country with cases of Coors because it was a regional brand, making it that much more desirable. A well-designed marketing plan.

(As software and Internet entrepreneurs venture into the “stuff” business, they often learn some retro lessons.)

Peace.

 

Endemia. Root word endemic.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I’m a NY Jets fan and wonder how the franchise can be so mediocre for so long. We often look at the quarterbacks, coaches, general managers for our answers. But rarely does the average fan look at ownership. The last couple of owners of the Jets, Leon Hess and Woody Johnson, are magnates who built empires upon gasoline and Band-Aids.

It is a rare business indeed where someone from outside the industry can come in and have massive success; Robert Kraft being an exception in the football world. But Mr. Kraft sans Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, would look, I suppose, quite average as an owner.  

Brand planners understand how important it is to deeply understand a business — even if only engaged with a brand for a month or two. It is a work imperative to speak the language of the business. It’s critical to understand fiscal drivers, consumer motivations, and operational strengths and foibles. Brand planners cannot set master brand strategy as an outsider.

Jets ownership, as smart as they may be, are just not football people. They are business people. A restaurant owner can’t be the chief of police. A history teacher cannot be a construction engineer. A cable TV CEO can’t build a basketball team. My drift.

Peace.

 

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