Insight Beast.

    Insight Beasts.

    brand planning insights

    Houzz, Brand Planners and Ample Asses.

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    houzz homepage

    Came across a cool new website called Houzz. It’s also an app on the iPhone. Someone showed me the app on the iPhone (my first user experience or FUE) where it displayed a picture of a kitchen with lots of scroll over call-outs. You scrolled over a countertop and lots of little bubbles (way too many) popped up – I assumed they were prices, or comments. For the life of me I couldn’t figure the app out. I later went to the website and subscribed and started receiving emails, which I didn’t open. Until today.

    It’s a real nice website. Lots of bleed pictures, little text on the homepage, the way I like it. But I still couldn’t tell what the site was about other than home stuff so I dug in and visited the About Page. Here’s what they say:

    “We are a platform for home remodeling and design, bringing homeowners and home professionals together in a uniquely visual community.”

    Now that made sense. My FUE with the app did not.

    The Houzz site (not the app) is an awesome resource. Power kitchen and remodeling users (people with leisure time?) spend a nice amount of energy here. This is exactly the kind of place a brand planner wants to do research. It’s the kind of place where thoughtful helpers, info seekers, and smart sellers spend time sharing. All in one location. Brand planners with ample asses (impolitic, I know) can learn a lot – sans fieldwork – on a site like this. I love finding gems like this in every category.  It’s where Posters go. (Google “Posters versus Pasters”.) Peace.

     

    Insight Beast.

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    Let’s face it, brand strategy is all about what Trout and Ries labelled positioning. Owning a place in the mind of the consumer that is of high value and defensible. I would add to that a place that is universally recognized as “you” – offering something you do really well and are constantly perfecting.

    There are many flavors of brand planner just as there are many flavors of writer. We all have different slants on what we deliver.

    Let’s just start by saying making a living selling an organizing principle, AKA a strategy, is hard. It’s easier selling logos, names and taglines. Logos, names and taglines, out of context though, are hard to sell so most branding shops spend time on the set up. What do I have to say to sell my money-making buildable? At What’s The Idea? there are no brand buildables just a paper strategy. A piece of paper using a framework of one claim and three proof planks. It is the framework that creates a position in the mind of consumers.

    The way all brand planners get to strategy (the paper kind) is through insights. What one observation, both scientific and behavioral, can power the idea that is the brand claim? Of course there can be multiple insights, but only one can truly light up the (brand manager’s) amygdala. Like the hogs that smells the truffle, the Insight Beast is branding’s best friend. Insight Beasts build the world’s most powerful brands.

    And no, the URL is not available.

    Peace.

     

    A moment of reflection…about selling.

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    One of the cool things about being a brand planner, probably not unlike being a psychotherapist, is being a student of man. Though I am not looking for maladaptive behaviors as does the psychotherapist I am looking for behaviors. All types. By doing so, I’m always learning. When on the clock, I’m learning about behaviors contributory to commerce in a specific business category, but when off the clock, I’m learning about human nature. Always learning.

    I’ve been a painter, a waiter, and ad guy and a couple two tree (sic) other things, but brand planner and constant learner has to be the best. And when you can share what you’ve learned to help people, it’s among the best feelings on earth. The fact that brand planners help sell things shouldn’t minimize the job. When working on a elemental nutrition formula for infants with eating allergies and observing “a mother is never more protective than of an infant in distress,” the goal was helping, not selling. In my presentation “Social media guard rails,” one of the first slides is about this point. Help, don’t sell.

    The best brand plans help; the result is selling. Words to plan by. Peace.