Perspicuity.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Perspicuous is an adjective derived from the noun perspicuity, it’s defined by Merriam-Webster as

: plain to the understanding especially because of clarity and precision of presentation

In brand planning and brand strategy there’ s not a lot of it going around. Clarity of brand strategy design and presentation are quite lacking. It’s not like it’s string theory or anything, it’s just that most planners are very deep in the roots — deep in the ingredients — and have a hard time ‘splaining what they are actually delivering. Brand strategy is not a bunch of value-laden verses or a brand poetry to be handed off to a client as a muse for creating a brand. It’s not ethereal guidelines for the creation of marketing stuff. It’s an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging. An organizing principle with boundaries, dictates and evidence.

Boiled down, brand strategy is a framework for marketing work. It’s binary and measurable. Yet it is also creative. Better said, it allows for wonderful creativity.

And it all starts with Perspicuity. A clean directive.

Happy to share some samples. Write Steve at WhatsTheIdea.

Peace.

 

Observe, Interpret and Imagine.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I’ve written a lot lately about frameworks and tools used in brand planning but I haven’t really discussed the behavioral drivers of good brand planning. So, let’s have at it.

Back in my anthropology days at Rollins College, I was taught never to insinuate yourself into the culture you are studying. Just Observe. It’s okay to ask for clarification and an explanation as to why people studied do what they do but the idea is to not bring bias into observed behaviors.  One could argue the simple act of asking questions introduces bias. That’s cultural anthropology fieldwork, not brand planning. I am of the mind that good questions beget good answers. Caring, thoughtful, energizing even fun questions get people to open up. Therefore, in brand planning it is okay to insinuate oneself — so long as you don’t lead the witness and you play the interested student.

Interpret is the key behavior. Gather information and as I once heard an AT&T product manager say, “Do something smart with it.”  This requires gut. Not guts. Gut.  What are the most important consumer care-abouts and brand good-ats? Plot them, organize them, and most importantly prioritized them.

Lastly, there is Imagine. Use your imagination to project what will come to pass if everything went right. If you created a strategy that was in sync with the product’s truest value, but also delivered a warm predisposition toward the product. An indelible one. Imagine what it looks like to make consumers love you. And why.

Observe. Interpret. Imagine.  These are the behaviors of great brand planners.

Peace.

 

 

Frame The Work.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

The Miriam Webster Dictionary defines the word framework as “a basic conceptional structure (as of ideas).” Also, “a skeletal, openwork, or structural frame.” As mentioned before in this blog if you Google brand strategy framework you’ll uncover over 100 million results. Results that comprise charts, diagrams, stair steps, serial thought bubbles and a mish mash of other marko-babble.

Simple man me, over the last two/tree decades I’ve worked to come up with what I believe to be a reductive framework for brand strategy: One brand claim, three proof planks. Some argue this is an over-simplification. I would argue, others are making things too complicated. Somewhere in the Art of War, I’m betting Sun Tsu skewers overcomplicating one’s foray.

Consumers often remember commercials more than they remember the product. Why is that? The entertainment complicates the pitch.  And when the pitch delivered as one claim, and one of three proof planks, it’s easy to focuses.

Moreover, often brand strategy isn’t even strategy.  It’s a bunch or words, insights and emotional directives that open the door to advertising. Advertising sans proof. Sure, it might move ad awareness. Sure, it might win awards and garner press. Or drive some clicks. But does the advertising predispose the consumer to purchase? And for the right reasons?

Don’t misidentify brand planning tools for strategy. More on that next time.

Peace.

Reinvention.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Brand planners are reinventors. Faris Yakob, a leader of the pack, rightly says “all ideas are recombinant.” Meaning, there’s nothing new. Only new packaging. I like to think we are reinventors. Invention being the mother of necessity and all. He just said it better.

Brand planning is like peeling an onion. Layers. And more layers. But at some point you need to put a stake in the ground and deliver a strategy. At What’s The Idea? I deliver a brief and a more operative Claim and Proof array (a single sheeter). The array is a living breathing list of proofs, organized under three key values (planks). The time prior to the strategy being delivered is BS. Before Strategy. Anything after is aftermarket discovery, is AS. After Strategy.

The beauty of my framework (claim and proof) is that all people involved are always on the prowl for more ways to prove the claim. With every proof unearthed we make another deposit in the brand bank. We are also giving the ad agency and agency-ettes fodder for new and exciting work.

Brand strategies are like children to me. Whenever I see a potential new proof point for one of my brands I light up. And pass it on. Brand strategies are 20% BS and 80% AS. And then you die.  Hee hee.

Peace.

 

Wage War on Cliches.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Brand strategists are in a battle against cliches. A great copywriter (Walter Weir?) once wrote “If it sounds like copy, it’s good copy.”  Well, that’s antithetical to brand strategy work. Though brand planners are not in the business of producing creative, we are in the business of inspiring creative. And if a copywriter or art director doesn’t appreciate an inspirational idea, who does?  The problem with brand strategy is it’s often poorly articulated. Poorly evangelized. And cliched.

Consumers, btw, are so used to cliches in advertising they shut down. And today, one trillion ad messages in, that’s a recipe for extinction.  Can you say AI?  

I am of the mind that cliched brand strategies are more deadly than cliched ads. That’s not to say “different for different’s sake” is right.  “Coke is refreshment” – still one the of most powerful brand strategy claims extant — may sound a bit clichéd for a soft drink, but refreshment is so replete with inspirational it crackles off the creative pen.

Cliches are verboten in brand planning work. But tying inherent, endemic brand values to your brand strategy is what success really looks like. Flame broiled. The world’s information in one click.

Wage war against cliches, but always, always mine the endemic values.

Peace.

 

The Is.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I share my brand strategy framework quite often. To the point where my brand planning memes are beginning to take hold on Google. Search “Claim and proof array” as an example. In an open source world this type of sharing is admirable. Back pat, back pat. But where the rubber meets the road frankly is in the actual strategy. Frameworks have to be filled out.  That’s the monies.

All planners do brand discovery, but it’s what you do with the learning that creates the positioning success. We can talk about adherence and creative interpretations and lots of other back-end factors, but getting to the strategy idea is what differentiates one planner from the next. Frameworks help don’t get me wrong, but the decisions to get to the “idea” are the bread and butter.

I use the metaphor of the stock pot on my post-discovery efforts. Everything into the pot then apply heat. After a few days, what’s left in the bottom of the pot is… the is. The bullion. The power. AI ain’t gonna do it. Creative directors aren’t going to do it. The CEO isn’t going to do it.  It’s the brand planner.  And not all planners are created equal.

Peace.

 

A Brand Strategy Pitch Gone Right.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I was pitching a brand strategy to a client a couple of summers ago, using a presentation process which I replicate pretty much each time.  I lead with some pertinent quotes from interviewees and other smart people, then list off the names of those interviewed (stakeholders, customers, prospects and SMEs), and finally present the brand brief, which I read. It’s a serial story with key chapters/headings which leads to the brand claim and proof array.

Since I’m talking about the company, and use more storytelling language than business language, I tend to have the decisionmakers’ ears. I mean, who doesn’t like to hear about themselves.  When the heads are nodding and the poesy flying, the room warms up. In this particular pitch, things were going well until the CEO interrupted mid-brief and asked me to skip to the end. There is always an end. Apparently busy is as busy does. This had never happened before but what the heck. I went off-piste and jumped to the idea (claim.)  A good planner should be prepared for anything.  If I was flustered I tried not to show it…but, hell, I was in the middle of my song.   

Anyway, the CEO made some good points about the claim: It was too focused on the brand “good-ats”, not enough focused on the customer “care-abouts.” So, I agreed to take another pass and worked out the strategy to everyone’s satisfaction – albeit it a couple of weeks later.

A story from the trenches. Things change. Adapt. And don’t fall in love with your anything.

Peace.      

 

Truth and Proof in Branding.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

My brand, What’s The Idea?, offers up the notion that the “idea” is the key to branding. Most people who spend money on marketing will agree creativity is the lifeblood of advertising. Creativity feeds advertising, marketing’s most important tool. Of course, there is nothing wrong with fame and/or as Faris Yakob calls it “paid attention.”  But all the advertising, paid attention and marketing in the world, if disorganized or constantly changing will not build a brand.  It may sell from time to time, from tactic to tactic, but it does not establish a product or service in the mind of a consumer as a brand. That takes an idea — the apex of an organizing principle.

My mission at WTI is to find an idea and an organizing principle that creates indelible positions for brands.

One word that creatives and brand planners use a lot in our business is “truth.”  Product or consumer truths are where planners dabble. A truth is likely a hopefully provable observation that can replicate. I, however, prefer the word “proof.” It’s more to the point…and more scientific. It’s binary. Proof cements belief. Proof undergirds a claim (the idea.)

In a nutshell, the organizing principle used to build brands – at least here at What’s The Idea? – is one claim (idea) and three proof planks. That’s the secret sauce. That’s how the sausage is made. That is the strategy behind brand building. Keyboard drop!

Peace.

 

Purposeful Marketing is an Oxymoron.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Now please don’t think I got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. And I do not want you to think me a crab or branding troll… but I do want to suggest there’s a good deal of talk going around on the role of Mission and Purpose in branding. It’s a bit over-baked.

Mission and Purpose rarely have a place in brand strategy. They belong under the heading of Philanthropy on the website, handled by corporate governance people.

Brand strategy is all about customer care-abouts and brand good-ats: values endemic to the product or service. They should drive product value, shareholder value and loyalty.  What a brand does with its earnings, insofar and mission/purpose, is up to them. True Mission and Purpose companies should be not-for-profit or non-profits. Yeah, yeah, yeah Patagonia. There are always exceptions. But watering the tea is not a best practice of branding strategy.

As Sergio says “sell more, to more, more often and at higher prices.”  Eyes on the prize. 

Sorry if that’s some capitalist shiz, but it’s a truth.

Peace.

 

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