Yearly Archives: 2012

Back end developers.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

An important target for What’s the Idea? is the technology company. I’ve worked with AT&T on the digital applications side, helped launch Lucent (now Alcatel-Lucent), wrote a lauded brand strategy for ZDNet and have helped scads of mid-size tech companies and start-ups.  Beyond experience, why tech companies are so important is the fact that they don’t get branding. The best of the lot are engineer-driven and see brand and marketing nerds are empty jeans.

So for you tech engineers and entrepreneurs, here’s a simple metaphor: Brand planners are like back end developers. If the back end is the hardware and engine and the front end the software and user interface (UI), then we brand planners work the former. The back end creates the organizing principle that determines which 1s and 0s to turn on and off.  The brand plan creates and governs the same and the pathways.  It’s simple really.  Perhaps marketers have tried to make it sound so complicated with all our markobabble and talk about silly things like transparency, activation and, and, and.  But a brand plan is one meaningful strategy and 3 governing principles. On or off.  

The front end in the metaphor  — what users see — is advertising, newsletters, digital content, acquisition programs.  Without good governance, these things show up on a corporate homepage as 38 buttons.  What I love about people like Robert Scoble, Brian Solis, Steve Rubel, Peter Kim, Bob Gilbreath and Jeff Dachis to a degree, is they get the brand “back end” and, so, their front ends are meaningful. People understand them.

Engineers need to hear and live this lesson. If they do, they’ll see the market through infrared goggles. Peace!

Good growth and bad growth.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

It was just announced that two scientists won Nobel Prizes for their work in regenerative medicine.  Cloning and stem cell science were their life’s work. 

Regeneration is an intended outcome of good brand planning. (You saw that one coming.) Creating an environment where new things grow, in the pursuit of product sales and loyalty, is a marketing strategy of the highest order. But the new things that grow must not be untamed…we know how that turns out. Conversely, we also know what repetitive “same old, same old” growth produces: boredom, lethargy and value dissipation. So we need to constantly regenerate, feed and care for our brands.

A tight brand plan (strategy+planks) can keep a brand fresh, vital and vibrant. It can do so over time, across agencies, CMOs and market changes. As I like to say Campaigns come and go, a powerful brand idea is indelible.

If you would like to see brand plan examples, please let me know at Steve@whatstheidea.com. I would be happy to share. Peace.

The problem with marketing videos.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

It used to be that a brand planner or strategist could easily sway corporate officers as to the need for a brand plan – or at least a campaign idea – by taking all company ads and pinning them to the wall.  For good measure one could display brochures, direct mail and other printed pieces. 

Today, the biggest culprit in creating brand disharmony, especially true at small and midsize companies, is the video.  In this social media age, most agree – and you heard the drum beat at Advertising Week in NY the last 4 days – visual selling through video is more engaging and powerful. 

The problem stems not so much from the quality of the videos, e.g., editing, audio, effects, it’s the content.  It meanders. It is not blocked out in serial, logical chunks.  With ads, if you didn’t have a tight strategy you called Ernie the montage artist. With a loose video, you just rely on fast cuts and louder music.

So who is making these videos?  Mostly, it’s inexpensive freelance, 20 something, fresh-out-of college kids with iMacs.  One such young man, who is more than capable, said he’d been to many meetings with large agencies like Ogilvy, where he was instructed to “just do something that gets noticed, that goes viral.”  No direction, no brief.  This is not how big agencies normally operates, but at those agencies on the digital creative side, it happens more than you might think.  As for smaller shops, or in-house marketing departments it’s even worse.

Marketing videos need to do a job but they also much convey a positive, organized brand imprint. With half of marketing videos either case studies or tutorials, brand strategy has a way of slipping away. Branding is always on. Approving videos without a brand planning oversight — and it happens thousands of times a day — is like writing bad checks.  So executive, turn down the lights in your conference room, fire up the interactive projector and start watching all your vids. Then ask yourself what are they trying to say about the company?  Peace.

 

 

The Pedagogy of Marketing.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Here’s what marketers can learn from teachers…good teachers, that is.  Much selling these days, especially of the B2B variety, is done via PowerPoint. On average, it is done in 18 slides, anywhere from 12-60 words per slide, one or two pictures – and a flow that would make music bed blush. That’s how marketers and salespeople roll.

Teachers on the other hand, face a room filled with 22+ kids, all of whom have different IQs, learning styles and attention levels.  Good teachers assess the entire room of kids and create learning experiences to meet all of their needs. Poor teachers teach to the middle, to the median.

What marketers can learn from good teachers is sensitivity to the individuals, not the median audience. Using that sensitivity, born of bi-directional interaction, they can provide instructive, discovery-based selling scenarios. Make everyone in the audience feel smart, by allowing them to deduce and conclude. (And I’m not talking about the “solution selling” pop marketing approach of last decade, “Tell me about your pain points”.)

Ads can’t really take this individualized approach; they have to work for the whole classroom. That said, Brits do good job in this area with their ad craft. Everything is not served up rote.  Selling requires some brain work.

Now, I wonder what teachers can learn from marketers. Hmmm. Peace.

 

Automobile Marketing Thoughts

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Car sales were reported yesterday and they were quite good.  Year over year for the month of September there was a 13% increase.  The New York Times lead story in the business section announced “the best results in 4 years.”  I’ve been blogging about the automobile industry since the beginning of What’s the Idea? mostly because I’ve been so angered by what’s been happening.

People need cars.  People need money. People need to be more responsible to the planet.  These observations drive my points of view.

I have a suggestion for the auto industry, especially GM and Ford the two companies that performed most poorly. Spin off your truck divisions. Divest completely. They need their own leaders, R&D (design with a capital D), manufacturing and marketing. Most times when there is a divestiture it’s government encouraged.  But time it should be market driven.

My second suggestion relates to advertising. Volkswagen, Kia and Audi are doing good work. The brands themselves are strong enough (4Ps-wise) to allow for advertising to work. The marketing officers and executive teams of these companies are on board with investing and pushing ad boundaries. Using good ad shops. (So is Chrysler.)

During the bail-out meetings a couple of years ago, in the picture of with Ford and GM executives sitting around the table with president Obama, had not a smart phone was to be seen. The Q-Tips were running the show (insider car target reference).  We need to drop the leash here too. Peace.

Joe Tripodi. Man about brands.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

One of my pet peeves is category experience. In the marketing and advertising businesses, it’s everything. Recently, I lost a consulting opportunity because of not having enough financial experience. It was true. Hiring lore suggests: When you come to a position with your head filled with numbers, trends and category milestones, you are a quick study. This approach creates comfortable hiring. (An aside: Do you know how many people take credit for MasterCard’s “Priceless” campaign?)

Personally, I am most energized when in a new category — being scared, facing a blank piece of paper. Tabula rasa. No preconceptions. Childlike discovery moments all around. Surrounded by fresh language, sights and sounds.  Like being in a new country.

One of today’s marketing heavyweights, Joe Tripodi, is a category surfer. That’s why he is so strong.  His career trail meanders: IBM, MasterCard, Mobil Oil, Bank of NY, Seagrams Wine and Spirits, All-State, and currently the CMO of Coca-Cola. Whoever hired Mr. Tipodi recognized that his light shines in the area of marketing not technology or banking.

Good brand and account planners achieve because they see things through fresh eyes. Great hiring agents approach hiring similarly.  Be great when hiring. Peace.  

 

Brand Dignity.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I love the brands I work on. It’s a requirement. I’ve often said “your baby might be ugly but s/he’s your baby” and that’s what happens if you are a good brand planner. Brands become yours, like children.  It’s not likely you are doing a good job of planning until you do have the love.  Being smitten isn’t enough.

So what’s this dignity thing? Well, if you get to know your brand well enough to love it, then you see there are probably many ways to present it in undignified ways.  Ad agents, tyro in-house designers, social media interns may tart it up like a trailer park hussy. Or give it a smart-ass, know-it-all voice. The music arranger might change the vibe, like the DNG’s dancing hamsters for Kia, who are now grooving to techno rather than hip-hop. Undignified.

Once, in a focus group in Kansas City for AT&T, while exposing advertising to consumers I was smacked in the face by the comment “AT&T wouldn’t talk to me that way.  That’s not an AT&T ad.”  That consumer had a dignity-ometer working.

The point:  If you don’t know your brand, starting with the idea and planks, you are not able to understand how to present it with dignity. That doesn’t mean you can’t have fun, be irreverent and even a little pushy – it means dressing the baby up for success. Know it, love it, share it with everyone on the team, then present it. Peace.

Feedback or inspire forth.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

In the marketing world there are “approvers” and “inspirers.”  I’ve been both and the latter is a much nicer place to live. Both must teach the people who work for them, but approvers tend to look at work product, evaluate it, then recite the right way or provide principles for good work. More often than not this comes off as preachy and pedantic. Using a pedagogy metaphor, they teach from the front of the class, broadcasting the lessons.  Inspirers, on the other hand, instruct by creating an environment for people to do great work.  It’s not judgmental it’s inspirational. Rather than instruct from the front of the class, continuing the metaphor, inspirers allow for learning through participation, experience and discovery.

When writing creative briefs or insight decks my job is to inform through stories and observations pregnant with possibilities. Telling an art director and copy writer to sell more absorbent paper towels is different than finding a moment when an absorbent paper towel is important. (Baby in arms, new skirt on backwards, presentation in 35 minutes, sitter late, orange juice spill.)

We are all big boys and girls.  Not everyone deserves a trophy. Some work is not good and doesn’t deserve to be approved.  Balancing feedback with inspiration forth can make a world of difference. Find ways to inspire and everyone’s work will improve…including your own. Subtle peace.

Home Page Strategy.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I was on the Wells Fargo home page this morning, don’t ask, and counted the clickables above the fold.  There were 46. In my lifetime there is no way I’d be interested in 46 different pieces of information on banking from Wells Fargo or any bank for that matter. Imagine walking into a bank and having 46 questions? (Too many clicks, for those Bush Tetras fans.)

The irony is that most bank home pages have a similar number of links. Citibank does a good job, providing only 18 clickables…on one of the cleaner pages in the category.

I advocate using your home page to convey the company Is-Does and brand value. I recently had a major difference of opinion with a company over this approach. The executive team at regional (non-financial) brand with national aspirations and a changing business model, felt it more important to use the homepage as a navigational tool than to explain the complicated business it was in and what made it different. Similar to the bank approach, it organized upon the home page an array of things it thought customers would want, by target. It’s the “me” versus “you” argument I often have in reverse when discussing advertising. (Good ads are you focused, a good home page is me/brand focused.)

Cory Treffiletti a really smart colleague once told me, “If you give customers too many choices they will make none.”   To that I will add, if you don’t tell people what you do and do differently than competition, they won’t make a choice. Certainly, not an informed choice that is.

Even in a category as generic as banking – when simply removing confusion can be a differentiator – companies need to use their home page to convey their brand story, their soulful difference. Homepages that are simply navigation-driven are tofu and a lost, lost opportunity.  Peace!

ROI Hugging vs. Movements.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

When I was a kid, there was your metropolitan newspaper and three TV news channels.  You couldn’t change public opinion with a bulldozer (settle your shit down Steven Doescher). Today there are scads of news channels, podcasts, blogs, feeds and streams all of which update by the minute.  One silly statement by a presidential candidate can be captured on a Canon video camera, edited on a Macbook Air and PAC’ed onto the evening news before the sun rises again.

Marketing is a little bit this way.  There is macro marketing, one big idea (or as Strawberry Frog calls it a “movement”) and there is micro marketing, use of media and messaging dashboards designed for instant wins. The ROI huggers love the latter.  Big picture people don’t.

The divisiveness between macro and micro marketing is not dissimilar to that of democrats and republicans. Or Hatfields and McCoys. But it’s in the middle that we must and will land.  You might think a brand planner (me) would favor the big honkin’ idea – and I do.  But I also favor proving that idea and its supporting principles, every day through effective, on-plan tactics.  

Those jockeying the dashboard without a brand plan are likely to fail. If you have a brand plan you have a voice.  Otherwise, you are likely speaking in tongues.  Peace!

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