Yearly Archives: 2012

Money.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I broke a rule of mine this morning.  I used the word “transparency” in an email.  The word is anathema to me because it’s part of the lexicon of markobabble used in meeting rooms across America.

The reality is, though, some marketing categories do not tell the complete truth.  They tell the “selling truth” and leave the rest of the story for consumers to figure out.  Thanks to the web, consumers are more educated these days before purchasing things. With rating and ranking systems, it’s harder to sell a dog. But there are still certain categories that are almost in collusion when it comes to telling the whole truth. Banking is one such category.

Were one bank to stand up and go all “Michael Bloomberg soda legislation” on us, it would be refreshing. It would engender trust. Bank vault doors are opaque for a reason. It’s sad because banks don’t stand for anything these days. (Customer service?) They could stand for so much.  Banks are integral to the American dream, yet they get no credit.  That’s because they are always selling. And now with the mortgage scandal fresh in our minds, and borrowing instruments at every turn, we could use a bank to step up and tell us the hard truths.  That strategy is money. Peace.     

Brand Mixology.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Brand planning is going to be huge.  Brand plan is an organizing principle for product and messaging and the need for it is growing exponentially as we turn brands over to the Web…and to consumers.  This came to me after driving home from Higbie Bagel Saturday morning listening to a “Coors Light Night Rules” radio promotion. “Send us your night rules” the spot asked.  Coors is asking people to sign up on their website and enter a fun idea about evening drinking behavior. Oooh. Tactics-palooza. Do it on the Facebook page, I’m sure, and all-the-better.

Coors Light has fallen into a cycle of promotions that is watering down (pun) brand meaning by using by non-endemic brand values and it is confusing consumers. When everything is a promotion, game, or boutique campaign, the brand loses essential meaning. And web and digital agencies, left unmanaged, are contributing to this fast twitch, near term brand mixology.

I was reading a recipe recently for a chicken dish.  There were so many spices in the dish it lost its taste focus. Like adding too many paint colors and coming up with brown. The mixology of brands needs to be well thought out, simple, compelling and most importantly managed.  Think Steve Jobs.

The soap box is yours. Peace!

Roots Rock.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Someone from McGarry Bowen in an account planner’s group on LinkedIn posed the question “What are some hot trends in the offing for 2013?” My response was roots. In college I read a book that talked about cultural transferences – the complications of modern society that take us farther and farther away from being able to provide for ourselves. As in, Can you put asunder, pluck, clean and cook a chicken with the help of Pathmark? Do you know how to jump start your Prius if it conks out? Can you walk 12 miles in a pinch?

Roots is all about removing the middleman and doing things for yourself. And in doing so, being just a little more self-sufficient, healthy and sustainable. Rather than throw out jeans with a rip, sew them. Rather than toss an appliance, fix it. Have friends over for a meal that you cook rather than order in or go out. Build a birdhouse with your hands. A lot of learning there.

Hike to smell a flower, instead of purchasing aromatics. Listen to simpler hand-made music. Etsy is about roots. Going to school board meetings is about roots. Fishing with your kids, sitting around a campfire, sitting on a stoop in Brooklyn drinking a pint of homemade beer – the list goes on.  As statistics and big data and the web flatten the world, bringing tragedies and goblin to our door, all glamorized by TV and movies, we need to and will return to roots culture.  (Just Google it.) Peace Friday.     

Twitch Point Planning Examples.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I write about and consult on a new media marketing rigor called Twitch Point Planning — the ability to “understand, map and manipulate” media twitch points in ways that move consumers closer to a sale. A twitch point is a media experience where one twitches away from what they are currently consuming. Yesterday, I was looking in my blogger bookmarks and came across a link to Anil Dash, a tech entrepreneur. I visited his blog but did not read deeply, but did check out the About Me section.   Somehow I twitched over to a video presentation of his recorded at Mark Hurst’s 2011 Gel Conference, watched a couple of minutes then left.

This morning, I was reading a New York Times paper paper article on how Apple’s iPhone 5 maps have replaced Google maps on the new iPhones (brand mistake) and guess who is quoted?  Anil Dash.  Typically, were I reading the Times and saw the name of an expert with whom I wasn’t familiar, I might Google him mid-sentence. (Twitch.) Or, write a blog post about him and the subject. (Another twitch.) Either way, I might not return to my original media moment – The New York Times article. 

An example of Twitch Point Planning, in real time, would be for Mr. Dash to log on to Google AdWords and buy his name, the words Apple Maps, and make a penny a click ad. Or, he could change his website, based on his appearance in the article, and put an offer on the homepage, to build appropriate business.

Twitch Point Planning is a new tactic that adds exponential measures of value to social media. It’s active, not reactive. Twitch Point Planning is strategic. Go forth and twitch. Peace. 

The Samsung Leash.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Samsung should be the world’s most powerful and prestigious brand. Peter Arnell knew it in the 80s and did his part to burnish the brand. Every time I turn on my Samsung flatty to watch a little TV  I’m in awe.  The color saturation and picture never cease to amaze.  Though I don’t own the Galaxy III smart phone, it is no apologist piece of hardware.

Samsung, makes great office phone systems, microwaves and, I suspect, has ships loaded with merch heading for our ports in numbers we can’t fathom.  So why isn’t the Samsung brand more powerful?  Why has South Korean executive management stood in the way of this amazing brand? South Koreans get style and new like few other cultures, yet Samsung refuses to let go of the North American reins. They are okay being a challenger brand. They are okay being adaptive rather than brand innovative. And they continue to spend promotional dollars with South Korean transplant agencies (read Cheil) and little ad hoc shops while some of the best marketing shops we have to offer are never called.

Samsung in the U.S. needs to throw its weight around.  It needs a brand leader (person) in the U.S. with some power.  South Korea needs to “drop the leash.” It’s a flat world. Let freedom ring. Peace.

When Brand Equity Doesn’t Travel.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Bob Gilbreath’s book Marketing With Meaning is an important read for all marketing strategists and executives. Without “meaning” in marketing deliverables we are simply singing. Not that good songs don’t sometimes work, they do; but a meaningful selling premise motivates.

Meaning is an imperative for brand planners, when creating an organizing principle for a brand. Finding a pent up demand consumers desire – one that your product can fulfill —  is hard enough.  Landing on a desire that extends across buying targets is some seriously heavy lifting.  This is a problem for most brand marketers.  

As one’s planning audience grows in size and complexity, the focus of the desire has to lessen. And the meaning delivered even more so. 

This is why many brand extensions fail. A company that has meaning with one target and adds a new one, often finds out the brand equity doesn’t travel.  I once blamed Google for its “culture of technological obesity.”  It was eating everything in its way, independent of its palette.  Marketers need to know what businesses not to get in to.  He happy with your meaning.  Unfortunately, it’s that money thing, that stockholder thing that turns us crazy. So we expand, lose focus and add fish to the burger menu. 

Let’s be happy with success marketers. Don’t hedge your bets by adding more targets; get better at what you do. Protect your meaning. Peace!

 

Poetry and Brand Planning.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Most marketing strategists, especially those of the digital variety, are all about the science. Success and failure are things that can be quantified and measured.  Well ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I’m here to tell you that science is the price of admission. Como se duh? The dashboard is important – especially that “sales” metric – but every marketing organization is better off if they have a handle on the softer side of selling. The tone and poetry of a brand.

I was sharing coffee with a behavioral planner at BBDO a while ago, I believed he worked on Gillette, and he said something that really stayed with me.  It spoke to me planning brain (he was Irish). He said most planners don’t have a sense of poetry. And I agree. Wholeheartedly. They may appreciate poetry, they may even seek it out in their insights, but when it becomes paper time, time to make the brief, the words become rational and the emotions are simply reported. The brief must provide the poetry.  

When science is the price of admission and poetry is the voice of brand reason, great things can happen. Because poetry is what moves creative people to greatness, not logic. Poetry is the fertile ground that makes writers and art directors (and yes, even coders) feel and spark and sing. And, oh yes, laugh out loud.

So whoever you are, if you are looking at a brief (even your ouwn) ask yourself “Where is the poetry here?” The poetry that warms the brand. Peace!

The Brand Idea is Misunderstood.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

The whole brand plan thing – one claim and three support planks – is not really that difficult a concept. Ask the executive suite “What are the three things that differentiate your company?” and you are likely to get answers like “people.”  “Service or product” is often the second thing and in today’s touchy/feely business world the third point is “culture.”  Oy.  And American business chugs on.

Even with these three undifferentiated corporate drivers, a girl can make a living. (And trust me, these are pretty lazy planks.)  What most companies have a hard time articulating is their main claim or idea. Brand strategy is made up of this claim plus the 3 planks.  That’s what drives success inside and outside a company. But the brand idea must stand alone and it must have power.  Apple’s “simplicity.” Coke’s “refreshment.” Krispy Kreme’s “sweet treat.”  Google “information in one click.”  Outside the realm of consumer marketing circles, these over-arching ideas are hard for corporate executive suites to articulate.  They use b-school worlds like excellence and operations and shareholder value.

Brands and the molders of brands are the bedrock of marketing.  The more they are understood, the more successful marketing will be…Peace.

Pent Up Demand

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Three of my favorite brand planning words — words that let me know I’m on a roll and in a place near and dear to my marketers’ hearts — are “pent up demand.”  When a market is growing at a certain rate and product availability doesn’t meet the demand, a hungry market exists.  When consumers clearly exhibit behavior indicating dissatisfaction with a product or product category, there is pent up demand for functionality.  When Google searches are off the charts for information about a service, brand or activity…yep, mondo, unmet demand.

These are words any marketer likes to hear.  So when doing your diligence, fact-gathering and filling up the brand stockpot (before the boil down), ask yourself are there any areas of pent up demand related to your product or service that can be studied on behalf of customers or prospects. Competitors or detractors.  Opinion leaders or analysts.

It’s fertile area, planners.  Dig in then smile as you hear the words pass your lips during presentations.  Peace!

The magnetism of a freight train.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I sometimes tell people in the business how my brand strategies contain one word that company management finds objectionable.  They love the strategy — they get it and it gets them – but they say “That, one word. Do we have to use it?”  My answer is always “No, it’s a suit strategy, not a creative strategy.”  “Systematized” for a healthcare org is kind of cold.  We know where you “live” is a little creepy, for a newspaper. Stuff like that.  

Have you ever walked in a city and passed someone you couldn’t keep your eyes off of?  They’re so uniquely made-up or dressed in such a magnetic way you have to do a double or triple take.  It may be beauty, or fashion or demeanor. It may be all three.  That’s how I like my brand strategies. The claim may not be that magnetic, but the attitude, salience and three brand planks are. The gestalt of the idea and support creates a life that pulsing with “look at me.”

A brand plan is not an ad.  It is a story with organized chapters. Three chapters to be specific, but those chapters are long and lush. Well executed, a brand plan can carry serial campaigns over years. Even over ad agencies.

If you can find that word that is s branding freight train and surround it with value building supports, you will win your marketing war. Peace!

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