Yearly Archives: 2013

The power of girl talk.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

lulu

An ex-CFO colleague of mine just joined a web startup called Lulu. It’s a mobile app for girls and, smartly, anyone who wants to be.  Check out the video to see what it’s all about. It’s kind of sexually charged and hook-up focused.  

I often write about the branding Is-Does — what a brand is and what a brand does. The ability for start-ups to articulate the Is-Does is often a deal breaker – especially for VCs. You may be a great technologist but if your packaging and marketing acumen are lacking, it’s hard to get traction.

The reason videos are so prevalent in web marketing today is they’re a good way to stuff 10 lbs. of shizz in a 5 lb. bag. Back in the day, the montage was the art form of choice: We do this, this, this and this.

It’s a rarity that a tagline can capture the Is-Does in one line. “The power of girl talk” is just that line. (If not Lulu’s tag, it should be.) So good job on the app and the Is-Does Lulu!

One of my joke lines as a kid was that I always wanted to experience real girl talk. I said, as a kid. Girl talk is a thing.  And Lulu, it’s developers and biz people get it.

Lulu is going to be big.  Peace!  

Steps to a brand plan.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Here’s how I do it.

1. Observe. As a consultant, observation happens before an engagement and during. Before, observations are used in biz/dev. What’s going on in the culture? What’s going on in the selling culture? The buying culture? These nuggets are the grist for the emails that start a dialogue. Emails explaining what I do for living are “me” focused not “you” focused.

Once engaged, observations are the ebb and flow off the business tide – contextually set up by business fundamentals provided by senior client management. Research, both qual. and quant. come in at this stage, budget permitting.

2. Commune. Unlike anthropological fieldwork, in brand planning we need to commune with those we study. Plumbing, probing, storydoing (thanks Ty), making of friends. This is how we add dimension and luster to our hunting and gathering – talking to people. There are no wrong people.

3. Cull. A cull rack in Great South Bay parlance is the rack that catches the clams of legal edible size. With all observations in (one can observe forever), the cull begins. What to save. Knowing what is important is personal, subjective, objective, scientific and artful. Basically it’s a brain thing. Can’t really be explained. No algo for this.

4. Organize. In my work I often talk about brand planning as an organizing principle. Today I’m thinking about the root word organ. Yes, organ. The business winning elements of the strategy are like organs. They give life to the brand plan. I use 3 brand planks and there are three really important organs. (My brand plan contains one claim, three support planks.) With this structure, the puzzle pieces come together.

5. Package. Brand strategy doesn’t package well. It’s like an early Pearl Jam song, when they weren’t good at endings. The big reveal of a strategy (remember it’s not creative) often feels soft. It feels right, everyone is nodding, but it’s often a soft landing. If I may be crass, it’s kind of blue ballsy. Unlike creative which is more artful and has a hook, brand strategy is only a beginning. It needs great packaging to make it feel more creative. A touch of poetry helps.

This is how I do it. This is how brand strategy at What’s the Idea? is made. Have you a different approach? Peace!

Insure Product Meaning

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Yesterday I Tweeted the question “Does anyone know what the Discount Double Check is?” Everyone has heard of it; it’s all over TV.  Especially on NFL football. Aaron Rodger’s who mimes putting on a championship belt after touchdowns has sold the little dance to Allstate Insurance who has paired it with some double check insurance option and uses that as a differentiator.  I’m so interested in the humor (or lack of it), I’ve yet to figure out what the product feature means. Perhaps you do. What are we double checking and how does it work? 

It only took AFLAC half a decade to move beyond its quacking name-onic brand device until the advertising explained to customers that AFLAC is insurance that pays out if you are hurt on the job.   

In both cases we knew what the company IS but not what the product DOES. They both fail the Is-Does test. The first test of marketers, and I know it sounds fundamental and silly, is to get the Is-Does out of the way. So all you self-described lifestyle brands out there, that’s way too inside baseball. It’s too markobabble. Get your Is-Does right.

Peace.

 

Revolt Against Receipts.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

What’s up with paper receipts? Who is lobbying for them? International Paper? Weyerhaeuser? Why do we need them?  In this day and age they’re totally silly. Receipts should be opt-in. If you have a phone, a credit card and you made a purchase, your record should be in the retail computer aka the register.  

Sometimes I buy two items and my receipt is 14 inches long. Coupons, cross promotions for gas, who knows what else. Not me, I put the receipt in the trash.  Or in the front seat of the car until it blows out the window (jkjk). I am the type of consumer who does not leave a store with paper or plastic bags. No need to waste resources or add to the landfill. And I am not alone. Many shoppers feel the same way, especially the young. But retailers feel obligated to push this paper and plastic waste on us.

I went to SXSW Music one year and every attendee was given a big bag of paper and CDs.  The majority of attendees kept the bag but put all the paper and plastic on a spare table by the front window. It became a monument. Their way of saying “Stop the waste.”   What would happen if we simply dropped our receipts on the floors of our retailers…right by the counter. (Make it looks like an accident.)

Revolt against waste. One receipt at a time. Peace.

Hiring Your First Marketing Director.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

There’s a tipping point when a small business grows up at which it recognizes the need to invest in a higher level of marketing sophistication. It’s kind of like puberty. Awkward. A bit hard to watch. Three quarters magical.

The signal moment occurs during the hiring of the company’s first marketing director. Not marketing manager, marketing director. If the marketing director is strategic, continued growth is likely. If tactical, it’s a crap shoot. One can learn from tactics (derive strategy from tactics) but it’s bass ackwards.

A good marketing director is likely to make founders and owners a bit uncomfortable. That is because s/he will be interested is everything. The money. The product. The sales team/channel. Leadership. Customers. For small growing companies this can be a little overwhelming.  But hey, it’s puberty.  You just have to stick with it.

If, as a hiring company, you are not at least a little afraid of your first marketing director – keep looking.  Peace!  

Dissecting a Brand Brief.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

In my brand briefs the Living Breathing Target provides a layer of consumer insight many briefs don’t have.  The line after the target is Core Desire, a building block in the logic flow that leads to the idea. The difference between Living Breathing Target and a typical target is one of psychographic Vs. demographic. And the difference between the Living Breathing Target and the Core Desire is often depth and context. The target, typically described with a fun memorable name like Weberterians or Kings of the Castle, is a “grouping of people bound by a single shared attitude or belief.” A bit of a macro collective or people. Perhaps a bit cultural.

The Core Desire  dives into the consumers “most deeply held desire or belief that the brand can best meet or fulfill.” So it’s more product centric.  And don’t undervalue the word “deeply.” Analysis here is often quite instructive.

freud

Great planners get people. Likely, they’ve had psychotherapy or studied it. And I’m not talking school psychology stuff, I’m talking Freudian balls-out therapy. Remember, Margaret Mead while at the Museum of Natural History wanted all employees to experience psychotherapy.  

Get inside the head of your target, understand what binds members to others, and you will have wonderful groundwork for your idea. Peacely.

PS. This brief was learned, borrowed and slightly modified while I was at McCann-Erickson in the mid-90s. Its author, as best I can tell, was Peter Kim, then Chief Strategy Officer.

It’s Evolution Baby. (Da, da, da, da dahn.)

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Raise your hand if you think this mobile computing, mobile communications thing is a fad. Exactly…tricorders are here to stay.  Facebook just announced that 49% of its ad revenue is from mobile devices.  It also reported that “users were clicking on them (ads) in their news feeds more frequently.”  What does that tell you?  Well, Tarik Sedky wrote in Digiday that the banner ad is just about dead, which tells me we are getting better at crafting ads offing value for people’s mobile feeds.  Do I smell some Twitch Point Planning?

It stands to reason that anyone looking at their phone, say, while talking to a hottie, during a meeting, or at dinner, is someone looking for a diversion. Smarter ads, ads that understand context, ads that provide real value are getting clicked on. The ad business is evolving and mobile behavior is helping us. As we move from diversion clicks to clicks that move consumers closer to a sale, we’ll evolve even more.  

Content marketing my ass. Social media marketing my ass. Untill Facebook , Google and Yahoo start charging subscription fees or transaction fees, this advertising thing is going to keep floating the boat. Evolve me droogies. Peace.

 

The Great CPG Data Dilemma.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Data drives marketing. The most important data is sales. Duh. Always start with sales: daily, weekly, monthly, annual, forward and back. Data on purchase clusters, purchase frequency, bundling and demographics provide a wealth of insight, especially when compared to key competitors. One can look at dollars or units, regions, sales tied to marketing investments, both on and off-line.  However, as the data gets more complicated and pervasive, the sources require greater scrutiny.  How the data is classified and arranged is critical.  Consumer product data from Mitel and Euromonitor International aren’t always organized the same way and even when done so don’t always agree.

The next problem happens when marketers cloudy-up the waters by making hybrid products.  Can a beverage be a carbonated soft drink and water at the same time? (Ice, for instance?) Is a frozen, ready-to-bake cookie clssified as a frozen dessert or cookie? Many are these data dilemmas. It’s troubling. And if the data companies don’t know how to classify a product it’s likely consumers are having similar trouble.

Is-Does

Enter the Is-Does. What a product is and what a product does.  The Is is different from the Does.  The iPhone is a phone. Some product marketers don’t get the Is and it can be staggering – especially for startups. And the data dilemma is only making this phenomenon worse. So get your Is-Does right first and the data will follow.  

Healthcare Advertising

By
Steve Poppe
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0

NY Pres heather

A couple of friends in the ad business, Peter Rabot and Orson Munn, used to do some of the best hospital TV ads in the country.  Their campaign for NY Presbyterian anchored to the line “Amazing things are happening here ” are Spielberg-esque…probably better.  If you were in the business and saw one of these black and white, close-up first person stories of NY patients, including one with Mayor Ed Koch, you stopped talking and watched. If you were not in the business you did the same.

It was advertising that made you feel something then do something.

I understanding NY Pres. was not perfect client to work with (Who is?) and Munn Rabot has taken its craft and moved on.  They now work with NYU Langone.  NYU likes print ads which are harder to do well, especially in this category.  And especially without an idea.  I haven’t seen the idea from NYU yet, but it’s coming.  

Having Munn Rabot do a generic awards ad or clinical practice ad in print sans idea is like asking a goldfish to “sit.”  That’s what’s happening now. The agency and client have only worked together for a month or so; they are in that getting to know one another stage.  Let’s hope they land on a brand idea and that the hospital allows the agency to do what it does better than anyone else. These guys are specialists. Artists. Patients don’t argue with their surgeons.  

The work will tell the story. Peace.  

Fever.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

IPO fever is back. SnapChat, Instagram, Chegg, and the soon to go off Twitter have once again contributed to the investment energy that is IPO fever. We are reading about the fever from all angles: the composition of investors, the inventors, the bankers, underwriters and VCs, until we all in a lather. It will “bubble out” but that’s not even the worst of it. The worst is when young  entrepreneurs start to think they can build a billion with a smart idea, some energy drinks and an all-yearer (like an all-nighter but longer). Some will, most won’t.

I’ve watched CTOs with the fever working for the big payday, scrimping on quality testing, usability testing and market research all with Sand Hill Road and Union Square dreams dancing in their heads. Some smart VCs see these guys coming an say no, so the “fevered” go looking for angels and second tier investors.

The fever can be market debilitating. It’s exciting and needs to happen in a growing innovation driven economy, it just can’t be so exuberant that the inventors lose sight of business fundamentals.  Let’s just breathe. Invent and breathe.  Peace!  

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