Monthly Archives: October 2020

Words Are the Root of All Business.

By
Steve Poppe
-
0

When you are in the brand strategy business it’s hard to share your work product. Brand strategy as Mighty Jungle owner Mark Pollard would say “Is your words.”  I refer to brand strategy as an organizing principle, but that principle is words on screen or on paper. 

Success and failure in branding is tied to adherence to the brand strategy and to the actions and marketing activities generated.  When on-strategy you are likely to have success. Off strategy, it’s a crap shoot. Once I’ve created a brand strategy for a company it’s left to the makers and builders and brand managers to see it through. I don’t make logos. I don’t write print adds. I don’t create a web experience and code.

So, on my website what do I show?  Process charts? Customer testimonials? Client logos? Case studies?  Other people’s work?  Meaning other communication agencies’ work?  And let’s not forget, in almost all cases I’m under nondisclosure. 

What do I do to move customers closer to a sale on the web? Well, right now I use words. And more words. For 14 years I’ve blogged about branding. In the fishing world this would be called chumming. I toss branding words into the ether and hope it attracts attention.

So far it’s worked. Words are the root of all business.

Peace.

 

Politics, Bias and Branding.

By
Steve Poppe
-
0

Has “political” become a bad word? If you follow the press these days it has. When something has become politicized it takes on the aura of an agenda. And today a political agenda is either left leaning or right leaning. Moe Davis, running in NC’s 11th district to replace Mark Meadows pointed out recently that the armed services isn’t republican or democrat. Not everything has to be political.

In branding, the word “strategy” (nice segue, huh?) is not a bad word. Yet brand strategy is all about creating bias. Bias toward your product. The best brand strategies, however, are built upon strengths. Positives. If a positive implies another brand negative that’s fine, but brand building is not brand tearing down of a competitor.

Brand strategy, unlike politics, is a build-up business. It’s why I love it. We delve into customer care-abouts and brand good-ats and stay away from the blood lust that has become politics. I’ve cherry picked things from the political game to use in my branding practice. There are a lot of similarities. One thing I have not borrowed though is negativism. For me “bias” is a positive. Creating bias toward.

Peace.

 

 

Brand Taglines.

By
Steve Poppe
-
0

At What’s The Idea?, the framework for brand building is one claim and three proof planks. The claim is the fulcrum for all branding activities. It’s the one thing you can say about a brand that distinguishes it from all others. And marketing goes to war each day to proof it and bring it to life. Any marketing breath not supporting the claim is wasted.

For most companies the brand tagline is synonymous with the claim. Sometimes and this happens more often than it should, the tagline is the work product of the ad agency. Usually siphoned off of the advertising. If the adverting is on brand strategy and the adverting is good, it works fine.  Other times, the tagline is the result of brand planning prior to advertising. 

Let’s look at a tagline gone wrong.

Evan Williams. Bourbon Done Right.

The construct “done right” has been used in taglines in every product category since modern marketing began.  It’s so overused it has lost all marketing flavor. Plus, it presumes there are lots of bourbons done wrong. In addition to using a commodity tagline, “done right” is hard to prove. With a cursory look at the Evan Williams website, the only proof laid out to support the claim is aged in charred oak barrels. And aged for 4 years. Kentucky’s first bourbon doesn’t directly support the claim, though it’s a proof (of something). 

I’m sure Evan Williams is a wonderful product. It deserves a wonderful position in the minds and mouths of consumers. Letting a 32 year old copywriter, who probably drinks kombucha, write your tagline is a mistake. (At least that’s what this one feels like to me.)

Find your proof. Find your claim. Then find your distinction.

Peace.

 

Brand Strategy Is Business Strategy

By
Steve Poppe
-
0

I spend most of my waking business hours talking about brand strategy. A topic so obfuscated and buried in marko-babble no one really understands it. It’s tough going. 

The fact is, brand strategy is business strategy. Simplified. And packaged to be easily undertstood.  It’s business strategy boiled down, memorable and shareable.  One of the drivers of a good brand strategy is that is can be activated by everyone in the company. A good brand strategy in the hands of the receptionist or delivery driver or CEO is one that empowers business-building decisions.   

If you work at a company where you don’t want anyone else to know how to make business advancing decisions, because you are fearful they’ll make mistakes, you don’t need a brand strategy. You need Xanax and blood pressure meds. But of you want your employees and as a result, customers and influencers, to understand why you are a better company than the competition, thanks to meaningful product and operating values, then you do want a brand strategy. Because it’s good for business.

Imagine a retail package goods brand that changes its packaging every day. That’s kind of what happens to companies that operate sans brand strategy – AKA “an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.”

Peace.

 

 

12Page 2 of 2
© Newsmag WordPress Theme by TagDiv