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    Strategy and Stuff.

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    Enculturation.

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    Brand Glossary

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    Brand Planning

    Brand Plan as Immune System.

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    Steve Poppe
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    immune system

    Always on the lookout for metaphors that help marketers understand branding, I’ve come upon a new one: the immune system.  When a marketing entity has a brand plan (defined in my practice as one claim and three support planks) it has created an immune system designed to deflect all non-essential forces. Maintaining a healthy immune system takes work. It must be cared for and fed.  If the immune system has to work overtime, because the brand is constantly being attacked by outside forces, or it is spending time on off-plan activities, it weakens the immune system.

    And let us not forget the immune system is a system. It is not separate unrelated functions or activities. Brand planks, discrete parts of the value proposition working together to increase brand meaning and loyalty, are not always organically aligned. Too much price message might negatively impact the quality message, say. Too much focus on tasty, may impact the healthy message.  Each brand needs its own balance because every brand is different.  But the quick story here is that “a tight, focused organizing principle for product, product experience and messaging” can create an impervious barrier for your brand to ward off evil.  

    What are the parts of your brand’s immune system? Peace.   

    Trust and Story.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I was reading an article in The New York Times (paper paper) on cryptocurrency this morning and it almost convinced me to buy a Bitcoin.  For $39k.  I index as kind of cheap so this was pretty scary. It got me thinking about how many things I chose to do because it was recommended or reported by The New York Times.  I watched a wacky show on HBO Max last week because a reporter said it might be the best thing on television. I spend money of Amazon for hiking gear I read about on the NYT. Wirecutter has helped me with various purchases. I’ve taken vacations and read books and and and, all because I trust the writers of The New York Times.

    I do not like shopping, but apparently I am an impulse dude when it comes to trusted sources.

    Trust, trusted content, and powerful, clean, articulation of a story are the beacons of commerce. And persuasion.  

    I work in brand strategy. In my work I create an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging. The organizing principle is, by my methodology, one claim and three proof planks. But my work is not the story. It’s not the narrative. Sure, the proof planks are the persuaders. But sans story, they are words and scientifics on paper.

    There is not better feeling than seeing a brand strategy brought to life.  And that is the job of the brand planner. Prompting, coercing and encouraging a great story. From a great creative ad agency.

    Peace.

    Brand Planning Bracketing.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Let’s face it, every account planner is different. No matter the mentor or the shop one comes from, each planning point of view has to be, like a snow flake, different. But one thing that might bring a cohort of planners together is age. I’m 66. I’ve seen a lot of stuff in marketing. My skin may be thicker than that of a 20 something planner. How could our worldviews not be different?

    I love the idea of putting brand planners of different ages on an assignment. Photographers call it bracketing: the process by which one takes the same shot with different exposures.

    Were I doing new business at a large ad agency with good resources, I’d love to put a 45 year old planner on an insight assignment at the same time as a Gen Z planner — independent of one another.  Not a race or competition, just a bit of bracketing.    

    Ad shops aren’t organized this way. They are organized by hierarchies. Senior to junior. Group director, director, associates. Let’s mix it up a bit. Age perspective might turn up some interesting discontinuities. Or continuities.

    Peace.

     

    Imposter Syndrome.

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    Steve Poppe
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    There’s a phenomenon in brand planning called Imposter Syndrome. If I understand it correctly, it’s when planners feel that their work is undervalued and, perhaps, they are imposters in the process of creative content development. Leave it to planners to be so sensitive that they question their own work. Question everything, after all, is our mantra.

    I know how this has become a thing. It’s mainly because we give our work product to creative departments who are often beholden to nothing other than their own creative whims. Of course they want input. Of course they want validation from approvers. But foremost, they want to please themselves. Through creativity. The result? The work doesn’t always reflect the strategy. If the work sucks, we tell them it’s off. If it’s good we smile and congratulate.

    Here’s the thing: a brief for a project has numerous touchstones for creative. It’s not always the main idea that drives the creative content. It could be a target insight, a needs assessment, an endemic cultural insight. If it contributes to good work, we’ve done out jobs. If it sparks an idea for good work, we’ve done our jobs.

    We can’t be too sensitive. If our briefs and insights suck, we get fired. If we continue in our job, then our objective is to learn and get better at providing stimulus every day. “Be in it to win it, like Yzerman.”

    Imposter Syndrome be gone. Otherwise it’s therapy time.

    Peace.

     

    Brand Plan(ks)

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    Steve Poppe
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    I say brand plan you say________? Right.  No one really knows what a brand plan looks like.  That’s not to say Proctor and Gamble and L’Oreal don’t have brand plans. Or that Publicis, Ogilvy or Crispin Porter don’t have them. They do. But what they’re called and how they are organized are all quite different. 

    Brand Strategy Statement.

    My brand plans are simple to understand.  They contain a brand strategy statement which I tell clients is a suit strategy.  It’s not very catchy, not creative or tagline-worthy, but it tends to hit the CMO and CEO right in the solar plexus.  It may be contextual and/or contain metaphor but it’s certainly a quick, decisive statement of the brand value. 

    Brand Planks.

    Beneath this simple statement are three planks. Brand planks. Borrowed from Bill Clinton’s first election campaign when the mantra was “It’s the economy stupid,” a brand plank is a product development and messaging directive.  My planning process begins with the gathering of formation. Then I boil it down into its most powerful, tasty flavors and those flavors became the planks.  Of course, I make sure the planks are key consumer care-abouts and key company strengths (or potential, attainable strengths). 

    But lately I’ve been analyzing the planks to see if they share any formula for success.  Thinking about what makes good brand planks before I fill the stock pot with data and get sidetracked is (sorry Bud Cadell) what consumes me. 

    I haven’t gotten there yet but here’s a quick start: 

    One plank should educate (it’s what leaders do). One plank should engage (motivate preference).  And one plank should personalize (create a personally meaningful connection between the brand and consumer — bring the consumer closer to the brand). 

    This stuff is mapping the branding genome hard. Or not. But when I finish, it’s going to be exciting.  Peace!

    Love. It’s what makes branding planning brand planning.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Subaru has a long-standing tagline: Love. It’s what makes Subaru a Subaru.  Though I understand “love” and know what a “Subaru” is, I have no clue what this tagline means.  If given a guess, I’d say Subaru manufacturers lover their product so much it makes the car better. Of course, it could mean consumers love the brand so much it makes the product better — but that doesn’t make sense. Advertising.

    That’s an aside, my real point has to do with brand planning process.  David Brooks waxes philosophical in his Op-Ed piece today about two philosophies of life. One favors loyalty and community — giving of oneself for the betterment of the whole — and the other suggests tolerance of others and their points of view, yet being true to self.

    Brand planning, done right, is more like the former – the community betterment approach.  Brand planners should be constantly on the look out for the love. The good. Negatives need not apply. Therefore the word tolerance need not come up. Brand planning is about positivity.

    I understand competition. I understand “Who is going to lose the sale you are making.” That’s for advertising and tactical efforts.  Branding is about the love. What the brand is good at (good-ats) and what consumers care about (care-abouts). Find the love.

    Peace.

     

    The Loyalty Store.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    One of the 24 Questions I use in my deep dive brand planning rigor is “How much company revenue comes from existing or repeat customers?” When I compare this figure with lost customer and new customer revenue I get a sense of a company’s loyalty, loss and business development focus.

    If you look at marketing job boards today you will notice a great deal of acquisition activity.  The majority of marketers are absolutely smitten by new customers; it’s akin to generals in battle who need to take new territory. Loyalty marketers, on the other hand, know it is the back door, the door customers leave by, that is most critical. 

    chocolates

    Loyalty is engendered when customers are not overlooked. Everyone knows a broken family where mommy or daddy found s new partner because back at home they felt underappreciated. This behavior not only breaks up families, it drives wedges between parents and children. Loyalty, love, under-appreciation and inquisitiveness are human traits. Marketers try to build love through the AIDA principle: Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action, often forgetting Loyalty until it’s too late. Until the back door has been open too long.

    Coupons (sorry honey flowers), shallow thank yous, and automated responses do not loyalty make. Understanding yourself and your customers through a well-principled brand plan, is the place to start. Otherwise, it’s off to the loyalty store for some quick fix tactics.  Peace.

     

    Google Trivestiture?

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    Steve Poppe
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    I’ve been writing for a few years, with great admiration, about Google and its amazing, transformative search tools.  Sergey Brin’s original vision “We deliver the world’s information in one click” is what allowed Google to become the NASA of the web. Case in point: Yesterday I was looking for one of my blog posts on my own machine using the Windows search tool.  After three strikes I Googled “whatstheidea+things we remember” (the title of the post) and in less than a second I found my entry. No on my machine, but on the Web.

    More recently, though, I’ve found myself commenting about how Google has wandered from its original mission – getting into the productivity software, social networking, chat and now the phone business.  The brand planner in me asks “How does one now articulate the Google Is-Does?” The Googleplex is filled with amazing minds but many seem to be trying to out-engineer one another; me thinks they have lost a sense of mission.  Steve Rubel’s post today on Google Buzz so reflects.

    Culture of Technological Obesity.

    Google’s amazing growth and economic success has spawned a culture of technological obesity.  It’s time for a change.  Here’s what will happen.

    The company will go through a corporate divestiture or as was the case with AT&T, a Trivestiture.  It won’t happen now…probably within 48 months.  My bet for the three parts? Search (text and video), Mobile (OS, apps, and tools), and Advertising Analytics.  How would you break it up?  Peace!

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