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    Brand Planning

    Symmetry.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    We love symmetry in our lives. We love it on our design. In our music. Symmetry is balance. Order. Brand planners like order and symmetry yet they also know a strategy must not be replicable. It must be unique. Others can lay claim to the “refreshment” strategy, but when Coca-Cola says it, it has unique meaning. Why? Because nothing refreshes like a Coca-Cola. It’s doesn’t own the word, it owns the idea. That’s due to the coca bean and a special highly guarded recipe. 

    Many brand ideas are replicable as are many products (there just aren’t that many Coke’s out there), so the notion of creating an organizing principles in the form of “one idea supported by 3 brand planks” allows for that differentiation. It also allows a brand flexibility and the ability to cover new ground. Sameness is not symmetry. Geico is beginning to realize that. 

    Campaigns come and go, a powerful branding idea is indelible. And supported by symmetry and smart brand planks, a brand plan can last many lifetimes. Peace.

    My Brand Strategy Secret.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Clients pay me for two deliverables: brand strategy and marketing plans. I can’t do the latter without the former. It’s possible to pretend, even hide the brand strategy component, but without strategy the marketing planning is a little bit like paint-by-numbers.

    gem miningSo how do I approach brand strategy development?  I look for proof. How does a guy walk into a company and in a matter of days or week know a brand well enough to create a strategy that will operationalize marketing success? Proof. A hunt for proof.

    Proof of what, you ask? Ahhh, that’s the $64,000 question. At the beginning, it’s way too early to tell. Each brand presents a clean slate. As I trek through fact-finding, data, sales, consumer and business partner interviews, I come across lots and lots of claim-ish fluff. But when tangible proof rises up, it is easily noted. Proof may be found in behavior. In deeds, business decisions, investments. Product taste. Product experience. It’s everywhere. With enough proof arrayed and smartly clustered, the brand planner can begin to formulate the brand claim and key support planks. And that is the secret sauce of What’s The Idea?. Proof hunting.

    Rest in peace David Carr.      

     

    Cashiers, Conversationalists and CMOs.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    There are two factions in online marketing these days: Cashiers and Conversationalists. 

    Cashiers

    Cashiers care about the sale. They have the small dashboard that tracks click-to-sale and spits out an ROI calculations. Cashiers can’t wait to wake up in the morning to see the new numbers. They are in to usability testing, shopping cart abandonment, media optimization and other measures but their interest and energy pretty much stops at the sale. The buck stops there.

    Conversationalists

    Conversationalists are a daintier.  They immerse themselves in the process.  They want to make friends.  (Like the kid with the runny nose in grade school, sometimes they just walk right up to you and ask “Do you want be my friend?”)  In my world, conversationalists are actually more likely to find truths and insights about their products and win in the long term.  All the pop marketing gurus today are into the conversation. They are not technologists, thank God, so they are easy to listen to and learn from but their failing is that they’re a little too caught up in the sausage making, not the sausage tasting.

    CMOs

    For a CMO it’s great to have both types of people on staff.  A Yin and Yang thing. Cashiers are imperative for sales now. Conversationalists care about future sales, and loyalty and sale predisposition. But it’s hard to take predisposition to the bank. Good CMOs have a brand plan in place that gives direction to the factions.  A brand plan is informed by the work and findings of both factions, but it drives them.  A brand plan helps Cashiers and Conversationalist organize “claim and proof” in a way that creates Return on Strategy near and long term. Peace!

    Brand Enculturation.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I had to look up the word enculturation a couple of months back while writing a pitch email. In fact, at the time I wasn’t sure it was a word.  Enculturation is mission-critical to my business and the goal of every brand plan I write.  A good brand plan helps employees drink the Kool Aid — educating them as to the unique and meaningful points of difference. By enculturating a company with the brand’s promise and supports marketing in its many forms is simplified and made more effective.  Only when a company adopts a brand plan can it truly be extended to consumers. The enculturation of a brand plan organizes employee and consumer minds, removing clutter.

    Most advertisers and marketers hate “clutter.” I love it.  The more clutter there is in a category the more likely it can be broken.  A brand strategy may sometimes sound familiar, maybe even undifferentiated, but if it’s the right one, it will be actionable and defensible and its messages, demonstrations, and deeds profound.

    Newsday knows where people (on Long Island) live. The Daily News doesn’t. North Shore-LIJ Health System provides a systematized approach to improving healthcare. St. Francis Hospital doesn’t.  Isopure Plus uncovers the taste of pure protein. Milky Ensure doesn’t.

    When a brand creates a culture around its points of advantage it becomes a brand. When it doesn’t it remains a product.  Peace!

    Proof under development.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    When developing brand strategy I look for the claim then search for 3 business-building planks that support that claim. Proof planks, in other words. Proof can be tangible or it can be developmental and additive.  What do I mean by developmental and additive? Let’s just say it’s a goal and we may not be there yet — it’s under development. From a messaging point of view we may not have the scientific proof yet, but we know how to talk about it. Sympathize with it. And celebrate it.

    Were I selling for Taco Bell and had a proof plank about using ingredients imported from South and Latin America, I might talk about the qualities of those ingredients that make for a uniquely South American taste (soil, sun, mountains).  In the meantime, while that proof is under development, the company had better be looking for real sources. Proof under development is a little like working at a start-up, it’s about what you know, not what you make – about what your mission is, not what you can deliver right now.

    This may sounds disingenuous, but it’s not. I would never suggest lying or misleading. In the Taco Bell example it would have to be known that, say, the peppers were from the arid southwestern US – but the story has a beginning, a direction and a motivation.  Peace.

    Now and when.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    In the advertising and marketing business thousands of briefs are written every day. 98% of them are tactical.  I was visiting an acquaintance at Wieden and Kennedy and he had to go off to write a couple of ESPN briefs for women’s tennis, or some such.  Sounded like a cool job. Briefs are what planners do. Planners also fill the holes in their day with insight decks.  I’ve done quite a few. 

    The other 2% of briefs written are brand briefs – the briefs under which all insight deck and tactics briefs will magnetically hover. These are the most important. Frankly, with a great brand brief, many of the other briefs need not be written at all. With one good idea (claim) and three planks (proof of claim), the organizing principle is set and the creative teams prepared.

    Sure, specific tactics with unique goals may require a new lens through which to look at a program. A tighter target segment. A new product feature. Yet the organizing principle that is the brand plan is the default marching order. The reality is, many, many companies don’t have a brand brief, just digital folders with scads of the tactical variety. It’s sad and inefficient.

    Tactical briefs are for now. Brand briefs are for when. Or better put, for ever. Campaigns and agencies come and go, a powerful brand idea is indelible.  Peace on Monday!

    PS.  I am not suggesting here that W+K does not do brand briefs. The shop is too good not to.

     

     

    Facebook and Google Hit the Highway.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Steve Rubel is a “beyond the dashboard” digital commentator.  That’s what I love about him. He doesn’t spend his day looking through the rearview mirror, he looks ahead.  Check out this Paste from his stream today:

     “I believe business web sites will become less important over time. They will be primarily transactional and/or for utility. Brands will shift more of their dollars and resources to creating robust presence where people already are and figure out how to activate employees en masse in a way that builds relationships and drives traffic back to their sites to complete transactions. Media companies will do the same – they will be “headless.”  Google and search will remain important for years to come. However, what we’re seeing is the beginning of big changes where social networking and Facebook will further disrupt advertising, media, one-to-one and one-to-many communications, not to mention search.”

    Beyond the Dasboard

    I like to look forward too — beyond the car dashboard as the metaphor goes.  And a car metaphor is appropriate when talking about Facebook, Google and social media.  Content is still king in my book. Mr  Rubel’s very believable notion that corporate websites will diminish in importance, save for transactions, is accurate. Today.  But I see Facebook, right now, as the highway.  The road that takes you somewhere.  It’s a highway filled with signs, and people and so much traffic that you can learn lots by being there, yet it’s still just a highway. Corporate websites are losing relevance because they have no pulse. They tend to be static. The action, the pulse, is on the highway. Google is the map and the directory and it’s fighting with the signs and the traffic.  (Check out Mr. Rubel’s post for some comparative traffic numbers showing Facebook overtaking Google by some measures.) 

    Content Still King

    As we settle down and as companies being to truly invest in bringing their brands and value proposition to life through their web presences, corporate websites will come back in importance.  All this talk about the conversation is great. But at some point the conversation has to stop so commerce can start. Corporate marketers will learn this soon enough.  That’s the future Yo.

    The Problem With Brand Planning Tools.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    The world of branding is much like the real world in that there is science and everything else. What does that mean? Science undergirds the physical world, predicting the result of actions. Science repeats itself. Science predicts outcomes. Mathematics, physics, biology are all means to codify the physical world.

    A recent engineering client of mine taught me that tools fix things that are broken, but science precludes what’s broken. Cancer can be cured, we just haven’t figured out the science yet. Global warming can be dealt with, we just haven’t been able to muster the science and will.

    Many brand planners are tool-centric. I am pleading for us to be more science-centric. And that means starting way upstream of any tactical deliverable. Upstream of any buildable. In fact, it may be upstream of addressing a business problem. Because problems beget tools.

    Upstream means planning the master brand strategy. The organizing principle for product, experience and messaging. So many brand planners write briefs in support of a tactic. That’s downstream. Better to begin at the base level. At the foundation. Where the science is set.

    As you move your way up the stack (technology reference) or upstream toward the purchase, toward the tactic, you lose the science.

    Why is this a good approach? Because science is predictable. And predicting marketing outcomes is what is sorely lacking in our business.

    Peace.

     

    Kid Healthy Branding.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    v8 fusion

    General Mills and the Campbell Soup Company are doing some really good work to change the poor eating and drinking habits of kids.  General Mills, which already increased the whole grain content in its children’s cereal, has now agreed to reduce sugar in cereals advertised to kids. Campbell’s has created a line of heart healthy sugar and fructose syrup-free V-8 Fusion fruit drinks and marketing them to schools.

    Kids love cereal and they love soda and juice, so if the right products are available, affordable and actually taste good, kids will go for them — reducing obesity and diabetes down the road. 

    I have always loved the marketing ploy of Campbell’s: one V-8 is like multiple servings of vegetables. That idea carries over to its V-8 Fusion and V-8 Splash drinks. It’s a great, focused branding idea — pregnant with healthy consumer imagery (salt aside).  General Mills is trying to make whole grain a differentiating branding idea, but it’s juggling that with a new effort to reduce sugar.  It’s doing the right thing, but dividing its message to conquer. Were I General Mills, I’d work on the whole grain idea and leave the sugar-free as a side bar.  Sugar free is a bandwagon issue, whole grain is big. Peace!

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