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    Brand strategy definition

    The Case for Brand Strategy Investment.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Brand strategy is such a misunderstood science. And undervalued.

    Here’s why: Brand strategy, as I define it, is “An organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.” As such, it guides all tactics — marketing and otherwise.  Because brand strategy, by this definition, impacts the product it can also impact things like operations; typically not thought of as the domain of brand strategy. So, when the brand strategy for a commercial maintenance company has “preemptive” as a brand plank, it requires all employees to looking for problems with a customer building and grounds before they occur. Blind curbs due to poorly trimmed bushes, sweating pipes that lead to burst pipes; things typically outside of the normal contract. Things commercial maintenance companies aren’t paid for. This is an example of an operational component of the brand strategy.

    Preemptive is both a care-about and a good-at at Excel Commercial Maintenance in NY. It’s partly why they landed a huge cornerstone account ten year ago.

    Brand strategy – unless you are hiring a multinational company – can cost less than an ad in a national magazine.  Yet it is rarely funded. It’s just not valued as much as the tactics it should be driving. That’s probably why John Wannamaker coined the phrase “I know half my advertising is working, I just don’t know which half.”

    Measure twice (invest in brand strategy) and cut once.

    Peace.

     

     

    An Organizing Principle.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I came across a cool London ad firm yesterday by the name of Mr. President.  (Love the name.) In the About section of the website was a somewhat sprawling description of its brand craft, outlining 6 components:

    • Position: A strategic positioning for a brand which defines the business opportunity and informs the brand purpose.
    • Ethos: A unique brand story that defines its purpose and inspires its personality and behaviour.
    • Identity: A set of guidelines that demonstrate and define how the brand looks, talks and moves.
    • Comms: A campaign or moment that boldly defines the brand purpose.
    • Connectors: An extensive plan that defines how the brand should interact with the audience.
    • Measurement: A rigorous framework that defines and quantifies performance and unearths actionable insight.

    It’s comprehensive but also prescriptive. I’m sure it will work within the walls of Mr. President but not likely outside of the agency. And that’s what brand strategy is all about.  A framework that can be shared over time and place.

    I looked over the six, well thought-out elements and realized they are covered in What’s The Idea’s? Claim and Proof framework — with the possible exception of “identity.”  If we view purpose as claim then properly done all the behaviors mentioned can become proofs. So we are mostly in alignment, but in a cleaner more measurable way.

    A mentor of mine at McCann-Erickson once parried an AT&T client comment with “Campaigns are overrated.”  I riff on that with “Campaigns come and go a powerful brand idea is indelible.”

    Brand strategy is an organizing principle. Anchored to claim.

    Peace.

     

     

     

    Branding is not Colon Surgery.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    If there is a secret sharable sauce at What’s The Idea? brand consultancy, it’s proof. This business, this branding business, and all the brand strategies built for clients over the last 25 years, owe their being to proof.

    Proof is perhaps the most underrated element in advertising. And sadly, well-constructed advertising, if not built on proof, can become a branding element sending brands off the rails.  Flame broiled for Burger King is proof.  The King is not.  The effervescent bubbles coming off a sweating Coca-Cola bottle is proof. Happiness is not.  

    My approach to brand strategy is open source.  That is, I share my framework with all marketers: One claim, three proof planks. It’s simple and understandable. Google the words “brand strategy frameworks” and you get an assortment of marko-babble charts and circles that will make your head spin. Even the requisite boxes used in these frameworks are inexplicit. Brand Voice. Brand Personality. Mission. 

    This isn’t colon surgery people. It’s selling stuff through a simplified organizing principle. One that gives people proof of why they should purchase and continue to purchase.

    Find the proof and you can find your brand.

    Peace.

     

    Brand Strategy Definition.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Everybody in America can define the word “brand.” The Kardashians have made the definition more diffuse but still the word has amazing recognition.  Add the word “strategy” behind brand and it makes the task a little harder. Yet people know what the word strategy means so everyone should be able follow semantically.  Honestly though, the big honkin’ problem with the brand strategy business is very few people can actually articulate a process or framework for brand strategy. A means by which or protocol for enacting one, that is. 

    This is akin to people in the advertising business being good at creating ad and not good at selling product – the ultimate goal of advertising.

    There are a lot of smart people in brand planning, don’t get me wrong.  But most are paid by ad agencies to provide and insight or two to tickle the creative department.  And those who are employed by branding firms (e.g., Interbrand, Landor) are, in the main, armies of mid-managers paid to enhance presentations of names, logos, color palettes and experiential effluvia. Brand craft is more like the ad business (present stuff) than about the strategy.

    Starting at the beginning, a proper definition of brand strategy is “An organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.”  If your organizing principle is not organized, meaning it’s too broad or hard to articulate, it’s not an organizing principle.

    Tomorrow, a look at “product,” the first of the troika of brand strategy components.

    Peace.

     

     

    Are You Strategic?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    What does it mean to be more strategic?  Does it mean more analytical? Smarter? Does it mean you flail around less looking for a solution? Are you more successful when strategic?

    Once in my career at McCann-Erickson a supervisor told me I needed to be more strategic; it cut me to the bone.  But I wasn’t sure what to do to fix it. It was a swipe and advice sans solution.  I had to figure it out on my own. “Strategic” doesn’t come with a handbook.

    It’s hard to be strategic without a strategy. Then you have something to abide. Something to affect. With a strategy in place you can measure your efforts. As I sometime write, you can be binary in your efforts. Either “on” or “off.”

    The problem with branding, and therefore marketing, is that strategic people often don’t have a brand strategy. As a result they are strategic but with tactics. Or objectives. More money, more margin, more more. Unfortunately, they’re not building a brand. Not using “an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.” With branding the ends trump the means.

    Peace.

     

     

    Small Batch Brand Strategy

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I am loath to admit it, but What’s The Idea? is a small batch brand strategy consultancy.  The market has been conditioned to think a large corporate brand strategy has to cost $100,000; add another $150k for naming and logo design. Most of my clients don’t have that kind of money. My clients tend to be small and mid-size or start-ups.

    My framework for brand strategy – one claim, three proof planks – is tight and enduring.  But for some larger businesses, helmed by multivariate-obsessed MBAs, it may seem overly simplistic.  And inexpensive. Simplicity is the beauty of the framework, frankly. It mirrors what consumers remember.

    In small batches, with only 40 or 80 hours invested in research and planning, the process has to be relatively simple.  The information gathering metaphor I use is the stock pot. My cognitive approach, the “boil down.”  When you work in small batches, you self-limit your ingredients. You know what not to heap into the pot.

    I’ve done small batch brand strategy for crazy-complicated business lines. A global top 5 consulting company with a health and security practice and a preeminent hacker group who helps the government keep us safe. Small batches both.

    Try the small batch approach. As Ben Benson used to say, “I think you are going to love it.”

    Peace.  

     

    Sticky Brands

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    In a piece of 2014 research conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit on the subject of customer experience, the top box response to the question below was about message uniformity.

    I know to the hammer everything looks like a nail and to the brand planner everything marketing thing looks like brand strategy, but this one made my day. Brand strategy, defined here at  What’s The Idea? as “An organizing principle for product, experience and messaging,” is the key to message uniformity. Sure “voice,” “tone” and “personality” are important (ish) but the substance of the message is how one builds brands.

    Find your claim. Identify your three proof planks, make sure they are key care-abouts and brand good-ats, and you have a strategy.

    Stick to it and it will stick to your customers. And prospects.  

    Happy holidays to all. Peace.

     

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