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    Brand strategy definition

    Packaged Goods and Experience.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I define brand strategy as a framework for product, experience and messaging.  The experience component is often a bit of an outlier but good branding companies take it seriously. Experience as a brand component is particularly important in retail and business to business but how does one deal with experience in packaged goods?  A bottle of salad dressing is a bottle of salad dressing. You can say “packaging” is experiential. Perhaps “labeling.” But opening a bottle of Samuel Adams is the same as opening a bottle of Bud. It’s tough.

    Along comes the internet and now we have a little something more to play with. Web experience can be built so as to adhere to brand strategy. Not via messaging, i.e., pictures, copy and sound but through the actual user experience. The brand strategy claim and proof array should be delivered in actions, navigation and visitor behavior.

    As an example, let’s look at Highland Brewing whose claim is “Pioneers in craft.”  The website experience should deliver on the claim. Perhaps some tips on how to make beer. Or a demonstration of what makes a craft beer different from a mass-produced pasteurized beer. Someone around the campfire this weekend said done poorly a website can be an “electronic brochure placed in the ether that gathers dust.” Well let’s make websites package learning, create new behaviors and reward deeds – that’s how you can upgrade your packaged good experience.

    Peace.

     

     

    The Secret of Brand Strategy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    The name of my company is Whats The Idea?, and it’s fitting.  But it’s not the whole story of this brand strategy business. To most consumers the word “idea” conveys a business only about an idea. In brand strategy the idea is important – it’s the key thought or boil-down of the brand’s value proposition. But brand strategy is here defined as “an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.” And that goes beyond an idea. More accurately, the organizing principle is one claim (or the idea) and three proof planks — supports for the claim.

    A claim unsupported or without tangibles to make one believe, is simple-minded. And sadly, simple-minded is what much branding and advertising is. Proof planks are the structure of the brand strategy.  It’s the science behind the claim.  Why three?  Because three can hold up a claim… and three can be remembered.

    By itself the “idea” is not enough to build a brand. It must be supported by discrete clusters of proof. And that ladies and gentlemen is the secret to proper brand strategy. To measurable brand strategy. Not the brand voice. Not the brand mission. Not the brand personality. All mildly important, but not foundational.  Those elements are tactical and the domain of ad agencies.

    So, if your branding agency or content creator who purports to do branding talks about voice, mission or personality, ask them about proof of claim. Organized proof of claim.

    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.

     

     

    Branding is not Colon Surgery.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    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.

     

    Unbridled Proof Needs to Be Organized.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    My alma mater Rollins College recently posted a marketing video on YouTube. Set to violin music it is a visual listing of accomplishments over the course of the year. Lots of number 1 rankings followed by certain student honors, awards, social initiatives, celebrations of students past and a recap of campus investments and improvements. Had I done discovery on the brand I’m sure many of these things would have been circled as proofs. (I run an evidence-based brand planning shop.)

    But what must happen with proof in brand strategy and marketing efforts is it needs to be organized. Rollins tried to organize it but the vid just came off as a sophomoric listicle. All attenuated at the end of the video with a line “Make Tomorrow Happen.”

    Marketing videos are not an amalgam of randomized brush strokes, they’re an organized equation of value. Some might say a story. Something that creates a lasting and indelible memory.

    Brand strategy is an “organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.” The operative word is organized. Sans organization the proof is a marketing list. Sans proof, the marketing list becomes advertising.

    Peace.

    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.

     

     

    What Comes First the Brand Strategy or the Product?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    My definition of brand strategy is “an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.”  Most practitioners get the “messaging” part. And a growing number understand the “experience,” especially those with branded storefronts. How a customer experiences the brand at retail is more than a passing fancy.  Dunkin is a very different experience than Starbucks.  But when it comes to an organizing principle guiding “product,” many underdeliver — which is quite odd since the product almost always precedes brand work.

    So why does one create an organizing principle for a product that already exists? Well, it’s useful when making changes to the product. When creating product extensions.  When franchising the product. When dealing with supply chain issues. How about when dealing with quality control. Or hiring people who design the product. Apple certainly gets this. No Evil Foods understands. Marmot subscribes. 

    Marketers who fully understand their product’s, provenance, heritage, DNA, differentiators and UPS (unique selling proposition), have the easiest ways forward. And the most organized. And most principled.

    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.

     

    Insights.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Insights are the oxygen of brand planning. Insights about the target. Insights about product features. Insights about the competition. I could go on…and I will. Insights about the market. Insights about prevailing category attitudes. And insights about culture.

    Every planner mines insights. It’s what we do. And it drives the brand planning sector of the business. The fact is though, 95% of current planners’ jobs revolve around insights that drive tactical successes. By the project. By the pound.

    At What’s The Idea?, the job is upstream of marketing tactics. We set master brand strategy. That is, we establish an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging. Once that organizing principle (read, brand strategy) is developed – our job is done. It can effectively remove the need for brand planners to oversee much subsequent tactical work.  Now, I wouldn’t recommend that — brand planners are still the people most likely to find deeper strategy insights to refine important tactical executions, but it’s a thought.  

    I was once at meeting of Conagra’s Banquet brand with all of its agencies. Must have been 40 people in the room. Maybe 8-10 strategy/planner types. Far be it for ConAgra to tell its agencies who to bring to a meeting, but a tight, defined brand strategy would have saved them some time, money and danish.  

    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.  

     

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