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    brand strategy tarot cards

    Tarot Card Number 5, Boilerplate.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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     Boilerplate is the paragraph in a press release sitting at the very bottom of the page offering a paragraph of information about the company issuing the news announcement. It contains some selling references but mostly recaps the primary business(es), along with key facts, figures, age, ownership, etc.  Here is some boilerplate from The Kraft Heinz Company:

    About The Kraft Heinz Company

    For 150 years, we have produced some of the world’s most beloved products at The Kraft Heinz Company(NASDAQ: KHC). Our Vision is To Be the Best Food Company, Growing a Better World. We are one of the largest global food and beverage companies, with 2018 net sales of approximately $26 billion. Our portfolio is a diverse mix of iconic and emerging brands. As the guardians of these brands and the creators of innovative new products, we are dedicated to the sustainable health of our people and our planet. To learn more, visit http://www.kraftheinzcompany.com/ or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

    Shelley Spector of Spector and Associates says boilerplate should always remain the same. And it requires a lawyer’s approval at public companies. Good press releases also use a digest of the boilerplate in the first sentence. For instance, Kraft Heinz might start off with “Kraft Heinz, the largest global food and beverage company announced today…”

    (A sure sign of an immature company is one that keeps changing it’s boilerplate with every release. A no-no.)

    Every brand needs to think about its boilerplate. It is an extended, inclusive statement of business purpose, scale and history. It’s a good place for strategists to begin when delving into brand claim and proof.

    Peace.

     

     

    Brand Strategy Tarot Cards.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    tarot cards

    I have a neat idea for a “What’s The Idea?” promotion.  (Disclosure: What’s The Idea? is an open source company, believing strategy frameworks should be open and shared.) The promotion is called “Brand Strategy Tarot Cards”  but the idea needs a little help from friends and friendettes, as Rohsaan Roland Kirk might have put it. So feel free to weigh in.

    The promotion offers a free 1-hour brand strategy assessment to help marketers better understand their current brand position – or lack thereof.

    In a traditional tarot card reading, three cards are turned over. In a Brand Strategy Tarot Card reading, I will turn over 6 cards. But they won’t actually be cards, they’ll be pieces of marketing content. 

    Here are a couple of content types I’m thinking about:

    1. Press release boiler plate (first sentence and About paragraph). 
    2. Website Homepage and About page copy. (We’ll use the home page if About is the same as boilerplate.)
    3. Text from a CEO speech or introductory sales presentation.
    4. Most famous ad or blog post. 
    5. LinkedIn posts or last company Tweet.  
    6. Company mission statement.

    My intent is to turn these content pieces over in front of the CMO, one at a time, read them aloud and interpret them in real time. At the end of the reading, aggregate observations will be shared and if I’m able to see a pattern, a meme-able brand position will be offered.

    So planners, any thoughts as to other brand strategy tarot cards I might use? 

    Peace.                

     

     

    Brand Strategy Tarot Card Number 1.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I am working on a presentation called Brand Strategy Tarot Cards.  My intent is to turn over 6 cards of branded content and do a reading. A reading of what these 6 fairly common pieces of content convey about the brand.  I’ve been playing with what the 6 cards are, but now will lock them down. 

    Up first is brand or company Name. The name is spoken more often than not by consumers so the aural version is important. Therefore the first Tarot card will not be a card at all, but spoken words. “Pass the What’s The Idea? please.” “Hey, would you get Whats The Idea? on the phone?”  Of course, there are full spoken names and shorthand names. Coca-Cola and Coke, are famous examples.

    After I evaluate the communication value of the name, we can turn over the first Tarot card which will be the packaging of the name — including the logo and tagline, if there is one. We’ll assess what the logo does to convey or reassert the name and then look to see if it conveys or furthers any particular meaning or value. When first introduced what meaning did the Nike swoosh bring to the brand communication for instance.

    Lastly, we’ll evaluate the tagline. Has it resonated? Has it changed every few years? Is it an advertising tagline? Many times, when the name is bad and the mark not particularly meaningful, the tagline carries the water. It’s a bail out tactic for branding. A startup I worked at used the meaningless name Zude. The logo was colorful, original typography but to consumers it was meaningless beyond color and playfulness. The tagline “Feel Free” was broadly grounded in the product functionality (a drag and drop web authoring tool) but kind of meaningless without a communicative name and mark.

    Fort Tarot Card number 2, tune in tomorrow.

    Peace.

     

     

    Brand Strategy Tarot Cards Offer.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    When a younger man I did a good deal of volunteer archaeology. Enough to want to spell the word with an archaic “a.”  Sitting in the dirt outside the current wall of Fort Michilimackinac, it dawned on me that archaeology was a neat way to experience a town. Sifting through decades of their relics made one truly think about the people and times. A much different approach than reading history in a library. A more existential approach.

    So it’s not a great leap that I look to relics and artifacts to help me understand brands in my current job. To that end, I’ve come up with a little gadget play I call Brand Strategy Tarot Cards. It’s a work in progress but one whose time has come.

    As with much of my brand strategy discovery, it will start out with a plan then evolve it as the conversation does. As it now stands Brand Strategy Tarot Cards asks a marketing director or owner to bring 7 pieces of marketing content (artifacts) for evaluation. Pieces that tend to be seen by customer and prospects the most. Pieces of content that tell the brand story. These pieces I interpret, much like a tarot card reader, for message and implication.   

    To keep the mystery high, I will not today share my list of content pieces but I will offer readers (on a limited basis) a free reading of their so-called cards, through the end of the month of January 2021.

    Please write Steve@WhatsTheIdea.com. Help me bring this idea to life.

    Peace!

     

     

     

     

    Brand Strategy Tools.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I learned a neat lesson while working at FCB Advertising, which I’ve shared a number of times, worth repeating.  It’s a tool to see how “tight” your ad campaign is. But it has legs for other content as well.  

    Take all your ads from a given campaign and tack them up on a wall. The exercise works best for print ads.  Then review them together in real time. See if, combined, they tell a story. Or do there appear to be outliers to the story. To the main idea. Outliers water down the story mission.

    I once did this for JPMorgan Chase and its corporate website. I printed out 50 pieces of content and randomly placed them on a wall. Content JPMorgan Chase felt worthy of its corporate story. The exercise was to have JPM marketing people re-pin the content pieces into clusters — areas of similar intent and customer value. Quite telling.

    Today as a brand planner I use the same tool to see how tight or loose a company or product message is. In fact, I’ve developed a tool I call Brand Strategy Tarot Cards — a shortcut exercise to identify problems.   (Google Brand Strategy Tarot Cards for a primer.) Or write me, Steve@WhatsTheIdea.com.

    A randomized story is the bane of all brand planners.

    Peace.

     

    Brand Strategy Tarot Card Number 4.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

     

     

     

    The fourth tarot card to be turned over during the What’s The Idea? brand strategy demo is the “About” section from the company website. The About page is the most important place to get the brand strategy right, yet it’s often poorly constructed and amateurish. Not so, for large multinationals who have seasoned communications people and PR hands nearby, but it’s often the case among midsize and small companies who tangled in their underwear.

    Here’s an About page from nCipher:

    nCipher Security, a leader in the general purpose hardware security module market, is now an Entrust Datacard company, delivering trust, integrity and control to business critical information and applications.

    Not the worst in the world, but it assumes knowledge of “hardware security modules.”

    The Is-Does is fundamental to the About Section. What a brand Is and what a brand Does. Getting bogged down in where, how many, target and the like only confuses. In technology, you are either in hardware, software or platform (web services). Say that. Once you start piling on things like trust, integrity and control, you start to diminish.  

    In consumer products be what you are first, then and only then add value qualifiers.

    Local brewer Devil’s Foots Beverage Company gets it:

    “Devils Foot Brewing. Asheville, NC Craft Beverage Company. All Natural N/A Bevs made with Organic Roots and Fruits.
    (N/A refers to non-alcoholic, not North American.) Also, I would suggest beverage over brewing, rather than using both.)  

    When you write the About page, don’t get carried away. Tell them what it Is and what it does. Don’t bury it in blather.

    Peace.

     

    Boiler Plate.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    The older I get the more I post about pet peeves.  Hope I’m not getting cranky. Saw this piece of boiler plate used by a company that shall remain nameless. It’s a great example of burying the lead and lack of focus.  If you are Coca-Cola or Google you needn’t remind people of your Is-Does — what a brand Is and what a brand Does. But if you’re new or newish it’s pretty important.

    Here’s the boiler plate:

    Founded in 1998, So and So Company is a purpose-driven company that strives to empower the whole family, including pets, to live happier, healthier lives.

    They believe that the products you put in your body, on your body and use in your home matter.  Popular product lines include premium pet food and supplements as well as clean health and beauty products for the consumer.

    Okay, okay…if you get past the copy about being purpose-drive, you do get what they sell. Albeit, it’s a bit of an all-over-the-place portfolio.  Pet and people?  Products for in your body, on your body and in your home?  That covers some consumer ground. What tethers the products together is the all-natural claim, I guess. It doesn’t even say all-natural, I’m just assuming.

    This company may be successful. In fact, they are growing.  But positioning, as Al Ries and Jack Trout proudly proclaimed, is everything. 

    This boiler plate makes me cringe. In my brand evaluation tool “Brand Strategy Tarot Cards,” boiler plate is one of the first cards turned over.

    Get it right so your consumers don’t have to work too hard.

    Peace.

     

    Dashboard or Strategy Board.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    How do you convince someone they need to invest in something they don’t know they need? First you have to educate them about the problem. Then you have to educate them as to the solution. It’s a two stepper. Two steppers are expensive. It’s sooo much easier to offer consumers something they know they need.

    This two-step approach is the life of the brand strategist. My key business development chore is to convey to marketers that a focused and well thought out brand strategy can increase the value of all marketing. Thanks to the variety of marketing channels and tools available today (read: HubSpot, Google Analytics, etc), most marketers are focused on the dashboard, not the strategy board.

    So how does one educate a marketer that a focused brand strategy will elevate the success of their product? The answer is — by sharing a disorganized brand strategy. Enter Brand Strategy Tarot Cards.

    The cards are not really Tarot Cards but might as well be as they can predict brand organization. The cards are actually 7 pieces of select marketing content — all of which are highly visible to the public. By parsing these pieces for key take-aways in real time in front of a marketing team leader a picture emerges. It’s either a Rembrandt or a de Kooning. Clear and understandable or random and interpretive.

    I am tweaking what the 7 pieces of content are but I would love a marketer to help me in my Beta efforts. It’s a freebee. Please write Steve@WhatsTheIdea.com and let’s get started.

    Peace.

     

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