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    Meaningful and Fresh.

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    Best Buy Oops.

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    Branding Is Unfair.

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    Brand Strategy

    Sam’s Club and IN-surance.

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    Steve Poppe
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    I was shopping at a Sam’s Club in NC a month ago and speaking with a couple of lovely ladies at the customer service desk. Both had holes in their smiles. (I wondered if they smiled as effortlessly as the rest of the population.) Missing teeth is a cue for poor or no insurance. And Sam’s Club, in my community, appeared to index high for workers with poor dental health. Sweeping statement I know.

    I’ve spent weeks and weeks at BJs and Costcos in NY and seeing gap-toothed employees was uncommon. Not unheard of, but very uncommon.  It may sounds snooty but I like my food servers and customer care people to have a full mouth of teeth. (Let’s make America great again.)

    As a brand guy, I’m thinking employees who exhibit improper dental health in front of customers impacts the brand preference. I’m not going to go too deeply into feelings and associations, e.g., hand washing, personal hygiene, etc. but this employee health oversight must be worth a couple of points of annual revenue. (Read millions of dollars.)

    If you don’t care for your employees, why would you care for your customers. 

    Come on Sam’s Club. Help a worker out.

    Peace.

    PS. I do not know for sure that Sam’s Club doesn’t offer dental insurance. I do know, in a research study of one, employees seem to need better dental health.  

     

     

    Be Ambitious With Your Brand Objectives.

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    Steve Poppe
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    At the end of my brand strategy presentations, I like to make sure the claim is well received.  I offer up slides listing all the pros and all the cons.  At present, I don’t ask C-level management and approvers how they feel the claim will perform against key product objectives. That needs to change.

    Of course, understanding the KPI is critical to this step.

    Much work in brand strategy work focuses on one overarching problem. I like to walk and chew gum.  What’s The Idea? brand strategies are intended to accomplish numerous things. All tied to top company objectives. Not just one.

    A healthy discussion of how key objectives are met by the brand claim and brand planks proves the worth of the strategy.  Presentations meant to simply earn a go/no go decision are weak. Once the strategy is approved the hook has to be set. It has to show its business-winning nature.

    I once worked on a huge healthcare brand and presented 15 plus objectives I believed the strategy could accomplish.  The client was nervous and made me pull back.  He didn’t want to his boss to think we were overly ambitious.  And he didn’t want to fail. Oh my!!

    Peace.

     

     

    The Creative Brief.

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    Steve Poppe
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    Words are important. Especially to creative people.

    Creative directors, art directors and copywriters all have their own way of making decisions about what constitutes good creative. Certainly, the output is mission critical. But good creative know the ability to motivate action and preference among consumers is most critical. And that means action beyond liking the ad.

    One of the key stimuli for a creative team is the brief: the document that sets the stage and strategy for the execution. There are a couple of different type of words used in a brief: science words and sales words.  “Science” words are the what and the why – the evidence of the product and claim. “Sales” are the word flourishes that are supposed to excite the creative team into creating great ads.  The problem is, creative people don’t want to read briefs that are salesy.  Exposition that is anything more than a valid claim, specs, advantages and competitive superiority are bullshit to them.  Creative people know this because they are in the bullshit business. They see it and smell if before anyone.

    Tell a creative person your widget is more reliable and they seize up. Tell them it has a gold-plated framis that last 10 times longer and they can get to work.  

    This is why creatives prefer shorter briefs. It’s easier for them to remove the sell from the science.

    Peace.

     

     

    Movements, Demonstrations or…

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    Steve Poppe
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    Strawberry Frog likes to tout its brand and advertising strategy “Creating Movements.”  Movements are a slow burn – so, some might argue it would be more expeditious to “create mobs?”  Well, the difference between a mob and a movement is virulence and no marketer wants their followers to be hostile or spiteful.

    The business of branding is to influence in a positive way. To build value appreciation through customer care-abouts and brand good-ats. Research even suggests introducing an element of danger in advertising can cause consumer unease making them less likely to purchase. Sunny day anyone?

    Physics reminds us movement from a standing still position causes friction.  And brand people love to talk about tension. They uncover competitive tensions for breakfast.

    Most will agree creating mobs around brands is wrong. Stop gun violence. Stop the war. Better pay for nurses. All three of these examples offer the potential for anger but I wouldn’t call them mobs. Yet I also wouldn’t call them movements. Demonstrations might be a better word. Legal. Careful. Pointed.  Plus, I love the word demonstrations. Demonstrations also support the “claim and proof” framework which is the backbone of What’s The Idea? It works two ways.

    There is probably a good word between the passive movement and the more animus-infused demonstration. The search is on. Thoughts?

    Peace.

     

    Tabula Rasa In Brand Planning.

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    Steve Poppe
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    I have a hypothesis that marketing directors or CMOs who work for brands for a long time and move to work on new brands are at a disadvantage.  Their worldviews or market views are colored by the strategies and value cultures of their previous brand. They can make assumptions born of previous brandscapes.  Every brand has its own unique fingerprint. Sure, every brand has hands, fingers, knuckles and nails, but each fingerprint is a unique selling premise. And when a new sheriff is in town, and her/his market view is colored by brands past, it camouflages the reality.

    If this hypothesis is correct, how does a new market leader go all tabula rasa on their new assignment?  Drum roll. With a brand strategy engagement.

    If a market director without true power goes takes a new assignment and asks the CEO for funds to conduct a brand strategy deep-dive and the response is, “That’s why we hired you,” it’s a bad sign.  Or if the CEO says, “I know everything about the brand, don’t waste the money,” another bad sign.

    As any good psychotherapist will tell you, no one ever got sicker because they looked inward and had better understanding of themselves.

    New brand leaders can go off the rails when they make assumptions about customer care-abouts and brand good-ats based upon previous knowledge and products. 

    Peace.

     

    Engineered Preference.

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    Steve Poppe
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    Campaigns come and go but a powerful brand strategy is indelible, is a line I wrote for a Gentiva Health Services pitch many moons ago. Gentiva is now owned by Kindred Health for those still counting. A powerful brand idea, is a difference-maker in marketing because it anoints a product or service with a value that only it can claim. Burger King owns “Flame Broiled.”  Coca-Cola owns “Refreshment.”  Google owns the “World’s information in one click.”

    Establishing and owning a brand idea is the job of the brand manager. Constantly and without pause, hammering home a key care-about or good-at, seeds the brand idea — building and reinforcing consumer preference. Preference is not the only job of the marketer but it’s an imperative job. I may prefer an Impossible Burger, but if it’s not in my store, no sale.

    The job of the brand strategist is to engineer preference. I choose to do it with a model based upon claim and proof. My approach is repeatable. Other’s do brand strategy differently.  Shades of right, I guess. Either way, preference is our goal. Preference makes the revenue.

    Peace.

     

    Brand Strategy vs. Tactics.

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    Steve Poppe
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    I was working with a company recently where the main deliverables were a marketing plan and brand plan.  One of the company’s other needs was a revised website.  The ability to deliver the brand plan — a brand strategy and three supporting brand planks — in the form of a website was new territory for the company. It was a break from the past where their mindset was to create easy navigation to the diverse and changing offerings of the company. Since the company was expanding into new markets and changing the composition of its product set, its brand meaning and value were not well known and misunderstood. Rather than create an information architecture, this company needed a clean Is-Does and a succinct brand organizing principle. In other words…a strategy.

    Part of the assignment was to affect change in the social space. The company, with a good blogging culture, some really smart people and lots of deeds and stories to share, unfortunately gravitated toward Pasting rather than Posting. (Pasting is sending forth other people’s content, with a yay or a nay; Posting is creating original content.)  My admonition was to provide more analysis, and less curating…and to do so on brief.  This takes time. It takes thought and context.  But it’s what readers and users are looking for in their social – in their media.

    Charlene Li of the Altimeter Group posted yesterday about a lack of strategy in social media. Though I haven’t always agreed with Ms. Li, I love that she studies and commits to points of view. Charlene is a thought-leader. A Poster. She is worth way more than the price of admission. Find influential Posters and follow them. Question them, exchange ideas with them — don’t “like” them. Peace.

    Brand Promises and Stereotypes.

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    Steve Poppe
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    Stereotypes are important in marketing because they are patterns.  Many feel that if you play to the patterns, you will win.  Creative directors, on the other hand, have made a living going the other way — staying away from patterns, which is a pattern in itself.

    Stereotyping Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, might suggest she was more likely to assist in the EU bailout because she’s a woman – a mom.  Stereotyping a Long Island Rail Road worker who took retirement with disability at age 50, might portray him as a golf-playing aerobicist, while the reality is he is an arthritic thanks to 30 years keeping the trains moving during winter snowstorms.

    Is someone in Aspen, CO who opens a retailer door and shouts in “Which way to Little Nells?” a New Yorker?   Okay, that one might be accurate – but the reality is stereotypes are nothing more than learning for a brand planner. And as planners if we know “no one wants to be a stereotype.”  It doesn’t mean the consumer wants to be the pioneer who takes the arrows  or the Beta User whose machine gets crapped – it just means when being sold, we want to feel individualized.  The promise has to have promise…not an explicit benefit.  Let consumers’ minds work and process things in their own way. Europeans are better at this type of selling than Americans.  In the U.S. we are very explicit with our ads and social media.

    Sometimes being broad with a promise works harder.  Peace.  

    The Inside Out of Brand Consulting.

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    Steve Poppe
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    Independent marketing and/or sales consultants dot the business landscape, providing small and mid-size companies with advice to improve business processes, effectiveness and earnings.  In my special class of business consulting, brand strategy, the goals are similar but the deliverables different.  We tend toward communications (and experience) while marketing consultants delve more into business fundies and delivery.

    I can’t speak for all brand strategists but I like to work from the inside out. That is, I like to understand the foundational drivers of the company/brand. What the brand is good at? Where is the love of the founders and leaders?  Who’s the best employee and why? What’s the special sauce?  Only when the real business motivations are understood do I look outside…at the consumer.  Mostly marketing and sales consultants start outside, then look in. Where is the demand?  And how will we optimize and improve the approach to meet that demand?

    In my parlance, study the brand good-ats before the customers care-abouts. Like a scientist, I study the DNA before the population at large.

    It’s a different mindset. A different emphasis. It helps me sell and it helps clients buy.

    Peace.

     

    The Brand Strategy Business.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    It’s hard selling brand strategy. Everyone knows what a brand is. And everyone knows what strategy is. But no one knows what brand strategy is.

    Here’s my definition and it’s the best definition I’ve seen so far: An organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.  As my Norwegian Aunt would say “Tink about it.”

    Let’s forget the organizing principle part – that’s a where most brand strategists get caught up in their underwear. Let’s jump straight to Product, Experience and Messaging.

    When talking product and brand strategy it’s somewhat of a chicken and egg thing. What comes first? The product comes first. Unless it’s a startup. Even then, the product comes first.  What a product is and what product does — I call this the Is-Does — must be baked into the brand strategy.  This informs current product positioning, future product iterations, evolutions and brand extensions. It’s an explicit roadmap for the product.

    The experience is also fundamental to the brand.  Whether it’s the website, out-of-the-box or in-store, how one experiences a product (starting with packaging) is what makes the brain synapses fire toward brand value.

    Lastly, is the messaging. 85% of all marketing budgets today are directed toward messaging. And mostly, it’s a mess. Ask any copywriter or art director – they’ll tell you. They get no input other than product specs, a consumer care-about or two, and eps file with a logo. Messaging is a bunch of words and images that are mostly interchangeable. Without a tight brand strategy.

    Not all is hopeless.  It just takes a steady hand and a plan. 

    Tomorrow, we’ll look at brand strategy and service businesses.

    Peace.

     

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