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    The Idea To Have An Idea…

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    Whistles.

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    Intentional Brands.

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    Brand Strategy

    Neutrogena Tagline.

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    Steve Poppe
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    Yesterday I posted about high-flying Oatly and the tagline “It’s like milk but made for humans.” I said I wasn’t a fan of the line. One reason being it identified the target as all of humanity rather attempting to carve out a special segment most likely to partake — thereby creating a bit of a tribe.  Well, last night I watched a Neutrogena commercial with a similarly crafted tagline: “Neutrogena, for people with skin.” Doh!

    This one wins. Though it offers a bit of a smile, it massifies the target into an amorphous blob of consumers. No one is special. No one is unique. None share a reason for buying Neutrogena.

    Branding is about creating differentiation. It’s about consumers identifying products as different.  

    Imagine a brand planner trying to do customer journey work for people with skin. Step 1. You wake up in the morning. Step 8. You go to bed.    

    Neutrogena and Oatly have created taglines meant to be fun and humorous. But, sadly, that’s the creative people talking not the strategy people.

    Peace.

     

     

    Oatly Tagline

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    Steve Poppe
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    Oatly, a Swedish milk company whose product is made primarily from oats, has been in the news lately. You may recall its fun, albeit somewhat odd, Super Bowl spot in which the CEO is singing about the brand in a field of oats. Two weeks ago, Oatly had a public stock offering on the Nasdaq, with a nice little first day bump.  And not long before that they made a neat hire in Heidi Hackemer as EVP creative director.  Should be an interesting company to watch.

    But one thing I can’t wrap my head around is their tagline. “It’s like milk but made for humans.”  Milk has for millennia been the life-blood of humans. Read mother’s milk. So the statement is intuitive wrong.  Whether they are talking about milk allergies or global warming, I’m not completely sure. Probably both, but either way they are trying to deposition accepted and current forms of milk and other mild substitutes.

    Moreover, to position your product “for humans,” or in other words everybody, though perhaps  a smart massification of consumers, it is not very special. Air is for everybody.  Water is for everybody. People don’t select brands because they are for everybody, they select brand because they are for “me.”

    I think I know the play here but it just seems a little weak. I predict the sing-songy line will be around a few more months, maybe a year, then put to pasture.

    Peace.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Brand Flotsam.

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    Steve Poppe
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    I came across what looks to be a cool hot sauce company in Austin, TX by the name of Yellowbird.  Nice memorable name. Playful and fun logo. The website that is bold and visual.  I even dug deeply into the site and found in the About Section, a suggestion that birds aren’t bothered by the heat of hot peppers — a tie to the brand name.

    Yellowbird, I also noticed, was looking for a director of marketing.

    Following are 15 things they are seeking in a candidate:

    • Be the voice and advocate of the customer within the organization
    • Work with Leadership to ideate and create quarterly and annual marketing initiatives and budgets and ensure tip-to-tail execution
    • Leverage data to plan, optimize, and report on marketing efforts
    • Help create the brand story in the world and evolve the brand and voice over time
    • Grow market share and overall brand awareness
    • Plan and manage field marketing, sampling, and event activities on a national scale using internal and external resources
    • Coordinate with sales team on shopper marketing initiatives and activities
    • Work with multiple internal stakeholders including but not limited to creative, finance, innovation and others to coordinate projects, develop messaging and produce marketing materials for various communications and events
    • Utilize best practices to own or assist with project management, marketing team planning, reporting, operations, budget, and contracts
    • Communicate regularly and clearly with Yellowbird team members to maintain consistent forward momentum
    • Use company tools and systems to store files, manage vendor relationships, stay on top of communication, and manage projects and timelines
    • Ensure that all marketing and communication processes are continuously evaluated for proper operation, relevance, efficiency and utilization
    • Continually assess and introduce process improvement measures.
    • Lead, manage, and develop your team to deliver exceptional results
    • Manage cohesive working relationships with all other personnel and stakeholders to ensure unified and effective promotional efforts

    All of these functions are important. Cut and paste important. But they are also very much tactical. I’d be hard pressed to see any strategic focus here. And that was also reflected in Yellowbird’s “nice” website. Lots of words, lots of product flotsam, little strategy.

    What gets people ordering hot sauce online or out of their chairs and to a retailer is strategy. Strategy with a poetic, memorable, replicable flair.

    Yellowbird has a good first step (name, package, website) but it hasn’t begun yet to do the real work of brandcraft. 

    Peace.

     

     

    Rebranding. And Brand Planks.

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    Steve Poppe
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    I did a brand strategy for a cyber security company a number of years ago. It was a killer assignment and a killer company. A couple of years later the CEO re-approached me and asked if I would do a refresh.  The company had moved into a couple of new areas and he wanted to check to see if his claim and proof planks were still dead on.  The new business areas were crypto, block chain and osquery.

    My approach to brand strategy has always been one in which the work is supposed to be future- proof, if not future enabling. But sometimes when the product, target or technology change a look-see is required.

    When the reassessment brand work was complete I was happy to report that the 3 brand planks stayed the same.  The claim, however, evolved a bit yet it was certainly only an evolution. An evolution that allowed the company to take more responsibility for understanding the nuanced science of cyber security.

    The learning for me was that even if a strategy claim changes, it’s less likely the planks will change. Planks are more like DNA. Leopards don’t really change their spots.

    Brand planks are critical because they feed the teaching narrative that build indelible value. Many brand strategy consultants sell you a claim and some gobbledygook about voice or personality. Unless you are getting planks you’re being short-changed.

    Peace.   

     

     

     

    Brand Strategy Targeting.

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    Steve Poppe
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    Brand strategy should speak to all targets. And, in a perfect world, all people.  Once we segregate a target and prioritize sub-targets (for maximization) we are moving beyond branding. Segmentation goes counter to brand craft. Segmentation is an important function but it’s a marketing function.

    Let’s start at the beginning. When creating a brand strategy, the planner wants to look at all targets that come in contact with the brand. As an example, let’s look at a recent What’s The Idea? engagement for a math tutoring company. The most important target was the parent. The payor. Another important target was anyone who might recommend a tutor, such as a teacher or friend in academia. The tutee (Is that a word?) AKA the student, is also important. And, of course, prospective math tutor employees are important. All these targets have different motivations and care-abouts, albeit math improvement is an ultimate goal.   

    To make it more complicated, it’s possible to further parse the parent target. That is, are they up-scale moms and dads? Price-conscious?  Professional or blue collar? Is the tutoring remedial or preparatory, for say college testing? All of these things must be factored in. But for proper brand strategy, with everything factored in, the value prop/brand claim must appeal to all. Everyone must be treated as a prospect. A news reporter, without kids, might break a huge story on your brand, while never being part of the target.

    Brand strategy isn’t code, it should speak to everyone.

    Peace.

     

     

    Stop Fiddling Nero.

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    Steve Poppe
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    I’ve worked on hundreds of brands throughout the years but the one that probably taught me the most was AT&T. I started out schlepping ads back and forth to Bridgewater, NJ is a big black portfolio case. And I left the business a brand strategist. 

    My years working on multiple AT&T lines of business — from retail phone stores, early email services, business long distance, technology (microchips, central office switches, PBXs, video), data lines and more — taught me about the company and its culture. And it taught me brute force marketing. Not all AT&T companies were equal but the brand was strong, well-managed and at the very top, well led.

    Today the newspapers refer to AT&T as a wireless company.

    The strategist in me would say AT&T is not a wireless company. It’s a telecommunications company. And its announcement to spin off the media properties, formerly Time Warner, is a welcome one.

    At its best AT&T is a business business. Not a creative business. People invent stuff there. They are in the telemetry business. And this world and the future are moving that way. Some of us refer to AT&T as in the plumbing business. The pipes, switches and receiver business. It is. And without going too Sci-Fi on you, that business will take all of the company’s energy and efforts to own.

    Bring back Bell Labs. Create the future. Leave the sitcoms and romcoms to someone else. Stop fiddling Nero. The planet needs you.

    Peace.

     

     

    A Tale of Three Strategies.

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    Steve Poppe
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    A number of years ago, I was involved in a new business pitch for a big piece of healthcare business in NY. I had a knock down drag out fight with one of the ad agencies principles about whether or not to keep the existing (previous agency’s) tagline. I was yeah, the principle was nay. He finally threw in the towel. We suggested keeping that tagline which was “setting new standards in healthcare.”

    The brand strategy claim I developed for the health system was “a systematized approach to improving healthcare.” Eyes on the system. You can see how close setting new standards is to a systematized approach.

    Fast forward 15 years and that same health system hired a brand consultant to assist in a name change. The brand claim they came up with was “Providing transformative leadership driving the future.” A first pass you’d think it was a Google translation of the previous efforts. A repurpose. But on closer inspection, it was a bit of a pander to senior management. Making the health system leaders the heroes, rather than the system itself.  Words and emphases matter. Especially in strategy.   

    Tomato, to-mah-toe?  I don’t think so.

    Peace.

     

     

    Search and Stick-to-itiveness.

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    Steve Poppe
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    Every morning I try to blog about branding. To date I have somewhere north of 2850 posts. One of the tricks I use to build make blog more visible and build followers is to index each post with my consultancy brand What’s The Idea?  In search terms that means I tag whatstheidea, one word, to every blog — along with whatever else I happen to be writing about.  My intent is to be able to tell people to Google whatstheidea and another word or brand using the plus sign (e.g., whatstheidea+burger king) and they will be one click away from my writings and thoughts. 

    It worked for a few years then as Google kept changing the algorithms my results were sent way beneath the fold. I mean waaaay beneath.

    Well, it looks like I may be back. Thanks to the latest Google algorithm, some secure server and WordPress magic by my hosting company (Unreal Web Marketing) and a lot of stick-to-itiveness, my years of indexing work has not been for naught.

    It’s fun when plans work out.

    Peace.

     

    Dunkin’ Cover. (As in, duck and cover.)

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    Steve Poppe
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    The wifus loves donuts.  Her favorite is Dunkin’ Donuts Vanilla Crème. On Mother’s Day, a lil bit of powdered sugar still on her lips, she happened to mention that the donuts used to be better. Apparently, the vanilla filling used to extend right to the very end of the donut and now it takes a bite to get there. As a kid who was coaxed to go to church with a jelly donut, I appreciate her point. A donut bite without filling is a lost opportunity. A branding problem.

    Since the customer is always right, why did Dunkin’ (they officially dropped the word Donuts from the brand) decide to lighten the filling load? There might be an assortment of reasons: new filling extrusion machines, reduce sugar content for health reasons, save a few pennies, the list goes on. But if one donut lover noticed, you can bet thousands of donut lovers noticed. And of those thousands, how many consciously or subconsciously have decided to try another donut shop – perhaps a craft donut shop — or even another morning confection altogether?

    When a butterfly flaps her wings….

    When you have craving brands and you alter the recipe or the proportion, it has an effect. There had better be a very good reason for doing it. It gets noticed.

    Peace.

     

     

    Made for People Strategy.

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    Steve Poppe
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    I came across a website yesterday for an electronic bicycle business opening a retail store in Asheville, NC. I’m sure the products are great but I didn’t that from the website write-up. Here’s an open letter form the CEO:

    Pedego is the best brand of electric bikes on Earth because we put people first.

    The most important part of every Pedego isn’t some high-tech gadget or fancy bicycle component – it’s the person riding it.

    Producing great eBikes is just the beginning. To be truly great, a company has to stand for something…

    Pedego stands for you.

    Don DiCostanzo

    This claim is the most-used brand position in the history of commerce. And to be honest, there’s nothing wrong with putting the customer first; I’ve written a number of strategies around ergonomics, for instance. But if I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times, don’t make a claim and let it sit there. Prove it. Provide evidence. Be the claim. Live the claim.

    When Nfinity sneakers says their cheer shoes are made for women, they show an engineering drawing of the unique weight distribution radiating down the leg from womens’ hip structures. And then there show the different shoe configuration and weight bearing areas. This is claim and proof.

    Mr. DiConstanza, may make bikes that put people first (hate those dog bikes…hee hee), but he needs to build a support case. And he needs to pound it home.

    Words matter. Especially in selling. Be what you say you are and share it.

    Peace.

     

     

     

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