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    Brand Strategy

    Fines for Brand Strategy Noncompliance.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    What if brand strategy noncompliance came with a monetary fine?  Rules are made to be followed.  Fines work in banking, why not branding?  And we all know adherence works best when there is a carrot or stick involved.  Well, in brand management the carrot doesn’t seem to work. Creative people believe in campaigns but they are usually put off by strategic structure.   That’s why lots of creative people don’t like briefs.  “The shorter the better they say.”

    I want the absolute best out of my creative people.  I want them amped and excited.  But I also want my artists to be hitting the positive brand-building values set out in the brand strategy (one claim, three proof planks.)  And it is not good enough to just kill work as a brand manager. Killing work is a cancer at an ad agency. Letting work fly, regardless of strategic intent, is cool.  But it’s not. That’s not how you build brands.

    So why not hit the team with a fine each time they provide a solution off-piste. Money and compensation make the world go around. Why not consider using commercial disincentive to keep teams on track?

    Probably my worst idea ever. I love it.

    Peace.

     

     

     

    Gartner’s 2020 Annual CMO Spend Survey Research

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I love this chart.  I freakin’ love this chart.  For CMOs to acknowledge the importance of brand strategy, overtaking analytics and all other measures, is a powerful endorsement of brand work. Gartner’s study queried 432 CMOs.

    I could get caught in the weeds asking questions like “How do the CMOs define brand strategy?”  or “What does your brand strategy framework look like?” but I won’t. I’ll just bask in the glow.

    Apparently, brand strategy was near the bottom of this list when asked in the 2019 Annual CMO Spend Survey Research, so this is quite a leap up in importance.  Now, one could say the Covid-19 Pandemic is playing a role in this leap; the logic being, when marketers cut budgets and activity, strategy becomes more important — but I am going to take the win here.

    Great job Gartner. Great job CMOs.

    Peace.   

     

     

    Marketing Communications Without Brand Strategy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    What business are we in as marketers? Most would say sales. Drill past that and ask how marketing gets to sales, the next up word is likely communications. Marketing communications is a term of art in the business of sales.

    I am in the branding business. Way back when, branding referred simply to identity. Brand a cask of olives. Brand cattle. Brand Chinese porcelain. Today the term is way overextended. Neophyte marketers misuse the term as a verb, all the time. But that’s a story for another day.

    Brand strategy — how you build a brand — is a means by which to organize communications and experiences to create a value (supported by a subset of other values) in consumer minds. Unorganized communications detract from this effort.

    Any person at a company or acting on behalf of a company, involved in communications, must know the brand strategy to operate effectively. To be a participant in brand building. It guides every blank sheet of paper, every empty computer screen. Hopefully, every creative thought.

    Truman Capote once wrote and pardon the translation, “That’s not writing; that’s typing.” This is how I feel about marketing communications sans brand strategy. It’s typing.

    Am I right Adrian Ho?

    Peace.

     

    The Two Types of Brand Strategist.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    My practice, What’s The Idea?, works on master brand strategy not everyday strategy. I set the strategy for all brand activity, for now and ever after. Unless there’s a big business discontinuity or business model change I’m only needed once. Brand strategists who work at large ad agencies on the other hand, are more seen as ongoing problem solvers. Or creative department lion tamers. They’re a strategic lens for important projects — to keep them scientific and on track.

    My work is upstream. Agency brand strategists tend to work downstream, closer to a sale, in project land. I’m not denigrating problem solvers, I love these people.

    Both type of brand strategists are critical but if you ask me the most critical work, the fundamental brand work, is with the master brand. Think strategy for winning the war, not strategy for winning a battle. Without the former, the latter can be randomized.

    My main competitors are large standalone brand strategy companies like Interbrand, Super Union, Landor and Siegel+Gale. But in addition to doing what I do, they also offer naming, logo development and graphic standards. That’s why an engagement from one of those standalone shops begins at $250,000 ish. I unbundle the paper strategy from all the add-ons. It’s a cleaner approach to master brand strategy.

    In master brand planning we discuss the import of importance.

    You feel me Jane Geraghty?

    Peace.

     

    Advocacy in Brand Strategy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    One of the least understood parts of branding is advocacy. When discussed in marketing circles, more often than not, it’s referred to as loyalty. But loyalty really just means repeat customers. Advocacy offers a multiplier effect. Advocates refers other customers to the brand.

    In social media circles advocates are called influencers; people with social media followings who often shill for products. They are Posters (not Pasters) who others look to for advice about hallowed brands. Social media has taken advocacy and renamed it and tarnished it, in my opinion. They have overly commecialized it.

    A personal friend or acquaintance, with a Jones for a restaurant or brand of hiking shoes, is way more believable as an advocate than is a social media promoter.

    Advocacy accounts for a shit-ton of sales. Word of Mouth. Peer to peer. Personal recommendations. Whatever you call it, advocacy does a lot of heavy lifting in the sale process. When you look at Steps-To-A-Sale models, the most famous of which is probably AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action), you can see how a face-to-face advocate can collapse those steps in a matter of minutes.

    It’s important to develop your brand strategy claim and proof array that works for advocates. One that constantly gives them new fuel to help in their work. Advocates for your brand that sound like broken records burn out.

    Peace.

     

     

    Selling Is To Buying What Teaching Is To Learning.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I’ve spent my entire career (save for a few painted houses) in businesses allied with selling; mostly advertising, marketing and brand strategy. For 8 months I worked at an education technology company. Not only did I have to learn the products and services of the company, I had to learn the language and culture of the people who bought and used them: teachers and administrators. Taking it a step further, because that’s what planners do, I wanted to also understand the needs of the teacher’s customers: the students, parents and communities. I did a really deep.

    My education in education changed my outlook on marketing. It changed my outlook on selling. You see, there is a difference between selling and buying. We sell so people buy — but they don’t always. Similarly, there’s difference between teaching and learning. Students are taught but don’t always learn.

    If you are teaching and the kids aren’t learning, are you really teaching? If you are selling and the consumers aren’t buying are you selling? When the answer is no, marketers often change their ad agency or hire a business consultant.

    I’m here to suggest, if you are selling and consumers aren’t buying, you have a brand strategy problem. Brand strategy at it’s most foundational level identifies what a brand (company) is good at and what its customers care-about. With this information in hand, learning begets buying.

    Peace.

     

    The Difference Between a Product and a Brand.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Do you want to know the difference between a product and a brand? Of course you do.

    A product is company-owned. A brand is consumer-owned. Simple at that. Products are the domain of the makers. Brands exist because of consumers. Ipso facto.

    The tension this statement points out is intensified when company and consumer are not in synch. And the tension between buyer and seller is often real. Making and selling is complicated. Buying, not so much. When buying becomes complicated, consumers opt out. Or delay.

    This is where brand planning comes in.

    Brand planning and brand strategy works to align the maker with the buyer. The brand strategy goal is to remove the tension. Remove what complicates.

    An early mentor of mine, Fergus O’Daly, once shared a marketing quote attributed to a few luminaries (Peter Drucker, IBM’s Thomas Watson, and Arthur “Red” Motley) “Nothing happens until someone sells something.” I would recast that phrase to say, “Nothing happens until someone buys something.” The brand planner’s job is to focus on the buyer in ways most product people don’t.

    Try us, you’ll like us.

    Peace.

     

     

    Trickle Down Brand Strategy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I’ve come to the conclusion that the single most important person needed to implement brand strategy is the CEO. Not the marketing director. Ask any rank and file employee at a company what the director of marketing does and they will answer “marketing.” Ask them to elaborate and you’re likely to get “they make marketing materials.” “They make the stuff the salespeople use.” “They do the website and ads.”

    Most marketing directors, even those who really understand brand strategy, are not sharing it throughout the company. It’s not even trickling down. Marketing directors guard brand strategy. And for odd, odd reasons they keep it to themselves; perhaps sharing it only with vendors as a way to keep them organized.

    Getting the CEO onboard with the brand strategy framework (one claim, three proof planks) sets up an oversight litmus test that marketing must pass as they invest company money. It creates a litmus test for all other departments making changes and/or improvements. And it offers up to HR a way to gauge company fit for new hires. In short, it operationalizes the strategy well beyond the marketing bullpen.

    The best brand strategies are known throughout the company. Originally applied to consumer packaged goods, today they’re crucial in services economy and B2B businesses.

    At its best, brand strategy does not trickle down — it’s a force of business nature that sluices and gushes straight to the bottom line.

    Peace.

     

     

    Brand Prepping During Covid19.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    What’s The Idea? has created brand strategies for scores of companies. Some huge, some small. These strategies, organizing principles for product, experience and messaging, are built upon the things consumers most want from a brand (care-abouts) and things at which the brand excels (good-ats). Brand strategy inspires marketing, business ideas, and in the case of Covid19, business responses and tactics.

    Having a strategy in place when you get socked in the jaw from a business standpoint makes you a bit of a prepper. You don’t have to refigure out everything while wobbling. You may not be able to offer your product or service as before but you can still create value for your customers and company, while keeping busy.

    The last thing a business owner needs to be doing while dazed from a business discontinuity or business obstruction is rethinking business strategy or sitting on the sidelines watching.

    I think about all my clients and their strategies and know they are not lacking for responses to the Coronavirus pandemic. Things will be different, tactics and business will be different, but the strategy remains the same. And there is productive comfort in that.

    Peace.

     

    Marko-babble from Sterling Brands.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Over the weekend I was cruising the web and came across a company I used to drive past daily in Garden City, NY. The building was a dirty tan and was probably nicely designed in the 70s or 80s – spherical corners and angles as I recall. The sign read Sterling Brands. The latter word caught my attention being a brand guy. But for the live of me I couldn’t tell what the brands were. Not from the sign on the outside of the building. CIA?

    When I came across the brand on the web, I looked them up on my phone. For some reason, my Pixel 3 showed a bunch of flash-like type animations and no pictures of the brands. Today I checked again and this time the pictures resolved. Sterling owns Stoli and Krispy Kreme.

    Over the weekend, however, not knowing the brands in the portfolio I read the website copy and was completely lost. It was one of the poorest assemblage of marko-babble I’d ever read. It’s why I coined the term marko-babble. Read on:

    Sterling Brands

    In today’s world culture shifts at the speed of a scroll, tap or tweet.

    We design human brands that are human-centric, relevant and responsive.

    Brands that inspire people to think, feel and engage.

    We design living brands.

    Got that? Sterling, which, if memory serves, used to sell knives and kitchenware, now designs brands for people. (And actually, Krispy Kreme and Stoli were not designed by Sterling anyway, they were purchased by Sterling.)

    Here’s my point. Just as I couldn’t tell what Sterling did from the sign on the building, I had no idea what they company did from the web copy – sans pictures. The copy had not a lick of endemic category explanation. Okay, they are made for people. (When robots take over they may have to change the copy.)

    Please, please please… everybody stop writing senseless marketing poetry. Stop the brand effluvia. People want to know what the product is. What the product does. What makes it different. And what makes it better.

    Stoli and Krispy Kreme deserve better from their holding company.

    Peace and health.

     

     

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