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    Brand Strategy

    A “Tough Love” Brand Strategy Offer.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Does your company or product have a brand brief? Also known as a brand plan. It is a piece of paper outlining for senior officers, marketing and sales teams what your strategy is.  I’m not talking mission and voice and personality — all that agency gobble-di-gook; I am talking about a piece of paper on which there is an actionable plan that drives product development, consumer experience and messaging. Think brain, not words and actions.

    I pretty much know you don’t.

    Why do I know that? Because I study this stuff for a living. Because in my years of doing this work, I’ve seen very few with articulate brand plans?  I’ve read strategy documents from large Fortune 100 companies with hundred million dollar marketing budgets and you can drive trucks through them.  They’re like maps with myriad roads and routes leading everywhere.  Frankly, you can almost flip-flop brand names on these plans and manage the products with little negative impact on market share. 

    And that’s the big boys and girls.  Imagine what happens to mid-size companies and small companies?  SMBs reach out to the only marketing partners they can afford (C and D level players), falling for some Svengali charm and marko-babble, and pay out $50,000 or $100,000 for some web design, brochures and pretty ads. But they have no strategy to measure, just tactics.

    The Offer.

    So here’s my offer.  For 3 companies I will conduct an audit of materials, product, packaging, web presence and stated marketing strategy. Learning and findings will be presented in the form of an assumed brand strategy, within 48 hours of the beginning of the audit.  The presentation will show how you really look to your consumers and the public, not how you see yourself.  The first 3 companies, with sales in excess of $750,000 will be awarded an audit. I’ll happily sign a nondisclosure agreement.  The offer does not apply to agencies and marketing consultancies. Tough love this brand work. Offer ends 10/31/13.

    PS. Certain rules apply, e.g., cost of travel not covered. For more information, please write steve@whatstheidea.com

    Pregnant Context

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

     

    pregnant-red-apeWhenever I try to explain to business people what a brand strategy is, I find it often better to just show them a few strategies. When I go on about “an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging” eyes glaze over and I fall into the marko-babble trap. But when I display the brand idea and 3 proof planks, the synapses start to fire and they begin thinking about their own business.  Practice and a modeling (as they say in .edu) are brain sparking. Theory not so much.  

    Then I typically walk prospects through the hard part of brand strategy: what we need to throw out. As in, what we needn’t say. The iPhone was positioned as a phone, not a camera-email-text-app device. The “i” carried all of that. The “i” was pregnant with all innovative things Apple.  

    Pregnant context is what you get credit for even when you don’t say it.  Select your brand strategy words with precision and you’ll get way more than you ask for. In the recent tyro brand planner event at BBH, celebrating the life of Griffin Farley, the winning idea for the Citibike assignment was “Bikes with Benefits.”  The idea was pregnant with target information, aspiration, vitality and value.  The best brand strategies live a long, long time. First they borrow context then they create their own.  Peace in The House (of Representatives). 

     

    Hallowed Brand Strategy Ground.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    The best way to get to good insights is to ask great questions. That’s after the “How do you make money ?” questions, of course. When asking C-level executives you often get answers that feel polished and rehearsed – “handled” information that might be written by corporate PR people. When asking managers, many of the answers feel guarded, as if the bosses will read them. I try to protect the names of salespeople and managers when they are really opening up, if the insights are helpful and business-building. (One trick is to always interview the company’s best sales person. S/he is typically a fearless rock star.)

    Where I tend to get the real good stuff is not when I’m asking less about business success and failure but about emotions and feelings. The questions are hard to defend against. Hard to see coming. And they tend to be answered from the heart. When the guard comes down, the probes following the line of questioning are fluid. And by the time you back someone into the corner and they refuse to answer or waffle, your answer is obvious. Often accompanied by a wry smile. As the kids might say “awk-waaard.”

    Pride is a good word to play with in your questions and probes. Admire another good one. Think feelings rather than behaviors. When the overall vibe is one of discussion and interest rather than probe and judgment you’ll find yourself in hallowed planning ground. Peace.

     

    Poetry in Notion.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Sean Boyle, a really smart Publicis brand planner, once told me good brand strategies offer a poetic appeal. To understand his point, I suspect it is much easier to look at a brand strategy and notice a lack of poetry than is to articulate  a poetic frame.  I’ve tried poetry. When my pops died, I wrote one. Following powerful relationships, others. They weren’t “There once was a man from Nantucket” ditties, they were home-grown and from the heart. Without rhyme or perfect tempo.  They were my tempo.    

    Poetry and what is poetic is in the eyes of the beholder I reckon, so Sean’s notion about good strategy will be different to each planner. But let’s agree to say poetic ideas are pregnant ideas. And dimensional. Ideas that strike up emotion. Certainly they can provide rational context — it is the real world after all. Perhaps this is why “storytelling” is such a pop marketing topic of the day. But storytelling and the journey and all that other brand-speak, is only as good at the strategy that gave it birth. Only as good as the morals of those stories.  “A closer shave” is not poetic, “a softer rough” just might be. Peace.    

    Enculturation.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Many think of marketing as acquisition. Or lead generation. Business leaders in that mode don’t really understand brand planning. What often drives leaders who think this way towards branding or rebranding are: old logos, mergers and acquisitions, and boredom. Brand planning though, is all about strategy.

    At What’s The Idea? a brand plan is defined as one strategic idea (or claim) and the three support planks – planks that prove the claim and organize how business is done. A mark or logo is best if it supports that idea. Salespeople and operations people are optimized if they are guided by an organizing principle.  Those businesses who don’t get branding can’t ask employees to go out and “blue” for the company based on the color palette or “leader” for the company, based on a mission statement.  

    A brand plan makes it so that when every employee leaves the building at night they can ask themselves a strategic question about their performance. And that is the litmus test.

    I like to say “campaigns come and go, a powerful brand idea is indelible.”  Leads come and go. Customers come and go.  Brands strategy should not. If it’s not about building and maintaining business through strategy, it’s not a brand plan.

    Employees come and go too, their understanding of the strategy should not. Executives talk all the time about company culture. At the best companies strategy is enculturated.  Peace.

    Plastic Home Pages.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I recently had a big argument with a company in transition. They were known for one thing, with 75% of revenue tied to that thing. Problem was, their future was tied to the other 25%.  I was told “Get the old thing off the home page. Fill it with the new thing.” That was the easy part.  The hard part was I was instructed to “Create different doors for different kinds of customers.”  I argued “For a company in transition, without a lot of awareness and mindshare, the home page needs to deliver the brand strategy.”  Home pages that don’t convey brand strategy are often montages of pictures, products and navigation. They lack a POV. A heart.  Home pages are the one place in the online world where marketers have complete control of their brands. They can control the story, the claim and the proof.  The 3 door approach would have evicerated the strategy.

    Why do so many company make brochures out of the home page real estate? Brochure tables of contents, really.  Homepages are more and more important in marketing today and they are the least attended to.

    For new or unknown companies the home page must communicate the Is-Does. For mature brands, it must move customers emotionally and rationally closer to a sale. Not closer to another page. Templates suck at this. Plants and trees that stay the same are either plastic, hibernating or dead. Your home page should be none of these. Peace.

    One objectionable word.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    One thing that seems to be a norm for my consulting business is what happens when I present the brand strategy.  (A brand plan is made up of one strategy statement and three support planks.)  Almost always there is one word in the strategy that makes the client uncomfortable.  Until recently whenever I remark about this phenomenon to clients, I feel a little defensive about it – almost apologetically so. Not anymore. I’ve grown up.  The objectionable word is usually the strength of the brand plan. The ballast (which is long for another word).

    This “one objectionable word” notion echos things I’ve heard creative people say to clients about advertising.  “If it makes you feel a little uncomfortable, it is good creative.  It will be noticed and remembered” they say. 

    The discomfort clients’ feel is because a good brand plan is not easy. It’s work. Born of the category, target consumers and the company DNA (sorry about the markobabble, but is is a good work sometimes), a brand plan is only a beginning.

    Clients that want to slide into a brand plan with great ease and a sense of constant well-being are not ready to work. To innovate. To sweat the wins and losses. Those who are ready are prepared to live the strategy, to toil and feed it. To create life around the brand.  If your brand is a name, color palette and the ad agency’s new campaign, your brand is not alive. It’s not pulsing.  You don’t have a brand, you have a product. Peace.

     

    Yahoo’s Lazy Eye.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Yahoo has once again gone public with its strategy; this time Marissa Mayer announced it at a presentation to advertising buyers in NYC.  (I once accused Yahoo of having a lazy eye and must admit my view hasn’t changed too much, but I still believe Ms. Mayer is the right person for the job.  In a previous blog post I noted she may be on to something with a the germ of a brand idea, but yesterday may have dissuaded me.)

    Yahoo needs to step up its original content game. And yesterday she acknowledged “premium content” as one leg of the stool.  The other two legs being: innovation and performance. I’ve heard innovation before – What technology company doesn’t use that one? –but performance is new. But you can also drive a truck through it.  At least she didn’t hang a brand plank on advertising. Last time out she talked about mobile, but I guess that falls under innovation. 

    Every house has a foundation.  Every company needs a business strategy and a brand strategy. What I’ve found out in my years as a planner and consultant is that creating the brand strategy first is the best way to build a business strategy — because it’s built on customers and endemic business value.  There I’ve said it. Come get me Harvard Business Schoolies.

    Yahoo is making money. Diddling around with mobile.  Promoting Ms. Mayers in lovely ways. But it still does not have a brand strategy. Ask Gareth Kay. Search this site for all posts on Yahoo if you would like to see the history of missteps.  Yahoo is pulling its nose up (aviation metaphor)…it just needs more time and a tight brand plan. Peace.

    Brand in Name Only

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Brands are more than names.  But don’t tell that to Bethpage Federal Credit Union.  Federal credit unions have an advantage over banks.  They are not-for-profit. As not-for-profits, people who bank there are members  — the rewards of membership being better service and better rates.  Were more people to know this, they would sign up in droves, but not-for-profits don’t do a great deal of advertising – to keep costs down for members.

    Bethpage has done some good things over the years but creating a brand strategy is not one of them. I look at the body of work and the only things that stick out are spokespeople Beth and Page. They smile a lot, are helpful and sort of goofy, but play absolutely no part in the brand strategy other than their names.  Is the TV work showing Beth and Page a campaign? You tell me.

    Here’s the point. Just as I suggest to people with social media programs they need a motivation for their social persona, spokespeople need a strategic reason for being. They need to be motivated toward a brand goal. Beth and Page are very nice people I’m sure – but right now if consumers were asked to talk about them all they would say are their names. This is the oldest mistake in the book. And frankly it’s childish. It’s like advertising done by an app. Sorry for my snark, but come on…Peace.

     

    How To Sell a Brand Strategy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    How can an consultant come into a company, study data, ask 200 questions, drive around with salespeople, and begin to think s/he can tell a CEO or C (fill in the letters) about the heart and soul of that company?  Or tell the CEO what will make the company grow at an out-pace rate. What customers want — and the best way to sell them.   It’s ridiculous to think a consultant can do that. But that’s what brand planning consultants do.

    So how does a brand planner present findings in such an uphill setting?

    First, the planner shares data the C-level can’t disagree with. Data doesn’t lie.  Plus, the data often comes from the same executives to whom the planner is presenting. Second, present observations. Who can argue with an observation?  It’s not a recommendation, it’s a carefully selected, important piece of field work. And, if spun with elan and poetry it can become powerful and memorable. “Peter Pan Syndrome,” for instance, is something I shared while working on Microsoft. Not really forgettable.

    Third, organize the big picture stuff in a way that allows for leaning moments driving Cs toward a POV or conclusion. A conclusion they will get to before it is presented.

    Forth, remove the complexity and contradictions. Oh, and there will be contradictions. (Deciding what not to present is often the hardest part of brand planning.)

    Fifth, give them a brand strategy that is brand-familiar, competitive, and with eyes up — toward the horizon. Also, one that makes the Cs feel a little uncomfortable. More often than not, in a great brand strategy there will be a word with which they disagree. The beauty of the word is that is can be changed – by the creative team. The brand strategy is a strategy, not the creative. And even if the “word” is pregnant with creative meaning like, say, the word “reboot,” it is really just stimulus for the creative team. (That’s why Campaigns come and go but a powerful brand strategy is indelible.)  In step five, the C gets to exhibit strength, power and insight (and have the last word) and yet idea détente is still achieved.  We have lift off. Peace!

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