Random

    Brand Strategy

    New Age Agency Searches.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

     

    I have been going through an agency search with one of my clients. It has been quite a learning curve.  It has been a while since I pitched a piece of business as an agency.  I mean a while in like dog years. When digital advertising is part of the solution set, performance marketing and measurement is almost as important as the big idea/big show of the pitch.

    Algo over personality.

    Being a strategist, it’s imperative that I stay up to date with culture. And when some companies today are using 80-90% of their media budgets on search, that’s a culture change. When brand awareness can be judged in a geography by counting Google search queries of a brand name (relative to other brands), that’s a sea change.

    But clicks alone are not what the marketing and advertising business is about. I deal in brand strategy. The organizing principle for product, experience and messaging. I am not the maker of generic dashboards.

    A better click rate for digital ads that are off-strategy aren’t better clicks. They are more clicks. So better isn’t always better. Not if it isn’t hewing to the values that predispose and post-dispose customers to purchase your product, aka brand values.  

    Selling clicks isn’t selling product.

    Peace!  

     

     

    Viva la diff

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    One of my mantras is “provide every company employee with an understanding of the brand strategy.” A brand strategy being the organizing principle that drives value. Bank account value. Which is fed by perceived consumer value. When employees know the brand strategy, the good ones pursue it, use it and think about it — even on weekends.

    At Zude, a start-up I was a part of in the web space, the brand strategy was “the fastest, easier way to build and manage a website.”  The CFO of Zude Jeff Finkle used to say that every employee walking to their car at night should ask his or herself “What did I do today to make Zude a faster, easier way to build and manage a website?”

    When Larry Page took over from Eric Schmidt as CEO of Google, he declared this as a company mission: “To get Google to be a big company that has the nimbleness and soul and passion and seed of a start-up.”  Not a brand strategy.  It’s an operating or operations strategy. Certainly it’s laudable and good business. Certainly employees can ask themselves as they leave the building if they passed the litmus. But it’s inward focused and brand strat needs to be outward focused.  Beware the difference. Peace.

    Service Brands.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    I was wondering this morning who is doing a good job of branding these days and the question took me to my new home town Asheville, NC with its exciting beer, food and hospitality businesses.  Most of these brands are retail. Retail branding is organic, contained and a brand petri dish.  The owners and operators are on prem. The product is there. The experience is there. Messaging abounds. When you see a retail space that holds tight to an idea, it’s powerful. It’s even more powerful if the product, space, experience and vibe are unique from all the others.  There are 35+ brewers in Asheville, for instance.

    If the retailer had done a good job, 75 out of a 100 customers leaving the store will relate pretty much the same value statements.  And words like “cool”  or “awesome” are not what you’re looking for.

    So what happens, then, when your business is a service or professional company? A lawyer, doctor or accountant, perhaps? How do you build a brand then? When a tax return is a tax return, how do you influence the experience?

    The answer is with a brand claim and proof array. Also known as a brand strategy.  A plan for packaging your service…where no product package exists. If you’d like to see examples of service brand strategies, email me Steve@WhatsTheIdea.com.

    Peace.

     

    The Problem With Brand Planning Tools.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    The world of branding is much like the real world in that there is science and everything else. What does that mean? Science undergirds the physical world, predicting the result of actions. Science repeats itself. Science predicts outcomes. Mathematics, physics, biology are all means to codify the physical world.

    A recent engineering client of mine taught me that tools fix things that are broken, but science precludes what’s broken. Cancer can be cured, we just haven’t figured out the science yet. Global warming can be dealt with, we just haven’t been able to muster the science and will.

    Many brand planners are tool-centric. I am pleading for us to be more science-centric. And that means starting way upstream of any tactical deliverable. Upstream of any buildable. In fact, it may be upstream of addressing a business problem. Because problems beget tools.

    Upstream means planning the master brand strategy. The organizing principle for product, experience and messaging. So many brand planners write briefs in support of a tactic. That’s downstream. Better to begin at the base level. At the foundation. Where the science is set.

    As you move your way up the stack (technology reference) or upstream toward the purchase, toward the tactic, you lose the science.

    Why is this a good approach? Because science is predictable. And predicting marketing outcomes is what is sorely lacking in our business.

    Peace.

     

    Meaning.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    About a year ago I developed a brand strategy lite document for a local math tutor I was mentoring through the Venture Asheville Elevate program. Here are the first two slides from that presentation:

    (Slide 1)

    Caveats:

    • The brand claim is not a tagline.
    • (Brand name) is well-named but not well understood. It’s our job to add meaning.
    • Lastly, the work has only just begun. You need to build the brand through deeds, proof(s) and culture…and new service offerings.

    (Slide 2)

    Precis:

    • A brand strategy, carried out effectively, is easily played back in research by customers thanks to its clarity, succinctness and endemic values.
    • Marketing’s job is to deliver the strategy through product and tactics.
    • All tactics and communications should make deposits in the brand bank (not withdrawals).              

    I must have been having a good day because these couple of slides, with the exception of the well-named bullet, apply to all my clients — large and small. 

    (Just to level-set, my definition of brand strategy is “an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.” And my brand strategy framework is “1 claim and 3 proof planks.”)

    People on Quora often ask what’s the difference between a brand and a product. Someone smart once said “a brand is an empty vessel into which we pour meaning.” Adding meaning is what a brand strategist does. Organizing and prioritizing meaning. How do you do that?  Not through words which is the most common mistake of marketers. You add meaning through deeds, proof and culture (which enables more deeds and proof.)

    The end result of brand work is consumer understanding.  Not awareness. Understanding that is programed in by the brand manager. When consumers play back the specific brand values you promote (via research), you and your agents are doing your job.

    Frankly, it’s quite easy.  Once you have a plan. A brand plan.

    Peace.

     

    Jab, Jab, Jab.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    Brian Morrissey, former editor of Digiday, when guest editing newsletter Why Is This Interesting recently wrote:

    “Brevity is more important than ever. There is simply too much content let loose on the world these days. During early Digiday, we did some kind of personality exam that advised people dealing with me to “be brief, be bright, be gone.” Many publications could stand to heed that too. 

    I hope this next interaction of digital media becomes more concise. Removing the unnecessary to get to the essence improves products and shows respect for the audience. “Engagement” is too often confused with time spent. The measure is actually just an imperfect gauge of value. Saving people time is always a good product strategy.”

    I agree completely with Brian. Tight is might. I recall reading that blog posts, in order to be found by the search engines, need to be at least 400 words, ideally closer to 800. Hell no! Not at What’s The Idea?  This isn’t The New Yorker. I’m not in the click bait business. I’m looking for readers. And it’s tough out there.  I’m hoping they will come back every day or at least weekly, so I need them to think. I don’t need to show that I can think.  And you can’t get there by pontificating and being verbose. Jab, jab, jab.

    Peace.

     

    Mouth-Watering Brand Strategy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    shake shack burger

    Quick, I say Danny Meyer, you say___. I say Shake Shack you say____. I say New Orleans Po Boy, you say_____. The word associations for many food brands are mouth-watering. They bring to mind powerful senses. Reading the NYT Food Section this morning, with colorful pictures of summer veggies and toasted bread crumbs created for me a sensory moment.

    So how do we create sensory moments with brand ideas in B2B?  Not easily. But that’s our challenge. Lazy planners default to ideas like “a good night’s sleep” or “make more money” or “customer centricity,” but that’s every company’s strategy. To arrive at a mouth watering B2B idea you must bathe in the customer experience. And in the customer’s customer’s experience. Each B2B category has it’s own language. Learning and using that language when selling a brand strategy helps. It gains you trust and acceptance. Don’t be a foreigner to the category.

    But most of all keep asking yourself, it you have landed on a mouth-watering claim. Will it register on the Galvanic Skin Response? Keep pushing until you find it. It is there. And it’s worth the pursuit.

    Peace be upon you.

     

    Smiles and Purpose.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    I just read a couple of PepsiCo’s strategy statements.  PepsiCo is the $70B master brand for a broad assortment of sugary carbonated drinks and salty snacks, along with some other portfolio products in water, juice, tea and Quaker breakfast foods and snacks.

    It’s hard to do strategy for a massive conglomerate of brands. It’s especially hard when most of those brands are convenience store foods and rather unhealthy. But this is America and where there is demand there’s will be supply.

    Here is PepsiCo’s stated corporate mission: To create more smile with every sip and bite.

    And here is their vision statement: Be the global leader in convenience food and beverage with purpose.

    So to sum up the mega billion portfolio, it’s all about smiles and purpose.  Hmm. Where do I start? Try giving that brief to a creative team at BBDO.

    As I said, conglomerate company strategy is hard. General Motors has tried to do it using advertising and it never worked. Advertising agency holding companies know better. IPG, WPP, Omnicom never try to explain their value. It’s like herding cats.

    Back to Smiles and Purpose. Purpose is something you communicate if you are not known for having purpose…other than, perhaps making money. And Smiles? Well, they are not wrong.  But it’s just hard to own. Smiles are the universal language of enjoyment and as such not very differentiated.

    If PepsiCo really wanted to promote purpose, they would pick one. And only one. Planet. Diversity. Equality. But not all. PepsiCo’s mission and vision deserve better. What’s that story about the cobblers children?

    Peace.

     

     

    The Web’s Specialty.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    There’s a cool story in today’s New York Times about single-food restaurants. It stands to reason that enterprises of this type can only thrive if the food is excellent and the stores located in highly populated areas.  In NYC you can take out and, in some cases, eat in at a Mac and Cheese store or a meatball store. There are places that sell only mussels, only rice pudding, and only fried chicken. It’s a growing phenomenon. Specialization suggests focus; a focus on quality, ingredients, product and knowledge.

    In mid-town Manhattan, where there are probably a half million lunches served within walking distance of any high-rise, there are lots of options. So why not go to the best option; the place that specializes? The place that eats, breathe and sleeps its specialty. Forget me not that this type of store can scale well and have a supply chain with amazingly fat margin opportunities. That’s gravy at the gravy store.

    This is a key chapter in the story of the Web — and where the web is going.

    I’ve written before about “worldwide pricing” and the ability to search the world for the best prices.  Well, how about searching the world for the best quality? The ability to do so is a web app. And specialization and focus are the tools of that trade.

    We are bound by product and service mediocrity because of geographic and time limitations. And because of supply and demand.  Well, say buh-bye to these barriers.  Ima stop there and let you entrepreneurs ponder that for a while. Ponder, Ponder.  Peace!

    1...31323334Page 32 of 34
    © Newsmag WordPress Theme by TagDiv