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    Whistles.

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    Intentional Brands.

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    Talk About It or Be About It.

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    Brand Strategy

    One objectionable word.

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    Steve Poppe
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    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.

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    Steve Poppe
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    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

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    Steve Poppe
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    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.

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    Steve Poppe
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    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!

    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.

    Yahoo’s new brand strategy?

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    Steve Poppe
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    On Sept 7, 2011 I predicted Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo! would be out within a year. It happened in July 2012. I’ve followed and blogged about Yahoo since the beginning of What’s the Idea? and was internet raised on Yahoo.  I want it to succeed, but it has been a messy go the last 5 years. Perhaps that is changing.

    According to new CEO Marissa Mayer in an article from today’s New York Times, Yahoo’s top priority is to “Make the world’s daily habits inspiring and entertaining.”  I smell a brand strategy.

    Over the years, Yahoo has had many leaders, many missions and many goals: Become the Internet starting point for the most consumers. Become a ‘must buy’ for the most advertisers. Become an open technology platform for developers.  Become an innovative content company. A mobile leader. And and and…

    “Make the world’s habits inspiring and entertaining” is a brand strategy that has ballast.  Remember it’s not the creative, it’s a strategy. Support it with three endemic and meaningful brand planks and you have the start of something – a brand plan. 

    I’m not going to parse the sentence yet and frankly a brand strategy with a conjunction (“and”) is a bit of a weasel, but the exciting keywords are: world, habits, daily, inspire, entertain.  Were I a Yahoo brand manager, CMO, or VP and if someone brought me a new mobile app or content idea, I could easily use this strategy as a litmus test for approval.  It’s still broad and in need of refinement but it’s a start. As my daughter used to say “I yike it!”  Peace.

    The problem with marketing videos.

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    Steve Poppe
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    It used to be that a brand planner or strategist could easily sway corporate officers as to the need for a brand plan – or at least a campaign idea – by taking all company ads and pinning them to the wall.  For good measure one could display brochures, direct mail and other printed pieces. 

    Today, the biggest culprit in creating brand disharmony, especially true at small and midsize companies, is the video.  In this social media age, most agree – and you heard the drum beat at Advertising Week in NY the last 4 days – visual selling through video is more engaging and powerful. 

    The problem stems not so much from the quality of the videos, e.g., editing, audio, effects, it’s the content.  It meanders. It is not blocked out in serial, logical chunks.  With ads, if you didn’t have a tight strategy you called Ernie the montage artist. With a loose video, you just rely on fast cuts and louder music.

    So who is making these videos?  Mostly, it’s inexpensive freelance, 20 something, fresh-out-of college kids with iMacs.  One such young man, who is more than capable, said he’d been to many meetings with large agencies like Ogilvy, where he was instructed to “just do something that gets noticed, that goes viral.”  No direction, no brief.  This is not how big agencies normally operates, but at those agencies on the digital creative side, it happens more than you might think.  As for smaller shops, or in-house marketing departments it’s even worse.

    Marketing videos need to do a job but they also much convey a positive, organized brand imprint. With half of marketing videos either case studies or tutorials, brand strategy has a way of slipping away. Branding is always on. Approving videos without a brand planning oversight — and it happens thousands of times a day — is like writing bad checks.  So executive, turn down the lights in your conference room, fire up the interactive projector and start watching all your vids. Then ask yourself what are they trying to say about the company?  Peace.

     

     

    When Brand Equity Doesn’t Travel.

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    Steve Poppe
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    Bob Gilbreath’s book Marketing With Meaning is an important read for all marketing strategists and executives. Without “meaning” in marketing deliverables we are simply singing. Not that good songs don’t sometimes work, they do; but a meaningful selling premise motivates.

    Meaning is an imperative for brand planners, when creating an organizing principle for a brand. Finding a pent up demand consumers desire – one that your product can fulfill —  is hard enough.  Landing on a desire that extends across buying targets is some seriously heavy lifting.  This is a problem for most brand marketers.  

    As one’s planning audience grows in size and complexity, the focus of the desire has to lessen. And the meaning delivered even more so. 

    This is why many brand extensions fail. A company that has meaning with one target and adds a new one, often finds out the brand equity doesn’t travel.  I once blamed Google for its “culture of technological obesity.”  It was eating everything in its way, independent of its palette.  Marketers need to know what businesses not to get in to.  He happy with your meaning.  Unfortunately, it’s that money thing, that stockholder thing that turns us crazy. So we expand, lose focus and add fish to the burger menu. 

    Let’s be happy with success marketers. Don’t hedge your bets by adding more targets; get better at what you do. Protect your meaning. Peace!

     

    Celebrate, rinse, repeat.

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    Steve Poppe
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    I often use the word “celebrate” when talking about branding. It’s a great word. Once you have your brand idea and planks together, spending money and calories celebrating your product, service and/or customer is the best way forward. A great many ads and sales schemes focus on tearing down competitors.  Consumers don’t appreciation that. They appreciate and gravitate toward the positive.  “If you don’t have something nice to say…” 

    When it comes to advertising, too often we build ads that people like.  By celebrating the above, we are building up products people like. There’s a difference.  One can imply a negative, so long as it’s done by superimposing a positive.  One of my favorite ad sayings is “make them feel something, then do something.” Feeling good is good. Peace!

    Gillette, Schick and Branding.

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    Steve Poppe
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    I interviewed for a dream job as a brand planner at BBDO on Gillette a couple of years ago.  Had a great non-lunch, the interviewer told me my views were unique and had ballast (my word, it was 2 years ago.)  The next step was to send some planning samples and creative to the boss, which I did.  It was, sadly, a poor digital package.  Not BBDO-like.

    Today, I’m reading about a reality web series being sponsored by Schick razors in Andrew Adam Newman’s NYT ad column and all parties are saying the wrong things, so the effort will no doubt be lackluster.  Clean break is the idea. We know they are talking clean break from Gillette, but they suggest the strategy is otherwise.  It got me thing about Gillette’s strategy. And all I can come up with is the word “man.”  And an assortment of new products.  I shave with a Gillette 5 days a week, and I am a man.  Beyond forward thinking expensive product, I haven’t a clue what their idea is.

    Since I did not get the job, I’d love a chance to talk to the person who did to discuss and plumb the idea.  Could it be just to let Schick waddle forward?  I doubt it.  Branding is about claim and proof. Organized.  Man, product innovation and I’ll throw in some smooth are okay planks, but without an idea to bind them, they lose muscle memory. Peace.

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