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    Brand Strategy

    How Brand Strategy Works.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I worked at an ad agency a while back that did the advertising for the North Shore-LIJ Health System, now known as Northwell Health. The brand strategy for the work used the word “systematized” as part of the claim — a word some of senior hospital management people felt was cold and impersonal.  It was the job of the creative team to warm up the claim, but there was no denying North Shore was a system and that constant measurement and improvement was their secret sauce. Still is.

    Anyway, no matter who I met with at the system, no matter the clinical practice, the way to the particular ad topic was through a discussion of the systematized way the group improved care. No sidebars about how much they “cared” or deep dives into what they called “the highest quality of care,” we hunkered down in the measures and processes and, hopefully, unique practices. You see the tagline for the system was “Setting New Standards in Healthcare” and for every ad that was our mission — always show the standards and practices North Shore used to improve care.

    Having that brand strategy in place made our job easy.  It made the jobs easier for the doctors, nurses and administrators we interviewed. In fact, over time they would know the questions we would ask, before we asked them.  A great brand strategy is enculturated into an organization. Same hymnal, same pew.

    For examples of how this enculturation works in other categories, write Steve at WhatsTheIdea dot com

    Peace.    

     

    Strategy and Action.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Strategists sometimes get a bad rap for overthink. And overwrite. My brand briefs created to deliver master brand strategy are often 3 pages. That’s a lot of words. Brand briefs are not meant to provide by-the-pound insights and lovely writing. Nor are they to provide a circuitous narrative that makes a brand manager feel optimistic. They are designed to provide a serial story that builds a logic trail toward a business-winning claim about a product or service. That singular claim – yes, I said singular – is built upon customer care-abouts and brand good-ats.  That’s the strategy component… or the information and data boil-down for which I get paid the big bucks.

    But strategy without action is simply ink. The best laid plans don’t work unless they’re acted upon and to be acted upon they must be advocated from on high, shared throughout the company, and operationalized. You can’t convince consumers unless you convince your workforce. Many practitioners believe brand strategy to be the sole domain of the marketing department. These companies are most likely to fail with marketing – even with $50 million budgets.  Brand strategy must be encultured throughout a company.

    You can’t write an effective marketing plan without a brand strategy. And you can’t write an effective brand strategy without an effective marketing plan. And make no mistake a marketing plan is an action plan. Fully funded. Not piece meal funded. Measured and corrected.

    Strategy and action.

    Peace.                 

     

     

    Oatly. In a Fallow Field?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I’ve been following Oatly for a while.  Not long ago it was a hot, topical oat milk company.  Based in Malmo Sweden, it has great distribution in the states. In fact, Oatly cartons are all over my High Five coffee shop here in Asheville.

    Oatly IPOed, hired a smart chief creative officer and ran what was arguably one of the better TV commercial on the 20121 Super Bowl — at least in terms of watchability. Sadly, Oatly stock has languished around $4 for the better part of this year, far from its high $28 in the early days.

    So what’s wrong?  Smart people at Oatly are asking that same question, yet nothing seems to be happening. Certainly not on the stock front. Or brand front.

    Oatly once couldn’t keep up with demand. Now, it says it has fallen prey to a poor economy.  Oatly had a brand that captivated.  That is no longer the case. It became a commodity according to some pundits.  I don’t believe that. Strong brands cannot be commoditized. They have valued meaning. Just because the company is on its heels does not mean it cannot capture the world’s attention again.

    I cannot figure out the company brand strategy and I study these things.  So, if I don’t know what it is, consumers certainly won’t.  Oatly will make a comeback. Or they won’t. But if the former they need a brand strategy to wrap around their products. And they had better start quickly. The world’s turning…

    Peace.

     

     

    The Biggest Pity.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Nothing pisses off a creative person more than being told a client doesn’t “like their work.”  Nina DiSesa a big-time creative director or yore explained it to me this way “Ads are like our babies.” They are nurtured and coddled over time and can’t just be easily dismissed.

    I’ve often spoken of the “like-ometer”, a fictional device clients use in approving ads. The notion of subjectivity in advertising or any creative pursuit, is real. And in the advertising business it’s super real.

    That’s why top creatives like a good brand strategy. They are devising with a purpose in mind. They have a tight objective.  This helps them in development but also in getting approvals. There’s a basis for arguing for their work. It’s called a brand strategy.

    When a person judging an ad doesn’t like a “color” or “negativity” or “the great outdoors,” the brand strategy can be employed. And the like-ometer shut down. 

    We can’t get to better work without a strategy — the launch pad for all marketing and communications. Most professional ads are developed using a brief.  Few are developed using a brand brief.

    That is the biggest pity of the craft.

    Peace.

     

    Taglines and The Fruit Cocktail Effect.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Quality, commitment, character are qualities for which any company would be proud to be known.  Ironically, those three words as a tagline are a problem. I’ve ranted before about three unconnected word taglines and this morning listening to a radio spot was once again reminded.  

    MB Haines, an Asheville area heating, air conditioning and refrigeration contractor, has been serving area for over 100 years. Not a bad feat seeing as in 1925 only half of all homes in the U.S. had electricity.  They must be doing a lot right.  That said, if you were to ask all the businesses in the country if quality, commitment and character are business fundamentals, all would say yes.

    The problem is not that these are their values, the problem is they don’t work as a tagline. At What’s The Idea?, we advise clients to brand around one claim and three proof planks. MB Haines has the proof planks right, just not the claim. A claim — an overarching statement that covers the three values — is what’s lacking.  I’m not going to go on about information overload, but believe me it’s hard enough to own one brand position. Three is way, way too many.

    And frankly, lofty words like quality, commitment and character are so over-used in advertising that they have almost become commodities.  

    MB Haines, however, does a good job proving its three values. For instance, “100 years in business” shows commitment. An employee-owned company shows commitment. If I dug deeper I could find lots of examples of quality and character. This company is not built upon a tag cloud of copy and keywords. There’s here here.    

    Brand strategy locates a brand in one spot. A spot that meets customer care-abouts and brand good-ats. A tagline is best when it highlights that one spot.

    Brand strategy is hard work — often succumbing to the “Fruit Cocktail Effect.”  (Google it using quote marks.) It needn’t with a little brand planning.

    Peace.

     

     

    Taglines Gone Wild.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    The tagline is a very misunderstood communications and branding device.  A tagline should be the de facto brand claim.  Beside the product itself, it is the single most important thing consumers should remember about your offering.  While a brand strategy is actually one claim and three proof planks, the claim element is the one indelible thought or value that motivates preference, consumption and repeat consumption.  I would say loyalty, but one can be loyal and not consume.

    Many marketers go wrong when they confuse branding with advertising. This happens when the advertising campaign line or tagline drives branding. KFC’s “Finger Lickin’ Good” is a great example an advertising tagline that brilliantly reflects the brand claim. “That’s My Mission,” the tagline for Mission Health, is way too ad driven — and not even close to a meaningful, powerful brand claim.

    Unless your tagline can reflect a coherent, endemic brand value, you are wasting branding dollars. And ad dollars.

    Brand strategy first then advertising. Not the other way around.

    Peace.

     

     

    Branding Is Multiplex.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Brand strategy is all about immersion in your product or service. Identifying problems and clarifying opportunities. You can spend scores of hours listening to consumers talk about your product and watching them use it. You can talk to the sellers of the product, the makers of the product, and the engineers. After many hours you begin to see patterns and reoccurrences of values. It helps form your plan. The plan to position your product.

    Don’t forget, though, that your brand isn’t an island. It operates in a competitive arena. And there are people loving, liking, using and recommending competitors. It’s not good enough to look at the competition’s website and come to conclusions about its value. You need to do immersion there as well.  You need to pry into the psyches of consumers you want to win over. You need to see how tightly consumers embrace your competitors. They have a job to do and they, presumably, are working hard every day to defend their share.

    So, it’s not just about finding the optimal spot to position your product, it’s also about examining consumer predilections for your competitors. Branding is not binary, it’s a multiplex.

    Peace.

     

     

    We’re Here!

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Lots has been written “attention” in advertising. Recently, I read a neat piece by Catherine Campbell of East Fork Pottery on LinkedIn where she suggests attention as too ephemeral — a social media phenomenon. She advances the idea that “consumer trust” is much more worthy as a goal than attention. Smart women. You can’t argue with her logic.  But two things at the same time can be true.

    For instance, take out-of-home billboard advertising, where you have about 5 words to make an impression. Back in the 90s when ads shrunk from pages to pixels, the units were more akin to billboards than traditional print ads — a tough time to be a creative person.

    One way to get attention is to tell a consumer something they didn’t know. Or show them something they’ve haven’t seen. It sparks attention.  If you pair that with a sales message you accomplish something. So, let’s not pooh-pooh attention.

    I write a good deal about “We’re Here Advertising” which is little more than an announcement of what one sells and where to buy. This morning I listened to a local allergy doctor radio spot on the way to get coffee. You know what I learned?  They treat allergies. All kinds: pet, plant, food, pollen, bad advertising…

    When spending money advertising “tell me something I don’t know.”  Work a little harder to prove why you’re worthy of a sale.

    One of my favorite brand strategy claims, developed for an assisted living company in Westchester, NY, was “Average is the Enemy.”  When I left the premises everyone on the marketing team had their assignment.

    Pair attention with trustworthy and you can build a brand.

    Peace. 

     

    Every Company Can Benefit From Brand Strategy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    It has been said, Margaret Mead when CEO of the American Museum of Natural History, required every employee to undergo psychiatric counseling. Her thinking was that all people can benefit from being in touch with their inner selves and that every wo/man can benefit from better mental health.  I love this woman.

    In my opinion, every brand can benefit from being more self-aware and having better brand strategy health. Marketers are hyper-sensitive about their products. As they should be.  In service industries they are sensitive about service delivery.  Large companies have big departments dedicated to product management and product marketing. These people eat, sleep and live the product — from supply chain, to legal, to distribution, competitive position and pricing. But few people are in charge of actual brand strategy. (Large consumer packaged goods companies like P&G are the exception.)

    AT&T Business Communications Services was the first service company I knew that actually managed the brand with a brand strategy. And it worked like crazy.  I have borrower their rigor for brand management and tweaked it a bit for use in my brand strategy practice. And though my clients don’t typically have the marketing budgets and data tracking of AT&T, the theory and practice is alive and well and still very effective.

    Brand strategy, or the “organizing principle for product, experience and messaging” as I like to call it, is every bit as important and predictive of success as is proper product management.

    Write Steve@WhatsTheIdea to begin a discussion of your brand strategy and a health-check of your brand.

    Peace.

     

     

    Ballast and Rudder.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    There are two nautical terms I use in my branding practice: rudder and ballast.  Rudder, of course, is the steering mechanism housed under the boat that turns the boat left (port) or right (starboard).  Ballast is the weight in the bottom of the boat that keeps it from bouncing around too much. The proper amount of ballast makes it easier to use the rudder.

    At What’s The Idea? we are all about the ballast.  Putting weight into brands so they stay on course, so they are not subject to being pitched about, so they are easier to control. Ballast in brands makes them powerful.

    Too many brand managers are all about the rudder. Constantly piloting. Lots of tactics aimed at increasing success. Tactics that often move in different strategic directions. Brands, of course, need direction. And they must be allowed to turn. But too much rudder and not enough ballast reduce one’s ability to navigate a successful heading. 

    Get your brand strategy right at the beginning. Build the weight of your brand up front. Take the time to develop it. Invest in it. And your brand will almost navigate itself.

    Peace.

     

     

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