Latest

    The Idea To Have An Idea…

    Steve Poppe -
    0

    Whistles.

    Steve Poppe -
    0

    Intentional Brands.

    Steve Poppe -
    0

    Brand Strategy

    Nike’s “Just Do It” Is Not a Brand Strategy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    A fellow brand strategist recently wrote a LinkedIn post about “motivating” an expected customer behavior.  It made me think.  I get doing a deep dive on what motivates customer behavior — but I’m not sure I want to build motivation in to my brand strategy claim.  This may go against the grain but “Just Do It” is a great advertising line but in my mind it’s not a good brand strategy claim.

    Bear with me here.

    When gathering and developing insights that feed the brand claim, I delve into customer Care-abouts and brand Good-ats. By addressing these values my hope is it results in motivation. By jumping straight to the motivation or promoting the desired behavior I believe we’ve defaulted to advertising. I repeat, by jumping to straight up motivation, we’re advertising.

    “Improve your ass” might be a better brand strategy claim for Nike.  It encourages proper advertising. Is it motivation? I don’t think so. It’s a declarative statement, a scold. It’s a Care-about. “I want to improve my ass.” “If I improve my ass the rest will follow” or whatever. 

    I can build three proof planks around “Improve my ass” where I can’t (not easily) around “Just Do It.”

    Brand planners need not motivate. Their efforts are best spent creating an environment in which motivation results. Let the ad agencies motivate. How do we do that? By immersing oneself in the Careabouts and Good-ats.

    Peace.   

     

     

    We’re Here!

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    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. 

     

    The First Step of Branding.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    Naming is one of the most important functions of branding.

    For a tech startup I worked at, the CTO liked the name Zude. It rhymed with dude.  I liked the name Mashpan.  It sounded like a home brew device, was a cousin of Mashup and the word Pan stood for “all, complete, total.” (Our product was a web authoring tool used to build websites without code. It was a drag and drop play.) My point? A name should that convey information.  

    This week I attended a meeting of startups working on their financial pitches as part of Elevate, a Venture Asheville program. Two of the very cool startups have names that make my point.  One company is named East Perry, the other Larry.  The former sells ethically sourced sheep-skinned home décor while the latter sells a refrigeration device. I can’t go into too much detail on the latter (and changed its masculine name) as the product is proprietary but suffice it to say, Larry doesn’t convey dittly. And though East Perry sounds like a nice street name or address, it too, is not particularly pregnant with meaning.

    Naming takes time, energy and forethought. Words are important. In the way they sound.  Their harmony. Their poetry (East Perry ticks that box.) But most importantly, what a brand name conveys informationally is mission one.

    Get your name right and the first step of branding is complete.

    Peace.

     

     

    Follow Das Money.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    One of my brand planning tricks is to fully understand a business’s financials before I dive into the consumerism of the brand.  Back in the day, when working at McCann -Erikson NY, I was asked to be on a task force pulled together by AT&T and McCann to help write marketing plans for a number of emerging new business services.  Collectively we came up a rigor which I have refined over the years and renamed 24 Questions — all of which are follow-the-money questions to help understand the balance sheet and the opportunity.

    I’ve been using the 24 Questions as part of my brand planning discovery for years. When you understand how money is made, you have credibility with the chiefs of a company. And that is critical when discussing strategy. And justifying strategy choices.

    Don’t ever forget to follow the money when brand planning. Plumbing the depths of brand voice, purpose, personality and narrative are but brand strategy tactics.  Money is the composition.  

    Peace.

    PS. For a copy of the 24 Questions, write Steve@WhatsTheIdea.com

     

    Persuasion and Benefit Shoveling.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    I, and many other people of the technological age, have a problem with the word “selling.” My belief is marketing is best done, not by selling, but by educating.

    When marketers give consumers the kind of information which predisposes them to purchase from you, you’re doing everyone a service. When you slather them in overused, meaningless sales terms you’re wasting breath, time and money.  It’s like the dog that hears a master say blah, blah, blah, blah, want to go out?, blah, blah. Consumers today have become inured to sales pitches.  Not only do they not hear them, they’re often repelled by them.

    Brand strategy — the “organizing principle for product, experience and messaging” — positions a product for success. The process by which one builds such a strategy is drive by boiling down “customer care-abouts” and “brand good-ats.”  But here’s the catch: those care-abouts and good-ats must be values that persuade.  Values that move a customer closer to a sale.  They can’t be generic values, e.g., best tasting.  And they shouldn’t be non-endemic values, e.g., best customer service.

    I’ve coined the term “benefit-shoveling.”  When marketers shovel benefits at consumers, and they haven’t spent time boiling them down or choosing persuasive benefits, they are not building a brand.  They are tearing it asunder.   

    Peace.

     

      

    Tell Me About Your Advertising.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    Where the rubber meets the road in my brand strategy practice is in the questions and answers. I have a battery called 24 Questions that revolve around money.  How do you make it? Where does it come from? When competitors get your money, why? Margins? Low hanging fruit? Recurring? You get the idea? When I have answers to these kinds of questions, it’s easier to build a case for strategy when selling senior executives.

    But I use a whole other battery of questions for brand strategy input. Some are sales focused. Others management focused. And others target focused.  For instance, when I’m interviewing cyber security experts, I’m conversing more as a tyro colleague than, say, Uncle Lou at Thanksgiving. That takes some prep.

    Lately, one question I’ve been thinking about asking is “Tell me about your advertising?”  An open-ended question, this presumes a company actually does advertising. People in the marketing dept may be able to answer this question thoughtfully. As may the CFO, who funds it.

    That said, 85% of advertising today is shit.  Most company employees will agree. I can watch TV ads and more often than not haven’t a clue as to the strategy.  Most of it is “See me, here me, touch me.”  Not “Why Me.”  When interviewing lay people about their company/brand advertising, it’s what’s missing that is most telling. Non-advertising people will tell you what the ads should say. And that is input.

    Peace.

     

    Clicks Don’t Make the Baby.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    Branding is a long-term pursuit. It’s not testing. It involves a great deal of planning. I presented a brand strategy, in the form of a long brief to an agency and they giggled that the original date was the year before. It embarrassed me a little. Then I waited for the work to get done. The creative work that is.  Hmmm.  I’m not sure the campaign has fully launched and it is one year out at least.  

    Many people in marketing don’t have the stomach for long-term. They want their “tuna fish sandwich in their mouth now,” as my young daughter once indignantly told me while repeatedly being told lunch is coming, lunch is coming. And the web has not made this need for immediate return less important. Clicks and same day results are the marketing measure of the day.

    A Ukrainian solder quoted in the paper today “water cuts through stone, and we’ll do it bit by bit.” That’s branding.  But it only works if you have a tight brand strategy. One comprising key customer care-abouts and vibrant brand good-ats. All wrapped in a brand claim that sings in the ear of customers and prospects.  That take planning. and the execution takes time.

    Clicks don’t make the baby, genetics do.

    Peace.

     

    Swimming With the Tide.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    When meeting with a new client, one should not jump right into the water and evaluate pricing, distribution and promotion — not without first understanding the product. If you begin with the first three components of marketing without fully understanding he product/service, you’re likely to observe, form insights and think about suggestions based upon “generic” category understandings.

    Generic category information is what consumers default to, it’s what they believe about your product if they don’t know you.  You are simply a product swimming in the tide of public opinion.

    It is imperative, I repeat, it is imperative, to fully understand the product before forming any sort of suggestion about marketing.  It’s a strategy first, tactics last approach.  

    Brand strategy is about differentiation. It’s about positioning around heightened value. It is about proving that value with every breath. With every dollar. Mic drop.

    Swimming with the marketing tide does not make you Tide. It makes you menhaden.  (How’s that for a mixed metaphor?)

    Peace.

     

    .

    Strategy or Brand Strategy. Hmmm.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    When I’m on a roll – and it’s not often, thanks to PCMS (Post Covid Malaise Syndrome), everything I see and read in the news is viewed through a strategic lens. It’s, as the kids would say, strategy fire. Today, for instance, it started with a glance about  a NYT piece on the speed with which Nokian Tyre’s changed manufacturing strategy.  With climate change, geopolitical results-driven planning and change. And they realize quick change is better than sluggish change. The new environment is the catalyst of this change, but strategy the driver.

    Notice I didn’t use the word brand one time in that paragraph.

    The brandscape was kind enough to teach me my craft yet the word “brand” diminishes what I do for a living. When I position around brand, it sounds cool, trendy and au courant, but it’s not a wining communications value. No one wakes up in the morning thinks brand strategy is the business answer.

    When I think about it I am really a strategist.  I find business-winning values, actions, tasks (read: strategies) that add money to the top line and bottom line. My work doesn’t feed the ad agency. It feeds the business and everyone in it.  Which then feeds the consumer.

    When Nokia Tyre decided to open a manufacturing plant in Hungary because of the war in Ukraine, they weren’t, per se, using a strategic road map or what I like to call “an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.” They were looking purely at supply chain, cost of business, security, ROI timetable and investment strategy. They were blocking and tackling.  Had they an organizing principle of values to drive all decisions, before they met to solve the many layered challenges, their “time-to-solve” would have been faster and more organized. And, honestly, it was quite fast to begin with.

    Strategy would have sped up the process.

    For examples of how my strategy based upon proof has worked for other companies, write Steve at WhatsTheIdea.

    Peace.

     

    Benefit Shoveling.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    What do you do?

    It’s a question that bounces back and forth at cocktail parties, breweries and work events.  There are a couple of ways to answer: a short form, couple-of-word answer, or go in-depth. In branding, I always encourage the former. Hit them with the Is-Does. What a brand product Is and what it does.

    Brands communicators don’t always follow this advice.  They think they need to sell and explain by the pound or by the word. It can leave audiences confused and/or fatigued. Good creative directors know this. They tell a simple story with a beginning, middle and end. A so-called narrative. Problem is, that narrative isn’t often based upon brand strategy.  (Post for another time.)

    So back to simple. Was it Benjamin Franklin who said (I paraphrase)  “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter?” 

    Marketing is made simple through brand strategy.  It’s objective driven. It provides proof of value. It’s measurable. And it leaves consumers with a gravity or gravitas constructed on care-abouts and good-ats.  It is the oppo of benefit shoveling, a meme I like to share which is the bane of marketers worldwide.

    Brand strategy, it’s what’s for dinner.

    Peace  

     

     

    1...345...37Page 4 of 37
    © Newsmag WordPress Theme by TagDiv