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    Brand Strategy

    Yahoo’s new brand strategy?

    By
    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 Case for Brand Strategy Investment.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Brand strategy is such a misunderstood science. And undervalued.

    Here’s why: Brand strategy, as I define it, is “An organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.” As such, it guides all tactics — marketing and otherwise.  Because brand strategy, by this definition, impacts the product it can also impact things like operations; typically not thought of as the domain of brand strategy. So, when the brand strategy for a commercial maintenance company has “preemptive” as a brand plank, it requires all employees to looking for problems with a customer building and grounds before they occur. Blind curbs due to poorly trimmed bushes, sweating pipes that lead to burst pipes; things typically outside of the normal contract. Things commercial maintenance companies aren’t paid for. This is an example of an operational component of the brand strategy.

    Preemptive is both a care-about and a good-at at Excel Commercial Maintenance in NY. It’s partly why they landed a huge cornerstone account ten year ago.

    Brand strategy – unless you are hiring a multinational company – can cost less than an ad in a national magazine.  Yet it is rarely funded. It’s just not valued as much as the tactics it should be driving. That’s probably why John Wannamaker coined the phrase “I know half my advertising is working, I just don’t know which half.”

    Measure twice (invest in brand strategy) and cut once.

    Peace.

     

     

    Health System Brand Strategy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    The surfeit of bad advertising in America today can be directly tied to the lack of brand strategy.

    Here’s an example of what I mean. Mission Health, a huge and important health system in Western North Carolina, saves lives. They’re good people with masterful intentions. They also recently launched a new ad campaign.

    Mission: You.

    Without a brand strategy in place to drive communications, the work defaulted to a copywriter’s pen. Using age old tricks like putting the company name in the tagline, Mission was left with a claim, so undifferentiated, it’s become the penicillin of healthcare marketing. Patients first.

    The problem with a piece of marketing poetry as a defacto brand strategy is that the idea isn’t cognitive. In this cardiology ad,

    there is no claim. No proof.  (You might say “one of the nations’ top 50 cardiovascular hospitals, 12 times” is proof. But of what? Certainly not Mission: You.) When Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, whose brand claim is “More Science” runs an ad “Cancer reaches beyond the five boroughs, we do too,” that’s not more science.

    Health systems are notoriously bad advertisers and worse branders. This is beginning to change but not fast enough. Before a health system starts spending tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads, they need to get the paper strategy right. Don’t leave that to the ad agency – not unless they have a good brand planning team.

    Peace.

     

    Low Versus High Level Branding.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Trail of Bits is a client along with Teq, Inc. that has made the greatest impact on my brand strategy business. I learn from everyone I consult with – that’s how the business works – but these two companies have had a powerful effect. What I learned from Trail of Bits, a software security company, is that there are two levels of security. Low level and high level. It’s a wonderful analog for branding.

    In software there is the device and the software. The device is what one uses to do stuff and the software provides the rules and process driving the effort. You can train a person to use a computer/device. It’s a completely different story to teach them how the machine works. Using it is high level, understanding how it works, low level.

    In branding, the business is flooded with people who know how to use devices, e.g., advertising, web development, PR, logo design, etc. They are all captains of their individual tactics. But at the lower level, where branding actually works to inform all tactics, there are few experts. Brand strategy is low level. It creates the framework for brand success. It creates the composition of sales and loyalty success. It creates the “organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.” Most importantly it integrates all the various pieces, across all devices.

    By many business definitions “low level” means simplistic and “high level” means strategic. Not in software security. And not in branding. We flip the model.

    Peace.

     

    Diagnosing Brand Health.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    In healthcare, diagnosis is the second most important activity – next only to treatment. One without the other isn’t effective. That is not to say treatment always works. This we know.  But with proper diagnosis we are much more likely to have a positive treatment and outcome.

    Similarly, brand strategy requires a diagnosis (critical insight) and treatment (brand plan). The critical insight can be defined many ways and come from many areas yet in its simplest form it is the “identification of a business building or business detracting phenomenon.” It may come from any of the four marketing Ps (product, place, price or promotion) but rest assured the insight is a diagnosis.

    Extending the metaphor, the treatment lies in brand strategy — the way we remove the obstacles or magnify the positives. A brand strategy is one claim and three proof planks. This “one and three” framework organizes product, experience and messaging in a rich, memorable and provable way…so as to build sales conviction. It’s practice and regiment. 

    If you would like to see some examples of real-life claim and proof arrays and the diagnoses they address, write me at Steve@WhatsTheIdea.com

     

       

      

    A Bold Long Term Move By CVS.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    In Mark Ames important Pando article “Shillers for Killers” he states tobacco killed 100 million people last century and is on track to kill another billion this century. The point of his article is that PR and third party advocates have greatly furthered tobacco’s cause – the shillers in the article’s title.

    It was announced yesterday, CVS Pharmacy has decided to drop out of the Chamber of Commerce because the Chamber is against anti-smoking efforts outside the U.S.  This is freakin’ weeken’ awesome. Que huevos?

    When CVS made the decision to drop butts from its store a while back, it no doubt calculated the loss of revenue. But the CVS brand idea “Health Means Everything” means nothing unless they walk the walk. And CVS has walked the walk. These are not only a brand strategy moves they are big ass, newsworthy proofs of claim.  And the payout over time, will way exceed the loss of a million Marlboro Lights sold.

    The reality is, Walgreens and others will follow but CVS is doing the hard, dirty work and breaking the new ground. And they will continue to I suspect. The leadership at CVS and the head of marketing/public relations should win the 2015 Ad Age Marketer of the Year Award.

    Peace.

     

    Brand Around The Love.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I choose to be a lover when it comes to brand strategy, searching for the love of product and service when interviewing consumers and marketers. One of my favorite discovery questions has to do with pride. One day while commuting to NYC on the Long Island Rail Road I noticed the amazingly shiny shoes of the conductors – all of whom were in uniforms. I asked the conductor about the shoes and he explained that sparking shoes was part of the uniform. It was a pride thing. Who knows what Nikes conductors are wearing today but a couple of decades ago it was a thing.

    Another question I like to ask in discovery is “What is the nicest thing someone has ever said to you about your job…or the job you’ve done?”  Brand building is best constructed on love.

    Marketing, on the other hand, often is about negatives. Competitor negatives. Take for instance the new Bud Light campaign against the ingredient corn syrup. All-in negative. Good marketing. Good advertising. But probably bad for the pasteurized beer market overall. Another classic negative marketing play was Wendy’s “Where’s the beef?”

    Brand strategy, when based upon love, can overcome any negative marketing tactics or campaign ploys. But the negs should be monitored because they can drag down the love. (Politics anyone?) Monitoring should be done via a longitudinal attitude study, something I recommend for all clients.

    Plan your brand about the good stuff and compete with the negatives, but don’t get carried away.

    Peace.

     

    Health System Branding.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I worked on the North Shore-LIJ Health System brand strategy about 20 years ago.  Today North Shore is called Northwell Health.  If I did my job correctly, the brand strategy should still be valid.  From everything I’ve seen, it is.  In fact, three ads agencies later, even with a professional yet rudderless ad campaign in place and a goofy tagline (Look North), I still see evidence of the original “system-centric” brand strategy. Some popping up anew after many years.   

    As someone who follows health system brand strategy, I recently came across one (it will remain nameless) for a which brand campaign was launched last fall. On the agency of record website this is what was said about the goals:

     “Integrated creative campaign that would increase system brand awareness and build a positive perception of the organization among the ____ community.”

    I kid you not.  Awareness and positive perception.

    The resultant advertising is beautiful.  Shot in black and white. Great casting. Lovely videography, maybe even cinematography to keep the quality and price up.  But idea?  Ugatz! Strategy? Ugatz!

    What gives advertising a bad name is freeform creativity without an endemic category goal.  The best creative directors want to accomplish something. They want to tell a story. They push for brand strategy.

    Healthcare system branding still has a long way to go.

    Peace.

     

     

    The Edge Of Newness.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    In a discussion between Rick Boyko and Sarah Watson on the film about Sir John Hegarty I posted about this week it was said that brand planners like to “live on the edge of newness.”  Not only could I not agree more, I have to say it’s really what sets good planner planners apart.

    Newness is what we all strive for. Even with a simple concept, wrapping it in new language, context, and culture is a key to breaking through and being remembered.

    I like to talk about rearview mirror planners, sideview mirror planners, and dashboard planners. All are worthy.  But I think the craft is at its best when we play beyond the dashboard. Seeing what we can’t see yet. That’s living on the edge of newness. Peering over the edge. Planning for what’s beyond.

    In my brand strategy framework (one claim, three proof planks), I like claims that have some familiarity yet utter newness.

    Battle, Bartle, Hegarty (BBH), Sir John’s old shop, is at its best when working on edge of newness.

    Peace.

     

     

     

    One Concern. Or Two. Or Three.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    So there is a really cool company in Menlo Park, CA, called One Concern. They are a bunch of data nerds who’ve raised $22M in funding, already have clients and have received a boat load of press, mostly positive. But here’s why you don’t give marketing and branding to data nerds.  Have a look at their Is-Does from the website.

    We are building planetary-scale economic resilience through AI-enabled technology, policy and finance – allowing companies and communities to identify hidden risks and maintain stability in the face of natural disasters.

    If you knew nothing about the company, what would you think they did?  They’re a resilience builder. In the technology space. And finance space. And policy space. Anyone have an extinguisher?  My hair is on fire.

    A few clicks down there is actually a better Is-Does, this one in English:

    While at Stanford University, Ahmad met AI guru Nicole Hu and earthquake expert Tim Frank, and together they channeled their collective passion into figuring out how to apply data science and machine learning to natural disaster and climate change.

    I’m going to give these people a pass as they are doing some seriously important work.  Not all the press has been good but they’re clearly in the business of saving lives on a large scale. They are likely, in fact, to save more lives than individual drug and healthcare companies over time. Data don’t lie.

    Super nerds need love…and they also need brand strategy with a marketing hand.  

    Peace.

     

     

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