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    Ad Whistles.

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    Talk About It or Be About It.

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    Brand Strategy

    Client Direction. No Thanks.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I’m a fan of Sweathead, the brand-centric consultancy of Mark Pollard.  He does what I do but way more publicly. We’re likeminds I think.  In a missive today about ChatGBT he mentioned brand planners have a problem when clients provide a lack of clear direction.  He wrote:

    “Strategists may struggle when clients or stakeholders provide vague or inconsistent guidance, making it challenging to develop effective strategies.” 

    This seems very sound advice. In fact, I recently read somewhere that this a potential weakness of AI — the AI response is only as good at the question posed. Again, sensible.

    Interestingly though, in my work, I don’t care if a client provides clear direction. When doing master brand strategy, I’m not looking for direction.  First, I follow the money. Then I interview key stakeholders, happy customers, SMEs and maybe the disaffected (if I can find them). We talk. I query, I follow the threads and look for anything resembling “proof of quality.”  The word direction doesn’t come up. 

    What comes out of the sausage maker when all the info is gathered, assembled, boiled down and repatriated? That’s direction. Direction in the form of an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging. The definition of brand strategy.

    Peace.

     

    Testing and Brand Strategy

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I was reading a little ditty on the web today about effective marketing which at first glance, seemed quite smart.

    Test, then double down or kill.

    • Test everything, your messaging, your creatives, your approach, everything
    • If it works, double down and iterate further to see how far you can go
    • If it doesn’t work and iteration fails, kill it no matter what.

    As I thought it through though, I began to see that while this may be good marketing advice – constant learning and positive movement – it is not at all good brand building advice.

    Brand building begins with strategy. Ask a hundred people, you may get a 1hundred answers what a brand strategy looks like, but most will agree a strategy is accountable for tactics.  As I read the test, test, test advice I began to think about the whiplash it will cause marketers. And my neck hurt. Testing the brand strategy is absolutely called for.  But once in place, let your un-artificial intelligence drive the program. (Media tests are okay.)

    Get your brand strategy right and get your strategy tight to save time downstream. If you test everything, you are testing nothing.

    Peace.

     

     

    Boil Down.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I write a good deal about the boil down. The function we brand planners do when creating brand strategy — taking all of the fire-hosed information we collect, prioritizing it and illuminating a single claim that poses as the brand strategy.  Anyone can hunt and gather. Taking what is gathered and refining it into a key value that predisposes a target to purchase is the bases loaded swing.

    I got some really great exploratory interviews with mega brand planners through emails telling them I had a “good ear” for strategy.  I think I used a dog whistle metaphor or something. It went something like this, “While much said in meetings is blah, blah, blah, I hear business-winning statements, observations, and insights.” Hey, it got me in the door.

    The main job of the brand planner is the boil down. The “idea” referred to in What’s The Idea? (my business name) is what we are mining. But the job is not done at the claim or idea level. The “proof planks” are the heavy lifting. They feed and nourish the idea. And nourish the creative teams. The proof planks (3 in total) are, perhaps, even more important than the idea/claim. They are the science. The measurable evidence. Together, the claim and proof array build the brand. With the marketers and creative teams being the carpenters.

    Boil down.  It’s what makes a Subaru a Subaru.

    Peace.

     

     

    Brand Claim and the Boil Down.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    “How do you know if you have a good brand strategy?  More importantly, how do you know if a brand strategy being presented to you is any good?  

    When I present brand strategy, I’m presenting words on paper. No mood board. No customer journey montage. No recorded customer interviews. Just words. And those words, typically presented in serial, near story form, lead to a benefit claim – a single-minded value proposition capturing the emotional and logical reason to buy. Done right, the claim is pregnant with meaning and brand-positive interpretations.  Hopefully, poetic in its memorability, it will often sound like a tagline – but not a campaign tagline.

    In addition to the claim I present “proof planks.” Proof planks are the organized reasons to believe the claim. Three in total. Proof planks cement the brand claim. Without proof, a claim is just advertising.  

    Back to the “How do you know?” question. Clients know they have a good brand strategy when it captures the essence of the brand’s reason for being. And when the proof supporting that essence (claim) is not only familiar it’s filial. The job of the brand planner is not to rearrange words that make the client nod.  It is to boil down those words into a single, powerful sentence.  Like naming a baby in reverse — after they are grown.

    No easy feat.

    Peace.

     

    We Are Brand Builders Not Gallerists

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Creative people don’t really like rules or incumbrances. Unless they are creating art for a loved-one. This highlights the traditional tension between creatives (in advertising) and strategists.  I recently wrote a brand strategy with a strongly articulated target. A target offering lots of spark. But in my world the target is only one part of the brand brief – is a serial, logic document that drives to a brand claim. The brand claim is the strategic directive.  Creative people, so long as they are happy with the artistic output, often think they’ve done their job if inspired by any part of the brief.

    Bullshit.

    We are working on building brands not a series of gallery-hangings. We (strategist, creative team, client) are trying to get consumers to buy, then buy again, and again. To that end, we need to find the most compelling care-abouts and good-ats and codify them into a brand strategy (claim and proof array) that will outlast any campaign. “Coke is refreshment.”   

    Campaigns come and go, a powerful brand idea is indelible. Creatives need to follow the brand claim. That’s brand building.

    Peace.      

     

     

    I Am the Brand Strategy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Since moving to Asheville, NC I’ve had to refocus my business.  There are only a handful of large companies here; mostly mid-size and small.  These latter two classes are not waking up in the morning thinking about brand strategy.

    Most small business owners think they are the brand strategy. That is, as the owner, they believe they know everything there is to know about their business. And those savvy enough to think otherwise believe they need to find out the answers on their own, not outsource it. Understanding what motivates consumers to buy from you is just part of an owner’s day job. First they have pay the refrigerator repair man. But managing a business around consumer care-abouts is mission critical. And that’s what brand planners do. The reality is business hardware, inventory, and tools always come before strategy.

    In brand planning we call this “the problem.”

    So what’s a body to do when a SMB owner incants “I am the brand strategy?”  How do we move strategy up the needs ladder?

    It’s some real chicken and egg shit.  All thoughts welcome.

    Peace.

     

     

    Creativity and Brand Strategy

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Creativity is serendipity. At least it is for me.  When cranking out ideas for brand strategies I’m drawing from past experiences, cultural observations, linguistics and even the subconscious.  Nothing happens in a vacuum. And to quote Faris Yakob a wonderfully lyrical brand strategist, ideas are recombinant.  Not sure I’ve had an original idea in my life.  

    Creative people — or should I say those paid to be creative — are forever in search of the new expression of an idea. The fresh. The never done.  But we know that the recombinant notion applies here as well.  Even music is a combination of notes. Banging the music metaphor a bit more, creatives are looking to play more jazz than pop in their ideation. But the finished product, the published product, often ends up being pop. (Insert client here.)

    What differentiates a creative output from that of a brand strategist is one is guided by a sales intention while the other is freeform. Unbridled creativity gathers attention for attention’s sake. When attention and “freshness” are achieved to the satisfaction of the creative mind, then strategy might be backed in. Tagged on. Bolted on.

    In the creativity game, the primary goal is to engage or entertain the brain to fire off a synapse.  Done well, brand strategy does both: fire off the synapse yet with a bias to purchase. It’s not easy. And to straddle both needs, the brand strategist cannot be boring. S/he must inspire. Otherwise, you are making advertising. Hee hee.

    Peace.

     

    Working With Creatives.

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    Steve Poppe
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    Creative people are typically problem solvers. We non-creatives tend to think they stare at a blank page as if a Sisyphean obstacle.  But they’re creative. Their brains boil over with ideas.  They love a blank page/screen.

    Strategists think we help creatives by giving them direction. Stimuli. A subjective hand. Well, more often than not they don’t want it.

    I recently sat through a Sweathead preso where Aisha Hakim, a creative director at 72 and Sunny, told hundreds of planners not to write longwinded briefs. In fact, she said don’t write briefs at all. She doesn’t use them. I get her POV. The longer the wind, the more the blank page isn’t blank. Confusion may reign. Her advice, if I got it correctly, identify a problem, explain why you’re the solution, and drop the mic. Let the creatives go.

    Is there a happy medium?  Yes.  It’s called the client. Creatives in advertising or do have a daddy.  The client.  The person who approves the work. Without a client and money to spend a creative is an artist.

    So, sell the brand strategy to the client well before the work begins. Prepare the client for a value proposition that is business-winning and make sure they believe it.  It is about them, after all.  Then let them be the arbiter of the work. Brand planning must take place up stream.

    Don’t tell creatives how to do their jobs. Share the business winning framework with them, give a hint or two, then get out of the way. Let them thrive. And let the client be the client.

    Peace.

     

    Selling In 30 Seconds or Less.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I was in a meeting yesterday in which mentors were demonstrating techniques to help early-stage companies build sales and teams. The mentee company founder explained his software company as one that monitored employee workflows with the goal of smoothing them out and making things more efficient and productive. My words not his. His explanation was more cumbersome, acronym filled, and, as is the way with coders, rather technical.

    One of the questions I use in my brand strategy practice came to mind for the three mentors during this exercise. It has really helped me over the years when interviewing technical people.  The question was born of work for Capgemini many moons ago. 

    It was meant to be asked of salespeople but works for founders.  “If you had only 30 seconds with a CFO, what would you tell him/her about your product in order to get a meeting?  Craft the answer as if it were a cold voice mail.”   

    If you have ever spoken with CFOs, you know a couple of things about them.  Numbers are their jam.  They’re revenue and expense driven.  They aren’t big students of the FM (fucking magic) or technology undergirding product management.  They also don’t take kindly to marketing bullshit. So, when crafting your 30 second speech, get the Is-Does right – what the product Is and What the product Does. Explain your key benefit — don’t benefit-shovel. And solve a problem with pent-up demand. You just may get your meeting.

    Peace.

     

     

    Brand. Strategy. Framework.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    One of my favorite definitions of “brand” is “an empty vessel into which we pour meaning.”  It’s a statement about the malleability of brands. But under further scrutiny the definition isn’t 100% accurate — most brands aren’t really empty, are they?  Blaze Pizza has a special crust, sauce, cheese.  Fat Tire beer offers a unique malty taste profile. A Ford Mustang Mach-E is a line extension containing lots of built up and carry-over meaning. Nothing empty about that. And, of course, brand have names. Names which when done right, offer up a view into the product and, hopefully, convey a special value.

    It is the job of the brand planner and brand manager to take what exists inside the vessel and enhance it. Refine it. Compliment and strengthen it.  It’s the brand strategy that lets creators and marketers develop and energize the bond between consumers and the brand. It all starts with the brand strategy.

    My definition of brand strategy is “an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.”  And to organize you need a framework. Mine is built upon claim and proof. My framework simplifies decision-making, adds direction to the creative process and informs all four Ps of marketing.

    Get yourself a vessel. Get yourself a framework. And land on a brand strategy. Chaos be gone.

    Peace.  

     

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