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    Brand Strategy

    Brand Planks Explained.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    My brand strategy framework presentation to prospects, contains an example of a strategy for a commercial maintenance company. An excellent company in a tough, price-driven category.

    The three brand planks supporting the brand claim are: fast, fastidious and preemptive. Taken together, these three values – top customer care-abouts and brand good-ats – are drivers of business success. If customers believe this company is faster to resolve problems, pays more attention to cleaning and maintenance detail, and offers insights about potential problems before they occur, the company can charge more money and gain market share.

    Here’s the problem. If the was to do an ad saying “we are fast.” It’s a comes off as a commodity claim. If they do an ad that says they provide quality cleaning, again commodity claim. And an ad talking about preemptive, well, it’s an unexpected value and needs explanation.

    Let’s deal with Fast. This commodity claim can come with baggage. Fast sometimes implies sloppy. By paring fast with fastidious, we overcome sloppy. But to really seed the idea of fast with customers, we need to prove it. Productize it. Build a response mechanism into it so everyone knows the speed of delivery.  For instance, every customer calls to a service line generates a response in 15 minutes guaranteed. And for major issues, they guarantee a person on premise in 45 minutes. Guaranteed. Productized.     

    Words are important. Fastidious is not quality. It’s ADD quality. That’s how this company has to hire. That’s how this company has to reward employees.  That’s how this company has to behave. And mostly, it does.  Yes, fastidious is a word, but it’s also a product and operational strategy. And as I said, it improves the take-away on fast?

    Lastly, there is Preemptive.  This one’s the real kicker. Most commercial maintenance companies make money by completing tasks efficiently. To do so, they discourage employees from going beyond what they’re contractually obligated to do. My client does things differently; they keep their eyes open.  If they see a potential problem or anticipate a problem, they report it. This often solves issues before they cost the client money. A copywriter might spin the phrase “We treat your business like our business.” Don’t believe it. In the commercial maintenance space customers haven’t heard the word preemptive. It’s different language. And it can be operationalized. Maybe even productized. A history list of disasters avoided on the website maybe.

    Take the three planks together, not individually, and you begin to see the power of the framework. When all three actively support the brand claim you have brand strategy.

    To learn the brand claim that ties this company’s strategy together write Steve at WhatsTheIdea.

    Peace.

     

     

    Brand Craft.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    carbonsPlease don’t kill me for this poor metaphor, but China is pumping 1 million more tons of carbon into the atmosphere than previously reported. And Greenland is melting. It’s worth a big fat ulcer. And we’d better do something about it.

    The state of the advertising and marketing business is not much better. We are pumping billions of dollars into the advertising atmosphere, filled with not much more than “we’re here ads” and other cultural blather. “We’re here” advertising works when awareness is all that is needed to stim a sale but its poor tradecraft. Blather is not only poor tradecraft, it creates a pool of murky water through which consumers cannot see the good work. It uses and re-uses words like “quality” and “innovation” and “best” to the point where advertising is melting. This is exacerbated by online messaging.

    Great brand strategy creates a map of acceptable “good ats” and “care abouts.” It organizes them in such a way that the collective story stands out. A brand strategy is easy to follow. You are either on strategy (one claim, three proof planks) or you are not. When the brand craft is good, the advertising tradecraft is good. Even if part blather. Let’s start practicing brand craft to improve our tradecraft.

    Peace.

     

    Branding Is Unfair.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    The word unfair is popping up a lot today in business. Gazzillons of dollars, Euros, Yuan, and other currencies are taking hits because of “unfair trade practices.” Markets are moving like the wind.

    In America, Certified B Corporations are banding together to make businesses more fair to employees, the planet and mankind by focusing on long-term “good” rather than short term economic performance. And though not Certified B Corporations, Toyota, Fiat Chrysler and General Motors are adhering to president Obama’s auto emissions standards, rather than move backward under president Trump. All in an attempt to be less unfair.

    Unfair is most always bad. But it’s a word I use often when talking to clients and prospects about branding.  The goal is to create an unfair advantage for brands…through strategy.  What’s The Idea? is not about cheating, dishonesty, price fixing, or unfair wages; those are deplorable practices. The unfair advantage we look to create is in consumers’ minds. By creating an organized narrative filled with proof of value which predispose people toward client products.  To convince people to drive an extra mile. To wait an extra day. To spend 8-10% more.

    Branding is misunderstood. It’s thought of as logos, taglines and marketing buildables. But branding is the result of a well laid brand strategy. An organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.  One catering to what customers care about (care-abouts) and what brands are good at (good-ats).

    Be unfair. Be wildly unfair. But do so through (organized) honest advantage and art.

    Peace.

     

     

    Pregnant Context

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

     

    pregnant-red-apeWhenever I try to explain to business people what a brand strategy is, I find it often better to just show them a few strategies. When I go on about “an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging” eyes glaze over and I fall into the marko-babble trap. But when I display the brand idea and 3 proof planks, the synapses start to fire and they begin thinking about their own business.  Practice and a modeling (as they say in .edu) are brain sparking. Theory not so much.  

    Then I typically walk prospects through the hard part of brand strategy: what we need to throw out. As in, what we needn’t say. The iPhone was positioned as a phone, not a camera-email-text-app device. The “i” carried all of that. The “i” was pregnant with all innovative things Apple.  

    Pregnant context is what you get credit for even when you don’t say it.  Select your brand strategy words with precision and you’ll get way more than you ask for. In the recent tyro brand planner event at BBH, celebrating the life of Griffin Farley, the winning idea for the Citibike assignment was “Bikes with Benefits.”  The idea was pregnant with target information, aspiration, vitality and value.  The best brand strategies live a long, long time. First they borrow context then they create their own.  Peace in The House (of Representatives). 

     

    Aol. Off to the Races.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Aol’s purchase of TechCrunch, the world’s most authoritative tech blog, is mad proof of its brand strategy to be the web’s content leader. Tim Armstrong, Aol’s chief, gets strategy. Claim: Be the content leader.  Proof: Ellen DeGeneres, TechCruch, local news with Patch. Using a TV metaphor, Mr. Armstrong is trying to create a lineup of talent not dissimilar to NBC’s “must see TV” on Thursday night in the 90s (or whenever that was). Buy and built the best visited sites on the web. 

    The Web is nothing if it is not content.  TechCruch rocks its category not because Michael Arrington is a star, but because he is focused, a great journalist, and attracts stories like white on rice…before brown rice became popular. Aol and its similarly strategied competitor Yahoo realize the ad-supported model is viable, so it is looking to cherry pick the best talent on the web in every category and corral it. Hopefully, it will keep its hands off, as if has suggested, and let TechCrunch be TechCrunch.   

    Patch.com

    Patch.com – Aol’s localization play – is a neat idea but I’m not sure it fits this model.  A local reporter from Bumpus Mills, TN may not raise the editorial or content bar but we’ll see. Aol is off to the races – and finally it has a race track.  Yahoo? Not so much. Peace!

    Hey, I’m sellin’ here.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    There is no strategy without tactics. Guys like me who write about brand strategy may seem like we’re above tactics, not wanting to get our hands dirty. (Twenty years ago, Peter Kim a McCann-Erickson mentor told me “Once I’ve sold the brand idea, I want to be done.” Everything after that gets messy, he explained. Approving ads, media, talent and all other things subjective.

    The thing about planners, especially older planners, is we like to understand the big picture first. We like to go big. Once we understand how to solve the category, the deepest pent up consumer need, then we can focus on the specifics. Problem is, marketers aren’t looking to solve the world’s ills, they’re looking to sell shit. Flat out, right away, cha-ching the cash register, sell shit. Today in this fast twitch media world, marketing directors want their chunk of the returns. Big data? Hell no. Little data about my product. Yes. Data that says “more sales.” Period.

    So we planners need to get the pipes out of our mouths and start talking tactics with clients. (Maybe keep the big picture stuff to ourselves a little more.) All my rants about claim and proof? Here’s one: Good branding works. Sales are proof.

    Peace.

    Proof In Advertising.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Advertising isn’t ineffective because it’s a dying medium, it’s ineffective because it’s ineffective. Good branding is about “Claim and Proof.” Advertising, an important, controllable means of branding, needs to follow the same “Claim and Proof” dictum.

    Toyota, a company playing defense peppered with catch-up promotions, ran an ad in The New York Times paper paper today – a perfect example of badvertising.  All claim, no proof. Here’s the copy:

    No matter who you are or what you drive, everyone deserves to be safe. Which is why the Star Safety SystemTM is standard on all our new vehicles – no matter what model or trim level.  It’s a combination of five advanced safety features that help keep you in control and out of harm’s way.  Toyota is the first full-line manufacturer to make the features of the Star Safety SystemTM standard on all vehicles.  Because at Toyota, we realizes nothing is more important to you than your safety.

    I forgot the headline and I only read it 10 seconds ago. The call to action, where one might actually find the proof, is prominently displayed below the copy — Toyota.com/safety. This ad is one expensive call to action and a lot less.  Fail!

    Who is at Fault?

    I’m not sure who is responsible for this $20,000 piece of “we’re here” advertising but everyone is to blame. The creative person who said “People don’t read long copy.” The strategist who approved it, the client who agreed and paid for it. Frankly, The New York Times should be ashamed. Isn’t someone over there watching this stuff?

    This business is easy: Find a great claim and support it with compelling proof. Compelling proof. Compelling proof. Compelling proof. Peace!

    Small Batch Brand Strategy

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I am loath to admit it, but What’s The Idea? is a small batch brand strategy consultancy.  The market has been conditioned to think a large corporate brand strategy has to cost $100,000; add another $150k for naming and logo design. Most of my clients don’t have that kind of money. My clients tend to be small and mid-size or start-ups.

    My framework for brand strategy – one claim, three proof planks – is tight and enduring.  But for some larger businesses, helmed by multivariate-obsessed MBAs, it may seem overly simplistic.  And inexpensive. Simplicity is the beauty of the framework, frankly. It mirrors what consumers remember.

    In small batches, with only 40 or 80 hours invested in research and planning, the process has to be relatively simple.  The information gathering metaphor I use is the stock pot. My cognitive approach, the “boil down.”  When you work in small batches, you self-limit your ingredients. You know what not to heap into the pot.

    I’ve done small batch brand strategy for crazy-complicated business lines. A global top 5 consulting company with a health and security practice and a preeminent hacker group who helps the government keep us safe. Small batches both.

    Try the small batch approach. As Ben Benson used to say, “I think you are going to love it.”

    Peace.  

     

    Enculturation.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Many think of marketing as acquisition. Or lead generation. Business leaders in that mode don’t really understand brand planning. What often drives leaders who think this way towards branding or rebranding are: old logos, mergers and acquisitions, and boredom. Brand planning though, is all about strategy.

    At What’s The Idea? a brand plan is defined as one strategic idea (or claim) and the three support planks – planks that prove the claim and organize how business is done. A mark or logo is best if it supports that idea. Salespeople and operations people are optimized if they are guided by an organizing principle.  Those businesses who don’t get branding can’t ask employees to go out and “blue” for the company based on the color palette or “leader” for the company, based on a mission statement.  

    A brand plan makes it so that when every employee leaves the building at night they can ask themselves a strategic question about their performance. And that is the litmus test.

    I like to say “campaigns come and go, a powerful brand idea is indelible.”  Leads come and go. Customers come and go.  Brands strategy should not. If it’s not about building and maintaining business through strategy, it’s not a brand plan.

    Employees come and go too, their understanding of the strategy should not. Executives talk all the time about company culture. At the best companies strategy is enculturated.  Peace.

    The Brand Claim.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is credited with saying “Prose = words in their best order; Poetry = the best words in the best order.”

    One of the nicest things ever said by a fellow brand planner about my work product was there was a sense of poesy about it. I like to think he was referring to my brand claims. Typically, they are brief. And they are always pregnant. A number of claims have ended up being taglines because to the ear they sounded memorable. I rather not label them creative. If they smack of a creative spin they clank when shared with a real creative team.

    Landing on the best words in the best order is how you know you are done with a brand claim.

    “Campaigns come and go…a powerful brand idea is indelible” is a phrase that best embodies brand strategy. And that powerful brand idea is the claim.

    As a brand strategy consultant, I’m not in the business of creating ad campaigns. I’m in the business of directing creative conception. The brand claim is the best, most lucrative, most efficient means by which to create good marketing work and judge good marketing work. It is the single most important element of brand strategy.

    The best words in the best order.

    Peace.

    (For examples of What’s The Idea? brand claims, please write Steve@WhatsTheIdea.com)

     

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