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    Brand Strategy

    The Web’s Specialty.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    There’s a cool story in today’s New York Times about single-food restaurants. It stands to reason that enterprises of this type can only thrive if the food is excellent and the stores located in highly populated areas.  In NYC you can take out and, in some cases, eat in at a Mac and Cheese store or a meatball store. There are places that sell only mussels, only rice pudding, and only fried chicken. It’s a growing phenomenon. Specialization suggests focus; a focus on quality, ingredients, product and knowledge.

    In mid-town Manhattan, where there are probably a half million lunches served within walking distance of any high-rise, there are lots of options. So why not go to the best option; the place that specializes? The place that eats, breathe and sleeps its specialty. Forget me not that this type of store can scale well and have a supply chain with amazingly fat margin opportunities. That’s gravy at the gravy store.

    This is a key chapter in the story of the Web — and where the web is going.

    I’ve written before about “worldwide pricing” and the ability to search the world for the best prices.  Well, how about searching the world for the best quality? The ability to do so is a web app. And specialization and focus are the tools of that trade.

    We are bound by product and service mediocrity because of geographic and time limitations. And because of supply and demand.  Well, say buh-bye to these barriers.  Ima stop there and let you entrepreneurs ponder that for a while. Ponder, Ponder.  Peace!

    HP TouchPad Ads Off…and Running.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Hewlett-Packard is launching a new ad campaign today for the TouchPad tablet and it sounds rather messy.  I read about it in The New York Times ad column and hope it’s just poor reporting. The story was written by Elizabeth Olson.

    Here’s my strategic take. 

    • HP is late to market with the tablet and needs to get noticed.
    • HP has a new operating system (OS), which will drive all its hardware devices. Called webOS, it will integrate their smartphones, PCs, printers, tablets and soon other devices and appliances.  It’s a cool promise, but s complicated story.
    • Printers are a big franchise and potential differentiator, so HP wants to make them more relevant.
    • The purchase of Palm and the growth of the smartphone market has made the mobile business a critical growth component.
    • HP is not a big brand with Millennials and teens.

    That is a lot of stuff to convey.  If you have to say 5 things, you’ve said nothing.

    The NY Times story starts out talking about a new commercial with Russell Brand. I’m feeling it.  A little old school, but I’m feeling it. Then it says there are executions with stars from iCarly and Glee. The future holds spots/vids from Lebron James and Jay-Z and Lady Gaga did some work in May but has not re-upped.  Add to that, all the social media contests (100 free TouchPads) and Twitter tchotch and you begin to see how it’s going to be hard to find the idea. Goodby Silverstein is a great  ad shop, but it doesn’t sound as if it hasn’t corralled this herd of goats. 

    My head is spinning.  I hope it is just a lot of info, not well organized, by a reporter from another newspaper beat. And I’m no Leo Apotheker. Peace!

     

    Planned Act Of Kindness.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    1

    Just finished reading a story in The New York Times about the Robin Hood restaurant chain in Spain run by Father Angel Garcia Rodriquez, who operates a pay-for establishment during breakfast and dinner only to serve the homeless for dinner. The dinner crowd is served by waiters and waitresses, on real plates, using nice cutlery, not plastic. For free. In addition to the charity, his wish is that the experience will engender hope in his nightly diners. This planned act of kindness is popular and successful and may be on its way to Miami, Florida.

    Acts of kindness and selflessness create powerful feelings for all involved. Selling is not a human trait. Charity is. Every brand should ask itself “What is the nicest thing we have done for customers this year?” If the answer is a one-day-sale or a pre-printed holiday card the brand needs to reexamine its approach.

    Planned acts of kindness should be requisite for all brands. The financial officers may not always see the value, but they’re not building brands. They are building bank accounts.

    Peace.

     

    Obs and Strats

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

     

    Everything we do in marketing has to support objectives and strategies (obs and strats).  Similarly, everything we do in the brand building needs to support brand strategy. A well-designed brand strategy (one claim, 3 proof planks) is inexorably linked to obs and strats; therefore brand strategy is measurable.

    So how does one measure brand strategy?

    The easy answer is to conduct periodic quantitative studies of attitudes and then marry that attitude data against key performance indicators, such as sales, transactions, utilization — things that generate revenue.

    Unlike ROI which maps, say, an ad spent to income generated, Return On Strategy (ROS) measures attitude swings against revenue.  That’s why brand claim and the proof planks must be embedded in obs and strats.

    Tink about it as my Norwegian aunt used to say.

    Peace.

     

    Are You Strategic?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    What does it mean to be more strategic?  Does it mean more analytical? Smarter? Does it mean you flail around less looking for a solution? Are you more successful when strategic?

    Once in my career at McCann-Erickson a supervisor told me I needed to be more strategic; it cut me to the bone.  But I wasn’t sure what to do to fix it. It was a swipe and advice sans solution.  I had to figure it out on my own. “Strategic” doesn’t come with a handbook.

    It’s hard to be strategic without a strategy. Then you have something to abide. Something to affect. With a strategy in place you can measure your efforts. As I sometime write, you can be binary in your efforts. Either “on” or “off.”

    The problem with branding, and therefore marketing, is that strategic people often don’t have a brand strategy. As a result they are strategic but with tactics. Or objectives. More money, more margin, more more. Unfortunately, they’re not building a brand. Not using “an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.” With branding the ends trump the means.

    Peace.

     

     

    Sharing.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    One of my clients is so good at what they do they take a “rising tide” approach to sharing their IP and tools. For free. This soooo goes against everything I was taught as a pup in the business, where “proprietary” and “patented” carried the day.  But the software and services worlds are a changing.  Look at what Satya Nadella has done with Microsoft, opening up much of the company and reaping massive rewards.

    I’ve been sharing my brand strategy framework for years. I’ve borrowed from some of the leading lights of the “sharing” age, even meme-ing “open source brand strategy.”

    The reality is, brand strategy requires doing something smart with all the data and discovery that goes into it. You can’t just pour the information into muffin cups and start baking.  You have to organize and prioritize your ingredients.  And that’s when a framework turns into strategy.

    I share my framework – the claim and proof array – but I’m not nervous it will hurt my business. Sharing is never a negative.

    Peace.

     

     

    Brand Strategy for Complex Businesses.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I worked on an assignment recently where a tech company came back to me 3 years after having me develop their initial brand strategy. A strategy they loved.  It was for a complex business, which in three years’ time grew even more complicated. The service offerings got broader – and they entered into a white-hot new tech sector.  A sector with mixed reviews as to its viability, albeit one boasting tons of VC money.

    The CEO wondered if a reposition was in order. As someone who always tries to future-proof his brand strategies, I was a tad reluctant but willing to give it a try.

    Fast forward a few weeks, a couple of dozen interviews, some financials and a bevy of care-abouts and good-ats and the new brand strategy was complete. It changed. The brand claim evolved, broadening the scope of the business. It was a modest but significant change.  The proof planks stayed the same, though slightly nuanced.  

    The way to handle complex problems in branding is to render them not complex. Once you remove most complications, once you figure out the most important business and attitude drivers, you can lay down the track.

    Peace.        

     

    Branding is not Colon Surgery.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    If there is a secret sharable sauce at What’s The Idea? brand consultancy, it’s proof. This business, this branding business, and all the brand strategies built for clients over the last 25 years, owe their being to proof.

    Proof is perhaps the most underrated element in advertising. And sadly, well-constructed advertising, if not built on proof, can become a branding element sending brands off the rails.  Flame broiled for Burger King is proof.  The King is not.  The effervescent bubbles coming off a sweating Coca-Cola bottle is proof. Happiness is not.  

    My approach to brand strategy is open source.  That is, I share my framework with all marketers: One claim, three proof planks. It’s simple and understandable. Google the words “brand strategy frameworks” and you get an assortment of marko-babble charts and circles that will make your head spin. Even the requisite boxes used in these frameworks are inexplicit. Brand Voice. Brand Personality. Mission. 

    This isn’t colon surgery people. It’s selling stuff through a simplified organizing principle. One that gives people proof of why they should purchase and continue to purchase.

    Find the proof and you can find your brand.

    Peace.

     

    Dodge Challenger Video

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I’m not a car guy.  My sister knows more about engines than I do, not that there’s anything sexist in that statement (maybe there is.)  I asked my son recently “What’s a Hemi?”  That’s the context.  But I do know advertising and marketing and have an ear for what consumers will like. And the president and CEO of Dodge, Ralph Gilles, talking about his brand and the tres cool Dodge Challenger (in this video) is a winning piece of marketing.  Shot and (perhaps?) concepted by Cobrandit’s Owen Mack, this piece made me want to go trade in my Prius for a Dodge anything. Great advertising makes you feel something, then do something.  In my case the “do” was post to the blog.

    Mr Gilles is the absolute perfect salesman for this car and this brand. Just listen to him.  Not a suit, he.  Just a lover of cars and engines and Dodge and, I can tell, people who love cars.  So they will trust him. He’s black, presumably from the motor city, rocking the bald head thing, styling the clothes.  He is very videogenic. And the cars he’s showing are pulsing with power.  As is he — in a very friendly way.

    I worked at McCann for a number of years when they would trot out CEOs to walk through the corporate headquarters and tell America that “the road to the future was paved with GM” or some such.  It was suits selling suity cars. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

    Mr. Gilles can bring back Dodge as long as the cars are good and he keeps talking to the people like this.  Get him on TV and radio.  Show these car designs, spin some Detroit magic, mint some money.  His next Job? The new US Fiats. Peace. 

     

    A Truth About Small Business Marketing.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0


    There are mighty few small business owners who acknowledge they’re awash in marketing questions about their business. Especially those in service industries. Small business product marketers know what they know best: the product. The food tastes good. The lawns are properly manicured. The artwork is captivating.  But they may still have questions about pricing, targeting and distribution. On the service side, selling what may seem to be commodities, e.g., insurance, healthcare, financial products, the product is pretty static and it’s the delivery that counts. Those owners have even more questions.  Questions they leave to the marketing Gods…and perhaps Google.

    Marketing is the science of selling. And small business owners are often not scientists. Certainly not in this art. So they turn to so-called marketing/branding/advertising consultants or agents for help.

    Here’s why this often goes off the track: The people small business owners turn to are way more familiar with their own business, i.e., search, art direction, research, than they are with the business they’re supposedly helping.  Brand planners, actually, are paid to know more about their client’s businesses than the client. Hard to believe I know. And while the business owner may, on volume, know more than the brand planner, the planner has done the heavy lifting to remove the ancillary things from the equation.  To boil down the care-abouts and good-ats. To provide the real focus.

    Brand planners are needed more at small businesses than at their larger cousins.  But the owners are so used to doing everything themselves they don’t see strategy as a priority. And those that do ask for help, often ask people who don’t spend the time to really get to know the brand and the business. Often, because they are small businesses too. Hee hee.

    Peace.   

     

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