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    claim and proof

    Where The Real Money Is in Branding.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I read a passage in The New York Times yesterday quoting a Ukrainian soldier saying “Every yard taken felt like a mile.”  I mean no disrespect to the soldier.  I’m sitting in a comfortable chair not in a muddy foxhole. And as powerful and “real” as this sentence is, filled with life- and-death consequences it points toward something in communications and, more particularly, brand strategy worth thinking about.

    What makes my brand strategy practice different from  others is “proof.”  My framework uses one claim and three proof planks to deliver the ongoing, ever-going story. Everyone in the brand strategy business offers a claim. It’s rare to find someone who mines the proof.  If I tell you I’m it’s different than me lifting your stove. With proof you believe me. It makes an impression.

    As powerful as the “Every yard felt like a mile” reference goes it lacked proof. “I lay prone in mud for 6 hours, looking at the enemy through a 1inch window between my helmet and the mud. I urinated into a hole I dug with my thumb and forefinger. Afraid to drink water all day for fear of getting my elbow shot off.” You get the point.

    Copywriters today are the backbone of marketing.  But strategists need to give the proof with which to work. The claim is the easy part, the proof is the money.

    Peace.     

     

     

    Why Proof in Branding?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    When I explain my brand strategy framework I boil it down to claim and proof.  One brand claim, supported by three proof planks. Claim has many synonyms in the marketing and ad world. People use words like “promise,” “key thought,” “position” and scads more.  I use claim because it fits nicely with proof.  The best branding – and advertising, for that matter – makes a claim of product superiority or differentiation then pooves it. Claim and proof fit like a glove.

    After researching brands during the so-called discovery process, and when ready to actually developing a brand strategy, I am looking for real, tangible evidence of superiority and differentiation. Not marko-babble. Not copywritten superlatives. Real actions, outcomes and existential proof.  For instance, I don’t look for the word fresh, I look for the words locally grown. I’m not interested in quality furniture, I’m interested in hand-made by second-generation craftsman.

    To be frank, claims are a dime a dozen. They are a drop in a tsunami of claims made every day in the advertising world.  Claims are just words, just copy. Without the proof that connects them to the consumers’ brain there’s no resonance. Proof makes a claim make sense.

    Brand strategy needs to be steeped in proof. Ad agencies are responsible for bringing proof to life. Bad advertising brings the claim to life.

    Peace.

     

     

    A Powerful Brand Idea Is…

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I wrote the brand strategy for a healthier-for-you cookie company, the brand claim for which was “Craft Cookies, Au Natural.”  At my practice a claim is supported by three proof planks. Those planks were: craft cookies are healthier, craft cookies offer complex flavors, and craft cookies are naturally moist.

    In prep for this post, I reread the brief (from a while ago) and was happy to see it chock full of lovely, even poetic, marketing insights; all of which could launch scores of marketing efforts. (One such insight was “Mass-produced cookies use blanched, steamed, stripped, macerated, and filtered ingredients denuded of taste, texture and health properties. Mass-producers do this to save money and create efficient, flavored sugar sponges.”)

    The hard part of brand planning is taking multiple insights noted in the brand brief and boiling them down into a claim (and then, proof planks).  Does “Craft Cookies, Au Natural” do that as a claim?  I think so. Might there be other ways to reflect a brand value prop for this brand? Sure.

    The thing about brand claims, at least at What’s The Idea?, is they need to be memorable. Pithy. Tagline-like. In effect, they become the tagline for the brand until the ad agency creates a campaign for public messaging that trumps it. I often tell clients and prospects campaigns come and go, a powerful brand idea is indelible. Search for one.

    Peace.

     

     

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