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    Life Imitating the Internet.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Good marketers and brand planners like to view the world beyond the marketing dashboard. That is, out past the windshield, beyond the dials and digital displays.  They’re good at predicting the future – seeing what’s ahead.  In order to do this, marketers and planners have always used research, concept testing and test marketing.  

    What’s so cool about the Internet is that it has given marketers and planners an entire world of real time research from which to mine new product ideas.  People who play virtual games online, especially fast growing games, are a great source of new product intelligence.  If we listen and watch carefully we can figure out the messages they’re sending us.  First message: They like the activity. Second message: They prefer to participate in the activity on their terms (on-demand, low cost or free, low personal impact, if one loses.) 

    Farmville’s Message.

    For instance, what does the amazing success of Zynga’s Farmville game tell marketers about real world product development?  Well we all know watching real vegetables grow is a lot more fun and rewarding than watching a virtual crop, so the marketer who creates a low-cost system to grow real vegetables (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers?) indoors (or out) with little time investment, will have success.  A lot of people love the idea of farming, they just don’t have the 21st century tools. What other online behaviors do you see that predict offline marketing success? Peace!

    Poor Sprint.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I feel for Sprint, I really do.  They were the first and only top-tier national fiber optic voice and data network yet they never made it past #3. They started when analog telephone calls and digital data packets were coin of the realm.  Today, when speed is needed more than ever, when iPhone users are complaining about dropped calls while sitting in front of computers with sluggish load times, poor Sprint and its lightning fast fiber still aren’t getting any respect. Fiber is an idea consumers understand. Sadly, the story has never been correctly told.  

    FIOS, a Verizon product built on Fiber, is gaining mindshare in NY as a faster means of digital transport. (Fiber into the house makes machines scream.)  Sprint, on the other hand, is airing a TV spot promoting the HTC EVO mobile phone running over its 4G network — the world’s first 4G network – using a strategy about “firsts.”  The TV spots borrows a visual idea from Honda and Google (so much for firsts) showing other technology innovations tipping over in dominoes fashion. A Model T, knocks over a bi-plane which knocks over a steam locomotive, etc. It’s so far removed from fiber, a medium that connotes speed and clarity, you might as well be watching a Fruit Loops commercial.  

    Verizon, via Droid, is implying “futures” in its TV work. Sprint focuses its images on the past. Quick, close your eyes. Visualize which company gets credit for speed? No contest.

    Where the Geezers At?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I’m part of a demographic group that indexes very low for blogging.  Only 7% of people over the age of 50 blog.  So where my people at?  What are they doing?  A bunch are finding there way onto Facebook.  And they’re using the web for search and commerce. They are “liking” the Jefferson Airplane and “Grateful Dead,” using the ether to remember the good old days. I suspect a handful are being social commentators on politics and morality, but probably limited to commenting rather than real Posting. 

    I’m just not feeling any high octane communications from the older guard.  Where’s the mentoring?  It not like Millennials don’t need it?  Hell, they are listening to our music. (Disclosure, I like rap.) And just because the geezers don’t “check in” or “tweet” or “text” doesn’t mean they are out of it.

    I want to hear first-hand from those who landed on the beaches of Normandy. I want to read stories about Woodstock. I want to hear from a real Mad Man.  WordPress or some other blogging platform needs a campaign to gray up the web.  Make it easier to set up sites and post. Plumb the depths of the blogging underserved. We need to hear from the 93% of those who are silent. This is a big commercial opportunity! It will make the web more exciting.  And timeless. Peace.

    “Honey. Wash With This.”

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    There is an interesting strategic disagreement going on in the men’s body wash category these days.  The commercials and video on TV and YouTube from competitors Axe and Old Spice focus on different targets. Old Spice, acknowledging that 70% of men’s body wash (a more expensive, soap substitute) is purchased by women, is using the much talked about “smell like a man” campaign from Wieden + Kennedy directed toward those women buyers. The campaign is smart because the message in not lost on men.  Conversely, the Axe work shoots straight at men, suggesting “Use Axe body wash and you won’t have to aks (New York for ask) girls out, they’ll flock to you.”  Axe is attempting to change behavior. That is, they’re trying to convince men, young and old, that it’s okay to use cleansing gels rather than the traditional, inexpensive, manly soap.    

    Bud Light convinced young men that it’s okay to drink light beer, so growing the body wash category is not a bridge to far.   

    It should be interesting to see who wins this strategic battle.  Will the guys without dates who are most motivated to spruce up not respond to the Old Spice work targeting women?  No, I think they will.  They’ll get the message.  But probably not ask strongly as they will receive the “chick magnet” ads from Axe and BBH. Will lady-less men’s mothers buy them body wash?  I hope not, that certainly will be counterproductive.  “Honey, I saw something on TV….” Peace.

    What is the opposite of UX?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Thanks to the Web, more and more we are hearing the acronym UX (User Experience) in marketing discussions, referring to how one experiences and navigates a website, game or other interactive property. In the print world, UX was tied solely to art direction — things like reading from top to bottom, left to right, or where an eye fixates first on a page.  But with so much to see, read and do on a webpage the science of UX has become legion.

    Metrics and Tools

    So what’s the opposite of user experience?  When users experience a website and engage with a company via the web, what do we call the resulting intelligence?  What’s the short hand term? Mostly it’s called metrics: hits, clicks, time on site, referring site, bounce, etc. Over and above metrics, thanks to social media monitoring and measurement tools from Radian Six and (freebie company) Social Mention, are more behavioral quantitative views: sentiment, passion and affinity.

    Indirect Benefits

    In her new book Open Leadership, Charlene Li talks about some harder-to-measure things that engagement and dialogue can accomplish for a brand, referred to as “indirect benefits.” When a non-employee in a brand community answers a help question it reduces customer care cost and gives that helper a sense of brand accomplishment – both direct and indirect benefit.

    All of these inbound forms of market intelligence or user intelligence are valuable. Business changing valuable.  So what shall we call the opposite of UX? What a company experiences when mining intelligence.  It needs a name. Involvement tracking? User forensics?  What is your top-of-mind thought? Peace?

    Talent is an Idea!

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    MDC Partners is a marketing services holding company with a brand strategy.  That’s right, they have an idea. IPG doesn’t, though back in the day one might have assigned them “entrepreneurship.” WPP, Publicis, and Omnicom don’t have ideas, though perhaps at one point Omnicom might have owned “creative.”  At holding companies the powers that be feel brand strategies are not really needed.

    MDC Partners owns talent. “Where great talent lives” is their idea. For some, that might be a platitude or poesy but for Miles Nadal, CEO, it’s a real strategy.  As a practice, MDC does not own a majority stake in its companies, it owns 49%.  This insures that great talent will stick around.  Their hands-off approach also insures that the talent stays great.  Though I only know Mr. Nadal through his actions and deeds his focus is solely on the leaders he hires, not their output.  Any person who has been around this business knows managing people is easier than managing work output.  Talent is what drives great marketing.  The talent to see what sells, the talent to package it, and the talent to promote it has driven the business since soap suds.  Never mind if that talent is traditional, digital, mobile or whatever’s next. (What could possibly be next?)

     MDC Partners stock grew last year while every other holding company’s tanked. Campaigns come and go and talent comes and goes, but in the marketing world “talent” is a powerful idea. Peace!

    It Takes a Recession.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    2

    Earlier this year I attended an “integration” meeting.  In the room with the client were representatives from its many roster shops: the AOR, consumer promotions, public relations, trade, digital and media.  Advertising creative was presented so, clearly, lots of work had been done before integration was undertaken.  Our team assignment was to brainstorm the target psyche and ways to translate the AOR’s creative to our various disciplines.  

    This is new world stuff here. The lead agency who sponsored the session even agreed they had not done anything like this before – asking each participating shop to provide feedback as to the process.  Prior to the meeting we shared an experiential assignment and, so, had common ground upon which to share (and bond). In addition to clients, the disciplines represented in the room were creative, account planning, account management and media.  The latter had a few minutes to walk us through target consumer media habits. 

    I liked it.  Lots of really smart people sharing from across disciplines; no one afraid to speak up. This is progress people! We all got along.  No darts tossed.  Lot’s of good, dedicated people caring about the assignment rather than their agencies and asses.  It was quite harmonious. The “go dos” after the meeting were to be compiled by the lead agency, and turned over to all attendees to move forward. Not perfect but a very good start at integration. It takes a recession. Peace!  

    Schooled in Marketing by an Educator.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    In a TED video I watched yesterday on the state of education, Sir Ken Robinson mentioned something pretty profound. He said most people are often “good at something they don’t really like doing.”  His point being, that mom-ism, “If you do something you love, you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”  His broader point was students today are broadcast to, not engaged, and that’s why education is in such a sorry state.

    Broadcast Selling.

    I was mowing the lawn last night and thinking about this as it relates to advertising and marketing.  With media exploding into more and more, always-on devices (ding-a-ling, Good Will on the phone), and those devices containing advertising, the bombardment of selling is growing exponentially.  Moreover, that selling is being done by more craft-less people, creating the advertising equivalent of fast food — poorly constructed and not good for you. (Ads by SEO kids, videos by moms.) 

    How to sell.

    As a young ‘un in the ad business I drafted an article for Adweek that suggested people read ads to be: educated, entertained or to see something they’ve never seen before.  I think this still applies. We are so inundated with selling messages today we shut down.  Ingest too many antibiotics and you become immune.  Hear the word “quality” too many times and you become similarly immune. 

    Our Job

    Our job as marketers is not to say the same things with new messaging devices, it’s to educate, entertain and present the artful unseen. (In the 70’s my dad Fred Poppe used to call this “engagement.”)  Engagement starts with getting someone to let down their message defenses. My ramble.  My peace!  Happy 4th.

    Brand Planning Starts with the “Is-Does.”

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Noah Brier once asked me “How do you define a brand plan?”  Everyone, he suggested, has a different view of what a brand plan is.  My ability to answer in a few words with a simple explanation impressed (I think). A brand plan is really just an organizing principle. In order to create a good brand plan, one must first get the Is-Does right.  What a brand IS and what it DOES. The Is-Does is one of the easiest and at the same time hardest exercises known to marketers. For instance, is the iPhone a phone?

    Technology companies have a terrible time with the Is-Does. Here’s an Is-Does example from a website:

    A global provider of digital advertising technology solutions that optimize the use of media, creative and data for enhanced performance.

    Try explaining that to your great aunt.  

    A video on the same website, presumably created by someone with agency chops, refers to the company this way “A global leader in digital advertising campaign management.” Much better, no? 

    What Makes a Good Is-Does?

    The litmus of a good Is-Does is its ability to be played back by consumers. Ask a consumer what your brand Is and what it Does and they should be in the neighborhood.  If they have to use a competing brand to define you, that’s not good.  And here’s a tip, don’t put words like “solution provider” in the Is-Does or use marketing poesy or made-up concepts.

    If you have some really bad Is-Does examples (usually found on the boiler plate of press releases or the first sentence of the About section of a website) please post in the comments.

     My Is-Does? Marketing Consultant (Is) that helps companies find powerful, sales driving brand strategies (Does).  What is your company’s Is-Does? Peace!

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