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    Domino’s Takes on Papa John’s

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Dominos Pizza has invested in a big turnaround and you can see a snapshot here at this link.  Management, after listening to customers past and present and realizing it had a product and image problem, decided to reformulate its pizza recipe.  Dominos attacked “cardboard crust” and “sauce like catsup” and now has a tasty product story to tell. (You’ve seen the hokey but effective focus group ads, I’m sure.)  Ingredients, however, is an important brand component of Papa John’s Pizza, whose tagline is “Better ingredients. Better pizza,” so Dominos is playing catch up.

    Recently, Dominos launched some advertising telling us that 3 of its new pizzas win taste tests over Papa Johns. Because of Papa John’s lead in ingredients — a brand idea it has been pushing for a while — I would normally say Papa John’s doesn’t have much to worry about. Taste tests are tactics not strategies.  But Papa John’s has been playing lip service to the ingredients strategy for a while now, focusing on sports promotions and price promotions.  Plus it has given a lot more brand time to Papa John Schnatter the CEO, which is a distraction.  Ingredients equal taste and Papa John’s has lost its momentum. 

     Dominos is the underdog now and you know how America loves an underdog.  This is an interesting fight to watch and one which may have just turned in Dominos favor.  Peace!

    The Future of Retail.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Barnes and Noble just appointed the head of its web business CEO. Does that tell you something?  Yeah, yeah…it says increased digital emphasis.  But let me ask you a question: Do you shop at Sam’s Club, Costco or one of the other big box warehouse stores? How about Wal-Mart?  If so, does that store have a greater share of your wallet (SOW) than other stores?  I suspect so.

    When Stephen Riggio the vice chairman of Barnes and Noble says that for the next 2 years the “net number of stores will not change much” and after that “we’ll have to see” what does that tell you? Certainly a push to digital, but I’m also thinking he’s referring to a retail square footage play.  Some of the cheapest books I ever bought were at Costco.

    Future of Retail.

    Here’s the future of retail – and we may see it happen first in China.  The Costcos of the world will create low cost mall like mega stores under one roof with branded experiences for companies such as Barnes and Noble throughout. The experiences will be much less elaborate than at home stores.  The floors will be concrete, the mobile search sublime, prices wonderful and it will all, no doubt, occur under a vinyl banner with a bird or two circling overhead. Check-out will be done with scanners and the hardest part of shopping will be getting to your car.  This isn’t the Jetsons, it’s the retail future.  I think Messrs. Riggio and Lynch are already there, in mind.  Peace!

    Entertainment in advertising.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    “Here we are now, entertain us” is a lyric from the Nirvana song Smells Like Teen Spirit.  A classic.  The need to be entertained is a very human trait. Generally, when you go to the movies or turn on the TV you are seeking entertainment — news shows aside. Is Facebook about entertainment?  And if so, what percentage?  Forrester or the Altimeter Group should do a research study to find out what people are actually doing on Facebook. It might help with their monetization model. 

     When people use search engines, what percent of their queries are about entertainment?  People read books for entertainment, but many only read nonfiction. Is that entertainment?  Humans are complex animals and require different levels of entertainment but one area where we overdo it is in advertising. Just look at the ads on the Super Bowl.  Advertising isn’t supposed to make you warm and happy so that when the selling proposition is delivered you are smiling, ads are supposed to make you feel something, then do something.  

     Ad agents, be they traditional or digital, need to dial down the entertainment factor and dial up the selling factor. Entertainment is easy, especially poor entertainment. Selling and persuading are hard. Consumers need reasons to buy.   Peace!

    JWT: “Periods suck, the ads don’t have to.”

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Jason DeTurris was the JWT account planner on Schick Quattro this past year and winner of a AAAAs Jay Chiat Award for work that led to inspired, effective creative. His branding idea was “transform your topiary.”  You remember the TV spots…they encouraged women to shave and sculpt their nether regions. It was fun, grown up advertising and it sold lots of razors.

    Well, I can’t confirm it, but Jason’s back — or at least JWT’s back with some bold women’s advertising for U by Kotex. The idea, targeting women 14-21, is based upon the fact that historically work in the category has been paternalistic. That is to say, it has discussed periods and menstrual products as a single father might with his daughter. Awkwardly.  Facilitators of this euphemistic story telling are the TV networks, two of which won’t even run the new work. The spots parody and make fun of old campaigns and their silly demonstrations; the pouring of blue water onto a pad being one.

    JWT is breaking ground here and thanks to the web (site created by Organic) is taking a much richer story to young women.  In addition, it has created an enemy in fem-care advertising that everyone can rally around – a conversation starter. JWT is going to make some serious bones (I’m reading the Godfather) in the fem-care category and should be a go-to shop for excellent creative (along with Ogilvy) that targets women. Schick and Kimberly Clark (Kotex) prove it. So Jason, is that you?

    Brand Planning Sets You Free.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Following a successful pitch a number of years ago, I was told we won the business because we were bold enough to suggest keeping the previous agency’s tagline. According to one board member who had been with L’Oreal, this was unheard of in the healthcare industry.  The brand strategy we pitched was perfectly in synch with the organizations existing tagline, so why get rid of it?  The problem was, the incumbent agency’s advertising wasn’t proving the tagline.  Their ads were communicating and informing but not in an organized, brand-building fashion.

    Marketers have to find a brand promise, believe it, live it and invest in it. It should be supported in news, trade shows, retail, ads, Adwords, tweets, etc. As a client once said to me, all communications need to make deposits in the brand bank.  Not random deposits — planned, meted, brand-differentiating deposits, based upon a brand plan. A brand plan is hard to make but simple to follow.  It comprises a claim or promise and three discrete support planks. Prove the promise through the planks every day – in messaging and product development – and you will build your brand and market share. The brand plan sets you free. Peace!

    Where you at Rock, where you at?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    RFID stands for radio frequency identification.  It is a really haps technology with great marketing upside. If you have a phone that is RFID enabled and walk by a pastry shop with tarts fresh out of the oven, you might get a special alert. “Hot apple tarts.”  If you don’t pay attention and continue walking the shop may ping you with a coupon to slow you down. (Nuisance? Perhaps. Smart? Very.)

    Checkin

    Checkin (a term that foursquare would like to own) is a manual geolocation application that allows your followers on foursquare to know where you are. If you checkin to Mary Carrol’s Irish pub on St. Paddy’s Day, your friends can find you. If Mary’s Carrol’s knows you have lots of friends, they’ll be smart to encourage you to checkin.  Should you decide upon stealth mode, don’t do it.    

    These services subscribe to the marketing view that where you are is more important than what websites you visit.  Don’t get me wrong, visiting websites is a directional indicator of interest, but feet on premise or near prem is a big driver of da monies. And thanks to social media apps like foursquare, gowalla, loopt, etc. we marketers have new exciting mobile toys to play with.  Peace!

    Accelerator Pedals and Online Ads

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    There was an article today in the New York Times by Stephanie Clifford about new ad serving technology supported by real-time bidding, allowing ads to be served based on keywords and cookied behavior.  Supposedly everything takes place in milliseconds — before the page even load. (Is it me or are page loads getting slower and slower?  Thanks ads. Thanks beefy Web 2.0 apps.)

    It stands to reason that as this technology matures a good deal of these immediate, personalized ads will be price-based. And how do marketers lower prices?  By cutting margins elsewhere, meaning brand advertising budgets, etc.  Fast forward a year or two and think about all the low-cost, challenger brand/no brand, tailored ads filling up your screens. Likely, you will have bitten on a price ad or two and had a poor experience and now avoid these ads altogether. Your avoidance behavior may be similar to that toward telemarketers.  And it’s too bad because as the behavioral modeling grows it has an opportunity to be an important selling mechanism.

    But initially it will be price, price, price!  A word of caution marketers: Don’t fall into the price war — web ad bidding war.  It will be hard to get out of. And some of your accelerator pedals might stick. Peace!

    South By…the Future

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I am really Jonesin’ for SXSW (South By Southwest).  A couple of years ago while with Zude.com we had a music thing going so we went to South By Music. South By Music is different than South By Interactive which starts tomorrow, but they are back to back events in Austin, TX.  Interactive is about web apps and Music is about musicians and bands looking to be signed. There is some cross over but for the most part the shows have different attendees.

     At Interactive Mark Zuckerberg speaks.  At Music the band X plays.

    At Interactive iPods are emailing and tweeting. At Music they’re tuned to BootLiquor.

    At Interactive the kids from UT have resumes. At Music they have CDs.

    At Interactive there’s lots of paper. At Music paper is verboten.

    At Interactive the kids are hungry for money. At music they are hungry for food.

    At Interactive the taco joint on 6th is jammed. At music the taco truck is jammed.

    Both shows are awesome and showcase their industry’s rock stars.  The Shiner Bock flows, the line at Stubb’s BBQ is McCrazy, the taco truck at the loading dock at the Convention Center still sells the cheapest tacos in town (with mashed potatoes) and the vibe is the future.  Peace!

    PS. Please comment your Interactive/Music comparisons.

    Cashiers, Conversationalists and CMOs.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    There are two factions in online marketing these days: Cashiers and Conversationalists. 

    Cashiers

    Cashiers care about the sale. They have the small dashboard that tracks click-to-sale and spits out an ROI calculations. Cashiers can’t wait to wake up in the morning to see the new numbers. They are in to usability testing, shopping cart abandonment, media optimization and other measures but their interest and energy pretty much stops at the sale. The buck stops there.

    Conversationalists

    Conversationalists are a daintier.  They immerse themselves in the process.  They want to make friends.  (Like the kid with the runny nose in grade school, sometimes they just walk right up to you and ask “Do you want be my friend?”)  In my world, conversationalists are actually more likely to find truths and insights about their products and win in the long term.  All the pop marketing gurus today are into the conversation. They are not technologists, thank God, so they are easy to listen to and learn from but their failing is that they’re a little too caught up in the sausage making, not the sausage tasting.

    CMOs

    For a CMO it’s great to have both types of people on staff.  A Yin and Yang thing. Cashiers are imperative for sales now. Conversationalists care about future sales, and loyalty and sale predisposition. But it’s hard to take predisposition to the bank. Good CMOs have a brand plan in place that gives direction to the factions.  A brand plan is informed by the work and findings of both factions, but it drives them.  A brand plan helps Cashiers and Conversationalist organize “claim and proof” in a way that creates Return on Strategy near and long term. Peace!

    An unlikely mind.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    1

    Noah Brier is an exciting, off-piste marketing strategist.  His post the other day suggesting some businesses would do well to have born on dating is a case in point. 

     Head of planning and strategy at the Barbarian Group, Mr. Brier is unique because he likes to question rules, norms and the tried and true. He looks at the blacks, whites and grays.  His mind mashes up things and, I suspect, he sometimes introduces a bit of randomness to his rigor – just for flavor. In the advertising or creative business some might call this approach disruptive. I think of it as natural. Seeds grow in the oddest places…not always where the farmer plants them. They blow around, are carried by birds, find unlikely hosts for germination. If Steve Jobs is embodied by the advertising tagline “think different” Mr. Brier of similar mind and value in a strategist’s body.

     Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Brier can go head-to-head with traditionalists – he just doesn’t always chose to.

     His monthly likemind — something he and Piers Fawkes came up with — is an audacious idea bringing people of similar views together in coffee shops around the world.   I suspect it won’t be long before he and Mr. Fawkes invent UnlikeMind.  Let’s start with one here in the states on the topic of healthcare. Might work. Peace!

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