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    Wu hoo…activism.

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    Google Reason.

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    A Clear Brand Idea.

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    Marketing

    Marketers With A Conscience.

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    Steve Poppe
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    In tough times conspicuous consumption and wastefulness are uncool. In tough times we eat more leftovers, think about all the plastic water bottles we put into landfills, and ride our bikes to the store.   It’s the way we should live all the time, but what we really need is to have our kids remind us to be more thoughtful about waste. Just like when they told us not to smoke or drive after drinking a beer. Kids are our conscience.
     
    In tough times, marketers that help educate our kids about the perils of wastefulness and poor environmental habits will be viewed by adults as more worthy of our business. And marketers who don’t just “preach” but “do” will be viewed most favorably — like the milk company that changed the shape of its gallon jugs to save energy consumption 3 ways.
     
     
     

    Diluted Talent Pool

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    Steve Poppe
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    The diluted talent pool.

    One of my favorite sayings in marketing is “Just when you think you know something about this business, someone comes a long to prove you wrong.” I like it because I coined it.  There are no hard and fast rules about advertising, marketing and branding.  There are many good rules, but no absolutes.  You have to know, in your gut, when to break the rules…and that’s the fun part!

    Those in the business who have actually spent some real money and seen what an investment in marketing can do tend to have a pretty good handle on what works and what doesn’t. Those are the people you want to work with.

    But today’s ROI tools have made it so easy to measure success that marketers don’t rely on “people” to predict success, they rely on the “tools.”  By testing click-through rates of online messages or direct mail cell performance they let the tools decide what works and what doesn’t.  This is why the advertising and marketing talent pool has become diluted.

    ROI, marketing, direct marketing, click through rate

    Tough Questions for HSBC

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    Steve Poppe
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    I have applauded HSBC Bank and ad agency JWT for its advertising campaign before.  Particularly of note is their meaty business strategy which asks the question “When was the last time your bank asked you the right questions about your business?”
     
    Advertising that asks a question is often lazy advertising but when it strikes a nerve it can be very effective. This is one such case. HSBC knows bankers don’t proactively do anything other than lend you money, take your money, and take their fees. So this strategy is a good one. 
     
    But here’s the “but.” They had better start asking some smart questions. And I don’t mean “How’s business?”  The questions have to be the “right” questions. Thoughtful questions. Questions that make you feel a little uneasy perhaps. Actually asking customers smart question is going to take what we called in the 90s a “sea change.”  If HSBC can create a culture of relationship managers asking business-sensitive questions, they can differentiate themselves and steal some serious share. It’s easy to advertise, but hard to execute. I like it.
     

    College Branding

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    Steve Poppe
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    College and university advertising is generally pretty bad. The budgets are small so they don’t use good agencies and when they do use good agencies the academicians often get in the way which tends to watered down the work. Quick – think of a good college ad campaign.

     

    UCLA ran a print campaign this week that I actually took the time to read. The tagline was “UCLA, unabashed.” Ads were in the form of first person storytelling by various alumni, appearing two per day on consecutive right hand pages.  The campaign objectives were hard to figure at first but by the end of the week I got it: UCLA is a great place for “achievers” to start their lives and UCLA needs private funding.

     

    Good college advertising makes the consumer think. If it can’t, then why would we assume the college can make the student think?  Selling doesn’t work in this type of advertising; making the synapses fire does. 

     

    I’ve heard college kids say “as soon as I drove through the front gate I knew it was the school for me.”  Is that packaging (nice gate) or branding (predisposition to a sale)?

     

    Creating a great brief for a college or university is very heavy lifting. I’ve done it before and it’s a real test. But when you nail it, you know. I’d like to see the UCLA brief, because they nailed it. (If you like to see a good college brief, write me and I’ll forward one.)

    Open Your Eyes Chrysler Fiat.

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    Steve Poppe
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    Quick, close your eyes. Conjure up an image of a Chrysler car. Got it? Now, next to it, plop down a Fiat. (Is it red?) Okay using your brain processor, morph the two cars together. Not a bad car.

    Wipe that image clean and think of a typical GM car. Put an Opel next to it. (Is the Opel lime green?) Okay morph the two together. A little funkier, but probably no worse than a Hyundai. (Did you know Hyundai sales are up 49%?)

    This simple  exercise demostrates what is happening in the auto world today. GM decided to keep Opel and Chrysler is hoping its takeover by Fiat will create some compelling new cars designs. These aren’t marriages of geography or global penetration, they’re about big cars vs. little cars. These big car-little car discussions should have been taking place 5 years ago.

    The combination of Chrysler and Fiat has great design and engineering upside. Fuel efficient, sporty, Italian-influenced designs make a nice brand bed for the combined company to lie in. Build the new brand around these qualities (think baby Sebring rag top not Town and Country) and you begin to see some serious light. Meep meep. Open your eyes now. Peace!fiat-linea-titel

    To pig or not to pig?

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    Steve Poppe
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    Here’s an idea: associate “men on the prowl” who don’t carry condoms with pigs. This is the notion in Church & Dwight’s new Trojan condom ad campaign and it’s simple and brilliant.  It speaks loudly to both men and women and is an idea with ballast.  I’ve only read about the TV campaign, so I won’t pass judgment, but it’s supposed to be funny. In that it comes from Kaplan Thaler Group in NY I wonder, but we’ll see. 
     
    A man with a condom is prepared. He is smart. He is thoughtful.  And though perhaps a bit presumptive, he is clearly someone who understands the sanctity of the deed. Today, a man of any sexual persuasion who is prepared with a condom doesn’t come off as a player — if the wrapper is faded, he probably isn’t — but he does come off as a man.  Not a kid.  Or metaphorically, a pig.
     
    Men may act like pigs sometimes, but deep down they don’t want to be seen as pigs. It’s a great idea. Bravo to the Kaplan Thaler planner!
     
    Pop quiz: Which U.S. ad agency produced the first ever condom ad for TV. 
     

    An in-sourcing discussion.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Brand Planner:  “So tell me about the best marketing decisions you made recently?”

    CEO: “Oh that’s easy. Instead of paying for all of our printed pieces to outside suppliers, I leased a high speed color copier. It trims, collates, prints on both sides and saved us lots of money compared to previous years. It’s huge. I had to install some new air-conditioning and we pay for the toner on a per-piece basis, but the ongoing savings are wonderful.”

    Brand Planner:  “Okay. Any other strategic moves?”

    CEO: “Well after we paid and outside firm a friend recommended to design a logo — which was wonderful by the way — we used the firm to do some direct mail. It was very expensive and didn’t really pay for itself, so I decided to build an in-house marketing department. We have a creative manager, a junior designer, copywriter, web manager, and three coders.  One of them even developed an i-Pad app that Apple approved.  We’ve been dabbling with someone to direct the department, but is hasn’t always worked out; we want things to remain fluid. Our head of sales and top product people are pretty good at that stuff, so they lend a hand.”    

    Brand Planner: “What has been the return on this in-house strategy?”

    CEO: “Oh we’re saving lots of money. You know what it would cost to have all those people working for us at an agency?”

    Brand Planner: “How have consumers responded? ”

    CEO: “Our sales are off a couple percent, but that’s not the marketing department’s fault. The sales team needs a kick in the pants.”

    Brand Planner:  “Have you has any marketing campaigns of which you are really proud this year? Anything that has activated your customers and prospects? ”

    CEO: “Our magician ad is amazing; it won a readership award in one of the trade pubs. And everyone loves our promotional calendar.  Did I mention we hired a content strategist?”       

    Product Placement Finesse.

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    Steve Poppe
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    I’ll soon be sending my son off to college and he has no real reading skills. Were college conducted as a videogame he’d be golden.  Some college kids in journalism class, by a show of hands, have never read a newspaper. Magazines for teens, tweens and millennials…well you get my drift.

     

    TV, computer and mobile phones are the media of choice for kids.  Product placement on those screens is a viable investment for marketers. But product placement is a funny thing; it can be amazingly persuasive or it can fall flat. When well integrated into a story it’s a beautiful, ferociously effective selling tactic. Yet when slapped into a story without finesse, it just lies there like a stanky flip-flop. If a cast member of Gossip Girl drinks a bottle of Honest Tea, it’s “passive” and smart. When the Celebrity Apprentice builds a project around, say, a Maybelline cosmetic, it’s “active” and weak. 

     

    Forced product placement sticks out and everyone recognizes it. It just doesn’t feel right. As marketers we need to minimize that smelly flip-lop or we’ll alienate consumers young and not so.

     

     

    Campbell’s Select Harvest Campaign is Superb

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    Steve Poppe
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    I’ve written before about Douglas Conant, the head of Campell’s Soup Company, who in my view is one of the smartest CEO’s in the business world. Click here. Here is another example of his marketing prowess.
     
    Campbell’s just broke a new campaign for Select Harvest soups. I’ve seen only one print ad and one TV commercial, yet can tell you it is focused and has a powerful idea. Two actually. It takes on Progresso soups and MSG (monosodium glutamate.)   
     
    The print shows two large soup cans with MSG above the Progresso can and TLC above Select Harvest. The copy uses words like “farm-grown,” “sea salt,” and “100% natural.” Very factual, hard hitting stuff. The TV is even better.  Simply produced, a young-ish blindfolded women sits at a table using her palette to determine the provenance of Select Harvest ingredients down to which side of the hill the mushroom field is facing. The spot must have cost $85,000.
     
    When advertising makes you want to buy something or change your purchase behavior it usually starts with a clean, focused strategy.  Mr. Conant and his marketing team bring that type of focus to their marketing party. (Oh, BTW, Campbell’s soup sales are up 13% on the quarter.)
     
     

    Data-Driven Marketing.

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    Steve Poppe
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    When writing a marketing plan I need to know the size of the category. Globally and in the country I’m working. As the world becomes more data-fied, these figures should he easier to come by. Well, one can hope.

    Television ad spending in the U.S., for instance, is projected by Magna Global to be down 3.5% this year. Good marketing planners will ask “Where that 3.5% will go?” To another medium? Or will it just be the ebb and flow of money in the market? Category data is important so you can see where your brand nets out. Are you growing faster than the category? More slowly? Or are you sliding along with the others?

    Sources of data don’t always agree so picking one is important. And not all data is reported the same way. It’s maddening. Marketers know data is big business and quite expensive. The big guys are willing to pay, the little ones not so much. Category and brand sales data can cost from $5,000 to $10,000. Hefty indeed, for a spread sheet. It’s necessary and worth every penny.

    Though the world may run on Dunkin, marketing runs on data.

    Peace.

     

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