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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

    Sony – Passion or Commitment

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    Steve Poppe
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    Passion or commitment?

    Here’s a quote from today’s New York Times by Sony Electronics new SVP of advertising “Sony’s consumer research showed that consumers had great passion for Sony but that the brand was not making an emotional connection.”

    Could we please, please stop confusing passion for a brand with commitment? People love Sony because of amazing design and quality. Sony ads need to convey that design and quality and do so without getting in the way.  But to listen to BBDO’s David Lubars it’s all about the ads.  Said Lubars, “They make products that delight people, that are fun and entertaining, and their communications should reflect that humanness.” (I’m sure Mr. Lubars said a lot more this, but that’s all that was reported.) The Times reporter embellished, “The humorous quality of the ads was meant to make the brand feel accessible.”

    Passion and “feel good” are byproducts of advertising — related to tone. Commitment to purchase is what agencies need to work on. Commitment to purchase and repurchase are the rational things people conger up when being passionate. Demonstrations of product superiority and difference are the way to that grail.                

    Sony Electronics, David Lubars, BBDO, Sony advertising, New York Times

    Webertarians Speak. To Facebook.

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    Steve Poppe
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    When writing branding briefs and their little cousins creative briefs I find that key insights can come from anywhere. More often than not though, they come from the target or as I like to call it the Living Breathing Target. The target on the brief for Zude.com, the social networking start-up I worked for, was “Webertarians,” an marriage of the words web and libertarian.

     

    Webertarians rue the rules, restrictions and technological impediments that keep them from doing what they want on the web. Zude’s big breakthrough was the ability for regular people to build websites without knowing HTML — simply by dragging and dropping web objects.  The usability promise played out nicely to the masses who are not technically inclined. Those who are technically inclined are also webertarians in that they like open source code (free code not owned by Microsoft). Let’s just say there are a lot of webertarians out there.

     

    Today’s big webertarian fight is taking place on Facebook over the issue of “Who owns my stuff?” Facebook changed the rules for a few days and its users balked, so they contritely changed back their terms of service.  Facebook already understands the “webertarian ethos” or it wouldn’t have 175 million accounts. That said, it needs to work those ethos to its advantage – and quickly – as it tries to devise a monetization scheme. Facebook can’t afford too many more missteps or they will start looking like "the man."  Peace!

     

    Spreadsheet and sickle

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    Steve Poppe
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    The McClatchy Company today reported it is letting go around 1,400 of its newspaper employees. This, after having let go 2,000 others over the last 18 months.  Samuel  Zell has his spreadsheet and sickle out at the Tribune Company and who knows what will becomes of Newsday as the Dolans take control.  Is there less news to be reported?  Is there less advertising to pay the bills?  Or is it the Internet?


    It’s a perfect storm of all three, actually. There is not less news, but more.  Technology has enabled few things in the world to go unnoticed.  Add to that the millions of bloggers reporting and analyzing news and events and the choices become even greater.  Bloggers are competing with favorite newspaper columnists for Share of Day (SOD.)  That’s the impact of the Internet.  And in this recession-like clime, ad pages are harder to come by.

    Newspapers will always be around. The delivery medium will change, but the news will be there.  As for reporters, there are good and bad and regardless of where they publish, smart media properties will hire the good to attract readers.  With the right packaging and the right mix of advertising, the strong will reemerge and all will be fine.

    50-50 edit to ads is crazy

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    Steve Poppe
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    In an effort to bail his sinking ship, Samuel Zell, new owner of the Tribune Company, has decided that all Tribune Company newspapers must aim for a 50-50 split between editorial and advertising (notwithstanding classifieds and supplements.) Are you kiddng me? 
     
    A real estate guy, Mr. Zell may understand this loose analogy: It’s like dictating that all buildings rented must be 50% business and 50% residential.  It’s crazy and arbitrary. His decision is not based on newspaper reality, it’s based on money. 
     
    Mr. Zell’s idea will kill his papers. (I hope Charles and Jim Dolan aren’t listening.)
     
    Two points for Mr. Zell: This decision is being made during an economic down turn while ad revenue is eroding; so he will erode editorial strength as a tactic not a strategy. Secondly, as the economy softens, people are going to read more newspapers. Newspapers are one of the world’s most amazing values. As people conserve, they become more thoughtful and analytical. Reading a newspaper from cover to cover is an inexpensive way to get smarter, kill a couple of hours, and not spend money.  My head hurts.
     

    Branded Entertainment Finesse.

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    Steve Poppe
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    Branded entertainment is a form of advertising that showcases products, in theory, in a less-intrusive way, but I have rarely seen it done so. Navistar International is sponsoring a documentary called “Drive and Deliver,” intended to help push the new Lonestar truck and according to Stuart Elliot in his New York Times column today the rough cut still has a few too many close-ups of the truck.  That said, with proper editing this film by Fathom Communications might just sell some serious trucks. It’s a unique enough subject to create a cult following, but more importantly the target of the effort, truck buyers, are crazy-passionate about their rigs and their craft. (Ever hear a trucker talk about his/her Peterbilt?) Anyway, the casting looks right, let’s just hope the story-telling is too.
     
    Those who have watched the reality show “Deadliest Catch” and not wondered what an Alaskan King Crab tastes like may not agree, but I’m betting this effort will demonstrate that the marketing industry is beginning to acquire more finesse when it comes to branded entertainment. Peace!
     

    Yahoo…Some Focus?

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    Steve Poppe
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    Jerry Yang the CEO of Yahoo has just articulated for investors the company’s three pronged approach for success. 1. “Become the Internet starting point for the most consumers.” At Zude we call this the “start page” strategy. The start page is your default browser setting – the page that appears when you first log on. 2. “Become a ‘must buy’ for the most advertisers.” That translates into being the marketshare leader in advertisers. 3. “Become an open technology platform for developers.” (No superlatives in this statement; just a policy change. 

     
    These are all wonderful, smart business goals; goals with ballast as far as the investment community is concerned. My fear is they are not in alignment. One can certainly gain advertising marketshare by being the leading “start page” provider.   Those two work together one can argue. But start pages are not the cash cows that heavily trafficked social nets purport to be — places where users spend scores of hours a month. And then the notion of opening up the APIs to developers – well that has been done by Facebook and, soon, by MySpace.  It may work to help Yahoo provide more robust and sticky start pages, but I still wonder about its ability to gain time share (just made that up) of user’s online activity.
     
     
    Much of Mr. Yang’s analyst presentation, I believe, was intended to communicate focus. I’m not so sure he delivered.
     

    Can Strategy Be Exciting?

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    Steve Poppe
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    I once thought it would be cool to open an ad agency, following in my father’s footsteps, and name it Foster, Bias and Sales. Foster attention, create bias, generate sales. As much as I love the ad business — and to me there is no greater business feat than creating a sale via creative means – it really is, more often than not, a dog of a business. Consulting on the other hand, though the hardest work of my life, really has crazy upside. Interestingly, my current business What’s The Idea? is not about foster, bias and sales but about: share, educate and excite.

    Let’s start with educate. The goal of educating is learning. And learning is a marketing and branding staple. Frankly, learning is a human staple. When a consumer learns something positive, or as Bob Gilbreath would say “meaningful,” about a product. it is not only retained it is processed and categorized into the value volt. Everyone wants to learn. Sadly, not everyone wants to be taught. So be careful.

    Sharing is a relatively new phenomenon is marketing. There are good shares and bad shares. Most advertising falls into the bad share category — that’s why consumers fast forward through commercials on TV. The online share (bedrock to much digital activity today) is really more about the sharer then the share. Search this site for Posters vs.Pasters for more on the topic. A personal heartfelt share (read giving) is one of the most powerful gifts in all of humanity.

    Lastly, there is excite. Loyalty and comfort are qualities not always aligned with excite, but let’s face it when marketing in a commoditized, price-driven world a little excitement can go a long way. Excite can come on many shapes and sizes but it is certainly a goal of good strategy.

    In my business Educate, Share and Excite are drivers of the strategy. They are foundational for the brand idea and the planks. It is a kinder and gentler approach and really works. Peace.

     

    News is money!

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    Steve Poppe
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    What’s the idea with The New York Times?

    Over time, The New York Times Corporation has borrowed $1.1B to help fund its money making efforts and the notes are coming due.  From the funding of internet property About.com to investment in the Boston Red Sox baseball team to ownership and leasing of a brand new building in New York City’s Times Square, the management of this glorious news corporation through lack of focus has allowed itself to falter. With a cash infusion of $250 million from Mexican mogul Carlos Slim Helu – talk about angel investors – the Times Corp. may live to see another day.

    I wonder how many senior Times executives looked at Samuel Zell’s purchase of the Tribune Company and foresaw that crash and burn. I’ll bet many. Yet did they not see what was happening to their own organization?  This lack of focus and defined business objective should have been obvious to any good financial reporter. 

    By managing so many different and diffuse businesses, the Times Corp. took its eye off the real prize: Become the world’s best, most ubiquitous news organization — enabled by the Web. Warren Buffet would agree that news is money. The Times has so far missed the opportunity. Peace!      

    Thoughts on Brand Claims and Taglines.

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    Steve Poppe
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    One of the things I learned as a young-un working at ad agencies was that it was poor form for an account person (project manager/business manager) to offer up creative ideas to creatives. Agencies, have evolved to be somewhat more inclusive these days, but I’m sure it’s still a thing. Anyway, at my brand strategy practice, whenever I present a brand claim to a client, I go out of my way to explain the claim is not a tagline or a piece of creative. It’s just the main, operative strategy statement.

    Yesterday, while hiking, I was thinking about some of my past brand strategy claims – claim being only one quarter of the brand strategy — proofs planks being the other three quarters.  And while looking for snakes and cogitating over past claims I realized something:  The claim is very much the brand strategy while the tagline or creative is the result (or output) of the claim.

    For instance, North Shore-LIJ Health System’s (now Northwell Health) claim was “A systematized approach to improving health.” The result of that claim or tagline was “Setting New Standards in Health Care.”  For web startup Zude, the claim was “The fastest, easiest was to build a website.”  The results was tagline “Feel Free.”

    The creative people (Fergus O’Daly, Pat Peduto, etc.) have been right all along. Taking something prosaic and delivering it with humanity and emotion is the smartest approach.  That said, campaigns (and taglines) come and go, a powerful brand idea is indelible.

    Peace.

    Those who can…

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Wired Magazine’s Chris Anderson published a book called “The Long Tail” which has been the pop marketing book of the last two years. It states that the internet allows people more product and service choices and therefore dilutes the market power of master brands. A new article published by Anita Elberse, marketing professor at Harvard b-school suggests otherwise (tinyurl.com/3rg5gp). Says Ms. Elberse, the internet helps magnify those with buzz and the market leaders.
     
    A new book called “Buying In” written by Rob Walker, a NY Times Magazine reporter and marketing blogger, addresses the influence brands have over consumers. It seems his view lies somewhere in the middle of these two theories.
     
    Likes and dislikes when it comes to products and services, defy rules. I loved strawberry shortcake as a kid until I ate so much I got sick to my stomach. Raw clams were disgusting to me until I saw the rapture on my uncle’s face as he slurped one down. I knew the first time I heard “Lazy Eye” by the Silversun Pickups, that they were a special band, yet did not like Rage Against the Machine until I saw them live. Now they are a favorite. This stuff defies theory.
     
    Marketing is all about the art, the time and place, the referring agent and guts. The guts of the marketer and the gut feeling of the consumer. If you have an eye and an ear for it, you win. If you don’t, you write theory.

     

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