Random

    Marketing

    The YouTube Music Brand.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    YouTube Music relaunches tomorrow with one of the worst brand extension names ever. YouTube was born as a video channel — a pretty amazing brand in and of itself. Over the years it has developed into a powerhouse in the mobile music and streaming realm, yet along with YouTube Red and Google Play Music has conflated a bunch of names into a “fruit cocktail effect” of product(s).

    YouTube and Google should have launched a totally new brand this week — eaten some of their children and come out of the gate with a brilliant new music product (service.)  I don’t see Steve Jobs skeeving up his brandscape like this? (Well maybe a little.)

    First, the brand should have jettisoned the YouTube name. Spotify and Pandora are already established and have powerful brand names. Abigail Posner, Head of Creative Strategy & Head of Creative Effectiveness, at Google knows this.  In my opinion, she needs to head to San Bruno today and get the YouTube people on board. It is a brilliant opportunity. A brilliant brand possibility.

    Build the biggest music brand extant!

    Peace.

     

     

    Can Humor Be a Brand Plank?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I wonder about this as I dive into the Aeroflow Breast Pump social media campaign. Aeroflow is a reseller of durable medical equipment in Western North Carolina, but has sectioned off a nice piece of business helping to provide new mothers with breast pumps. They assign a rep to each case and help moms through the paperwork associated with securing pumps and paying the insurance. They then walk moms through the nuances, hardships and solutions associated with pumping. This is one of those business meeting pent-up demand.

    But can humor be an endemic plank that proves the brand’s claim? I go around and around on this but ultimately land on yes. If humor is a customer care-about or brand good-at, it can help brand value. The big but, however, is turning it into a good-at; not everyone is funny. And even through the Instagram account of Aeroflow Breast Pumps is always chortle-worth, even belly laugh worthy, that’s only one or two people at the social media controls.

    Humor puts for nervous or worried moms at ease. It’s medicinal. It’s therapeutic. I really works for Aeroflow Breast Pumps. It wouldn’t work for the other Aeroflow businesses, per se. That’s why Aeroflow is smart to have made sequestered this business a bit.

    Humor, done wrong, can be corny and an impingement on the brand, so Aeroflow has to be careful. “Two breast feeding women walk into a bar,” told by a 50 year old dude is not a good idea. But the way it is handled in social, is great. I’d love to see how humor could be introduced into other areas of the business. The beginning of a cool case, this.

    Peace.

     

     

    Claim and Proof…The brand plan.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    As the role of marketing director gets more complicated, owing to all the new tools and arithmetic available to sellers and selling agents, the brand plan grows in importance.  I met with smart strategist Noah Brier a while ago and he asked me “How do you define a brand plan?”  Everyone has a different definition, he added.  Truism that.

    My brand plan is quite simple: One claim, three proof planks. The claim embodies or pays off the Is-Does (what a brand is and what a brand does) and the proof planks (or supports) organize the story – into 3 telling and impactful reasons to believe.  A brand plan is an organizing principle for selling more.

    I wrote a consultant this morning telling her how most companies can save mad money by investing in a tight brand plan. Rather than pay a marketing person $150,000 a year, a company can pay $90,000 per year if the brand plan is definitive.  And if the KPIs (key performance indicators) are correct.  And beyond the annualized salary savings, don’t forget the money spent on wasted tactics each year by marketing organizations — money that could be saved with a brand plan. John Wanamaker’s famous suggestion that only ‘half his advertising was working, he just didn’t know which half,’ can also be applied to marketing tactics today.  We are living tactics-palooza. More cowbell, I mean, more social media!

    My business is called What’s the Idea? for a reason. Most businesses don’t have an idea (a brand strategy) they can articulate without going all mark-babble and tripping over their tongues. One idea, three selling planks.  Pieces!

    How long does it take to write a brand brief?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    The short answer is about 45 minutes. The long answer is maybe 100 hours.  Someone once asked Picasso how could he charge tens of thousands of dollars for a sketch that took him only 10 minutes to draw.  His response was “That sketch took me a lifetime to draw.”  I paraphrase.

    I’m no Picasso. Plus any cache in the brain, save some technique and linguistic phrasing, stays in the brain.  Every brand brief is a like snow flake. Each brand brief is built from scratch; leaning heavily on customer care-abouts and brand good-ats. All that information takes time to amass. I’ve taken months to write a brand brief. I’ve taken weeks.

    In some cases multivariate statistical analyses were used. And slopes were plotted. Findings clustered. Interviews by the hundreds. Others have been developed on a shoe-string. 

    On most proposals I say it takes a month to write a brand strategy brief.

    Now, to the next question: How long is a piece of string?

    Peace|

     

     

    Process is Hard to Value.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    More and more, technology startups are being purchased by multinationals to help large ships chug into the future. Owners in hot categories like self-driving cars, streaming video and alternative energy are cashing in daily as billion dollar companies purchase their intellectual property. It’s a tech thing. The purchased companies are small, 8-15 people, so prices aren’t crazy high, but the stock agreements make sellers happy.

    This makes me think about my company. I am not a tech startup. What I offer, however, is in demand: A way to harness marketing power by strengthening ties and building preference among purchasing consumers.  What I offer is a framework for business winning brand strategy. The secret sauce of the discovery process is “proof.” Ninety five percent of brand strategy firms, I’d venture, have discovery processes similar to mine: Interviews, research (primary and secondary), hierarchy of needs, stuff like that. But none look at proof, as a foundation.

    I don’t expect large companies to buy What’s The Idea? Proof, my IP, is not technology. It’s not code. To many it’s ephemera.  Process is hard to value.

    Peace.

     

    Story or Proof?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    “We have got to tell our story, said Mark Reuss, president of G.M., “The story hasn’t gotten out,” he added when talking about G.M.’s electronic vehicle business. Since December Tesla stock has doubled into the $700s. G.M. is down 25% since it’s 52-week high in July.

    Back in the 60s during the NY World’s Fair, the G.M. pavilion showed the future of the automobile. It was an experiential phenomenon the likes of which the world had never seen. And today Mr. Reuss rues the fact that G.M.’s problem is in storytelling; in public relations and Super Bowl ads.

    Where most marketers go wrong and they do so at the behest of their branding counsel is in storytelling. They rely too much on this pop-marketing practice. Ty Montague, of Co-Collective understands this and has morphed storytelling into story-doing. The fact is it’s not about telling a story to consumers, it’s about what consumer play back to you. It’s about what consumers think. Consumers are swimming in an ocean of storytelling, while they should be standing on the terra firma of reality. On experience.

    Elon Musk built an electric car. He didn’t proselytize about it. Ish.

    Proof is how one builds a brand. And proof is how one builds a brand strategy. Not the other way around.

    G.M. has been dormant for so long it has become a marketing company of storytellers. Mary Barra, may just have woken up and decided it’s time to “do.” It’s time to launch a fleet of electronic vehicles.

    Let’s hope so. Peace.

     

     

    Denny’s Grand Slam Promo Indeed.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

     

    I remember hearing in advance about Denny’s Super Bowl spot and even remember watching it, but don’t remember it being a promotion offering free Grand Slam breakfasts the Tuesday after the game. Must have had nachos in my ears. Talk about a promotion? Absolutely brilliant!

     

    I love the Grand Slam breakfast, which is a great value at $5.99: 2 eggs, 2 pancakes, 2 pieces of bacon and 2 sausage. What else could a body want? Denny’s promotion was intended to reestablish the sit-down breakfast as an American pastime, then take their unfair share. Let’s see if it worked. Denny’s estimated 2 million Grand Slams were given away on the fabled Tuesday, at a total cost of $5 million, inclusive of the spot.  Since a Super Bowl spots ran $3M for a :30, Denny’s generated well over 2 million visits and fed those visitors for less than the cost of 2 spots. Hear that Budweiser?

     

    Getting people into the stores, getting them to talk to friends about going to Denny’s, on top of the good will generated during tough times plus the free publicity is a huge hit in my book.  So long as the food was served hot and tasty and the servers held their own, I would estimate that America will be doing breakfast at Denny’s in much greater numbers starting this week. Take that IHOP. Bravo. Peace!

     

    Branding and the New Marketing Dashboard.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    soundboard

    Marketing is not a once-a-year phenomenon. But it used to was (a little Cajun phraseology). Marketing once revved up around September when corporate budgets had to be forecast. Production began in November and December with budgets finalized in January. Media money was allocated around the first of the year and ad campaigns launched in Q1, maybe the beginning of Q2. Then they were put to bed until planning started again the following September.  Marketers tended to follow this hallowed media and marketing calendar religiously and everything was very campaign driven.

    Then the Web arrived — the malleable, measureable, tactical Web. Not only a way to send messages to the market, but a way to sell directly to customers and eliminate the middle man mark-up. The Web became a game changer. Lately, marketers have learned something new about the Web — it provides them an ear to the marketplace which previously was the domain of research companies. Game changer number 2.

    Cutting edge marketers are now using the measurable messaging, direct sales, and research capability to dashboard (verb) their marketing efforts, dialing up sales and competitive advantage on a more timely basis. It’s very exciting when done well.

    There is one downside however: brand strategy takes a hit.  With so much on the dashboard (noun) many marketers are getting caught up in all the dials and lights and forgetting brand strategy – forgetting their brand idea. Modulating the dashboard behind a powerful brand (and brand planks) will be the heavy lifting for marketers the next couple of years.

    Mistrust of Google? Huh?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    The level of hypocrisy at the House Judiciary Committee’s grilling of Google CEO Sundar Pichai yesterday was amazing. Committee members and staffers probably use Google in their day jobs, 100 times a day.  These men and women, who accept funds from any and every influencer group in the country (both sides of the aisle) have the audacity to ask Mr. Pichai, about selling a little date to fund a free tool the size and scope of Google is preposterous!

    Of course Google will push the boundaries. It would be unAmerican not to. But to bandy about the word of “distrust” and “mistrust” for a digital utility that is trusted more than any other on the planet is ludicrous.  America loves it’s Google. Billions of times a day.

    When embarrassed by the probes concerning public trust does Google publicly threaten to shut down its engine?  No. It listens, answers logically, unemotionally and learns.

    Now, where should I send my donation to your campaign Mr. McCarthy, house majority leader?  As if.

    Peace.

     

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