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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

    Brand Strategist as Navel Gazer.

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    Steve Poppe
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    I have a client who is a savvy, savvy marketer in a high growth business. He really gets my brand strategy framework. His is a complicated business, not easily explained to people outside the technical category.  One of the things this CEO likes about my work is that I do lots of interviews with employees and customers but also outside SMEs (subject matter experts) to help with balance.

    The client takes my rough transcript notes from the employee and customer interviews and scours them, using the verbatims to stay in touch with their feelings about the company. So, while I’m extrapolating and packaging brand strategy, he’s using the notes as a kind of satisfaction research. I suspect the interviews fill in some holes not otherwise found through face-to-face meetings, tech blogs and business presentations.

    (Andy Grove, CEO of Intel way back when, started each day listening to the customer care hotline. It was his way of staying on top of things.)

    I wonder is these interviews of mine may be a more in-demand revenue stream for What’s The Idea? than is “brand strategy.”  Not a lot of C-level executive wake up in the morning saying “I need a brand strategy.” But many wake up wondering what their customers and employees think.

    Hmmm.

    Peace.

     

    One That Got Away.

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    Steve Poppe
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    Newsday is a New York regional newspaper.  It serves Long Island, home to 3.5 million people. Newsday also has distribution in Queens. At one time it was one of the top 10 circulating newspapers in the country.

    The ad agency I worked for on Long Island, Welch Nehlen Groome, handled the Newsday account, doing periodic TV commercials. Mainly promotional and project work.  One of the problems selling newspaper on LI was that it was a commuter island. Most of the heavy hitter worked in the city. And those people read the NY Post and NY Daily News on the train on the way home. These were NY city-based papers with sensational headlines and great sports sections. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal were big morning reads, filled with business and national news.  Not a lot of space in between for a paper covering Long Island news, e.g., “Blue Angels to Appear at Jones Beach July 4th”.

    Much of Newsday’s circulation was home delivery; people who wanted Wednesday food ads and some local high school sports coverage.

    I wrote a brand strategy for Newsday, the claim for which was “We know where you live.” It was a plea to commuters, whose jobs were in the city and who lived on trains, to get back closer to their families and neighborhoods — but it also reinforcement to non-commuters and homebodies, the position that the paper as better attuned with their lives and lifestyles.

    Cool freaking idea. Tagline worthy I thought.  Someone at Newsday co-opted the claim to read “It’s Where You Live,” which was used as a tagline and lived for years. Unfortunately, it removed Newsday from the equation, a no-no. And it could have been interpreted as a simple usage claim. We know where you live, some decision-makers thought, was a little intrusive and perhaps anti-privacy.  Huge client mistake in my opinion. It gutted the strategy.

    If adopted as a tagline, “We know where you live” could still be in place. A working claim and a working strategy. And strategies rule the tactical world.

    One day I’ll tell you about my other Newsday idea to shut down the Long Island Expressway and throw the world’s biggest block party.

    Peace.

     

     

    Personal Branding is a Fool’s Errand.

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    Steve Poppe
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    I was reading someone’s advice on personal branding on LinkedIn recently. Oy. Part of that advice was to first get in touch with yourself. The personal brand advocate then suggested listing people you admire, and articulating the traits you admire most about them. Ironic much? 

    After a boil down of all those traits, one assumes the job is to cobble together a path forward for oneself — a strategy for one’s personal brand. Still with me? 

    As if one could study, copy and paste together a life. Or personal ethos upon which a life is built.

    They had me shaking my head at the idea of personal branding, but tools for personal branding?  Try inputting that one into Chat GPT.  You’d fry AI forever. Hee hee.

    At What’s The Idea? all customer care-abouts and brand good-ats go into the stock pot. What come out when the process is done is one claim and three proof planks. It’s a bloody horrible process. Important things must be boiled away to get the equation to three planks. People are too complicated to get to three. Products not so much.

    Don’t wrestle with personal branding. Don’t do it. It’s a fool’s errand.

    Peace.

     

     

     

    Implicit versus Explicit Brand Claims.

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    Steve Poppe
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    I came across this testimonial statement on LinkedIn by cyber security firm Delinea. It was posted by Interbrand, their branding company. The work followed the merger of two companies into one.

    The Interbrand team worked collaboratively with us to crystalize our unique points of differentiation and capture our essence. With their guidance, we built Delinea into a stand-out brand in our industry, with a clear ambition and a purpose that guides our decision making.”  Art Gillilan, CEO, Delinea

    Two quick observations:

    1. I’m not sure I agree brand strategy should encompass “a clear ambition.” When it does it often uses language like “industry leader.” “purpose,” or “intention.” That’s me focused not you focused. Company-centric not consumer-centric. The best brand claims focus on the buyer.
    2. I love that the brand strategy guides company decision-making. Brand strategy must do that. It saves money. Multiplies the value. And creates culture.

    The proof of a good brand strategy however is in the pudding, and this is how the website describes Delinea. I call it the Is-Does.

    Delinea is a Privileged Access Management Leader Providing Seamless Security for Modern, Hybrid Enterprises.

    The only word of value in this statement (to business buyers and security engineers) is seamless. And while the Delinea name suggests seamless (a good thing), I’m not sure as a benefit it hits the mark powerfully enough. Seamless, as a brand claim, implies a benefit. They could have been a quite a bit more explicit in their positioning.

    Peace.

     

     

    Brand Planner’s Prayer

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    Steve Poppe
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    Things we remember.

    We remember beauty.

    We remember new.

    We remember rich.

    We remember melody.

    We remember funny.

    We remember nature.

    We remember poetry.

    We remember pain.

    We remember educators.

    We remember warmth.

    We remember charity.

    We remember happy.

    We remember love.

    We remember triumph.

    These are the things we remember.

    (I post this brand planners prayer once a year as a reminder.)

    The Brand Planning “Boil Down.”.

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    Steve Poppe
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    boil-downThe real art of brand planning is in knowing what not to say. When brand planning, I use something called the 24 Questions to help find the money. Once the money is found, job two is how to position. For this a number of hunting and gathering techniques are used; tools that are now vastly improved thanks to the Web. Information is amassed about the product, the competition, corporate leadership, the market, and current buying culture. Then future buying culture is projected, based upon trends. Only then, does the “boil down” process begin. 

     The boil down is the point at which things are prioritized and edited. Evaporation occurs over time until only a powerful branding idea is left.  By itself, the idea may come off as mundane. But when presented to executive management along with the boil down logic, that’s when the magic occurs.  Marketing executives love logic and strive for simplicity, but are often too close to make it happen. A powerful brand strategy can set marketers free, but it is the logic of the boil down that sells it. Peace!

    “The Internet Newspaper.”

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    Steve Poppe
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    The Huffington Post’s tagline is “The Internet Newspaper.” It’s awful.  Unless Arianna Huffington plans to removes herself from the masthead and make the property more selfless, the HuffPost should not water down its brand meaning with this lazy tagline. 
     
    Using the word “newspaper” as a contextual reference is a mistake. Ms. Huffington can’t compete there. And who would want to? Newspaper ad revenue is down over 9%. Adding the word “Internet” to the line doesn’t make it any better.
     
    The Huffington Post is a post — a place for people to post; staffers and non. It has its center of gravity, as does the Drudge Report, and should build around that gravitational pull. Ms. Huffington needs to look within, recognize what makes her property unique and different and deliver more of it. Becoming an internet newspaper, if that is indeed her mission, will only dilute the Huffington Post. The Huffington Post IS an online news and opinion property. What it DOES (the brand promise) is less well articulated. A tag that highlights the “pull” is needed.

     

    G.M. and the “Detroit Bailout Challenge.”

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    Steve Poppe
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    Riffing on yesterday’s post, here’s what I fear. GM is cutting, cutting, cutting to show it deserves a bailout. To wit “In July G.M. announced plans to cut $10B in costs and raise $5B thought the sale of Hummer brand, and new borrowing. On Friday, the company said it would cut another $5B, including slowing production at 10 factories and cutting capital spending next year by $2.5B – a move that will delay the introduction of several new vehicles.” (Source NYT 11/08/08.)   

     

    This type of stuff won’t win the What’s the Idea? “Detroit Bailout Challenge.” It’s numbers crunching accounting stuff.  No vision.  Speed up the delivery date of the Chevy Volt. Buy the Smart Car company from Mercedes. Cut production of all SUVs by 75%. Now you’d be talking.  Be bold and win the challenge. Peace. (Oh yeah, and go St. John’s Red Storm!)

     

    Brand Planning Starts with the “Is-Does.”

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    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!

    “Hey, go get Arrington.”

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Zude.com is a social computing platform that allows anyone – grandmas to geeks – to build and manage a website. Our tagline is “feel free” which implies Zude’s limitless web publishing promise. This grandmas to geeks idea was created by our PR agency Spector and Associates. The suit strategy was “the fastest, easiest way to build and manage a website.

    Our CEO and CTO were demoing Zude at Web 2.0 Expo in 2006 for Robert Scoble , who was broadcasting live over the Interent with some sort of hat-cam, when in the middle of the demo he yelled to a friend, “Hey, go get Arrington, he’s got to see this.” It was a validation of the Zude strategy. A “peak experience” in marketing as Maslow might say.
     
    I was just reading the back story about Piers Fawkes creative consultancy, PSFK (www.psfk.com), and realized his defining moment came when Anheuser Busch called for some advice.  These signal moments are what marketers live for. They are why we get up in the morning. They are proof, of has “an idea.”
     
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