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    Coronavirus Conundrum.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I love to delve into conundrums in the businesses with which I work. For complex business problems it’s a nice way to add an interim step before planning. The process has me identifying no more than 10 contradictions is business, consumer care-abouts, brand good-ats and/or financial drivers. These I then presented to business and stakeholders for a discussion. The results help me with the boil-down.

    One major conundrum in my city of Asheville and across the U.S. for that matter is what to do with employees in the hospitality business who receive paychecks from the Paycheck Protection Program once money starts to flow.

    Let’s say you own a restaurant and had to shut it down. You let 8 people go. The Paycheck Protection Program requires you pay them a salary in order for you to accept the SBA money. But the store (restaurant talk) isn’t open for business. What do you do? I’d suggest getting them out of their houses (safely, and 6 feet apart) and putting them to work. Find a way to cross train them. Have them paint the bathrooms. Clean the storage rooms. Clean behind the stove. From a creative point of view, have everyone (again, safely distanced) rethink the menu. The supply chain. Sourcing of ingredients. Seating arrangements. Have them think about the business in new business-improving ways.

    This is a time to think. To improve. To do. And now you actually have a bit of “think and do” time.

    Peace.

     

    Future of Work, circa. 2011. Final Thoughts.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Thanks for joining me on this travelogue of posts devoted to the future of work, as outlined in 2011 while on assignment at JWT forMicrosoft. Some final observations about what stuck and what did not:

    I’m not sure working remotely is the future of work. The growth of the Logged and Tagged Economy and the coronavirus works against this observation, however. But to me it seems collaborative and interactive people are best served in the same room — where manners dictate colleagues attention. When alone we are way too likely to participate in Twitch Point behaviors. (Search this blog or the web for thoughts on Twitch Point Planning.) Left to our own devices we become more ADD.

    I’m also thinking Peter Pan Syndrome is overstated. Experience, maturity and life lessons, for many jobs, are more important than facility with code, operating systems or the algorithm.

    As for how Microsoft can best comport itself in the future of work  I’d suggest following consumer behaviors with heightened focus. (With an eye toward ergonomics.) Embed with consumers. Becomes consumers. Windows revolutionized the software user interface (thanks to Apple). More universality in your products and services will help guide you. After all in 200,000 years, we will all be speaking one language and have one skin color. Hopefully.

    Peace

     

    Amazing Things Are Happening Somewhere.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I’m putting the Future of Work series on pause for a day in order to report a timely example of how brand strategy can help the creative process in advertising and content.

    Back when a brand planner for client North Shore-LIJ Health System, now Northwell Health, we had a well-healed competitor in New York City named NY Presbyterian Health System. Their ad agency was a shop called Munn Rabot.  My shop Welch Nehlen Groome was doing great strategic work for North Shore-LIJ and fine creative. Munn Rabot was doing fine strategic work for NY Presby and great creative.

    The NY Presbyterian’s brand claim was “Amazing Things Are Happening Here.” North Shore’s was “Setting New Standards in Healthcare.” As ad agents, our jobs were to prove those two claims, through communications, every day. It was a dogfight.

    Today, both healthcare systems have grown and thrived but their brand strategies have regressed. Northwell Health is still setting new standards to a degree, recently repurposing BiPAPP machines as ventilators, but ad agency Strawberry Frog is still reinventing the wheel and missing the opportunity. And I’m sure NY Presbyterian, like Mount Sinai, is delving into antibody plasma treatments for the coronavirus but they’re not sharing that or any other “amazing things,” because they are caught in the headlights of this heinous epidemic — and no longer using Munn Rabot.

    If Northwell or NY Presbyterian had marketers at the helm ministering to their legacy brand strategies instead of pumping out one-off ads and web pages, they’d be ahead of the curve sharing the amazing/standards consumers expect of them.

    (That said, props to all the heroes at all health org. doing the work no one else can do.)

    Peace.

     

     

    Future of Work Part Six, circa 2011.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    To Free or not to Free…

    The new economy paradigm:

    • Information and communication should be free. (Internet users bill of rights)
    • Tools cost money. And are worth it.
    • Content should be shared (free-ish.)
    • How should we treat Google? Let’s let them do their thing, they are already going off-piste.

                (Big question – Should service be free? SaS.)

    Implication for FOW: We need to create value and charge for it. If people are will to pay for virtual goods, they should be willing to pay for improved achievements.

    Well I’m not sure virtual goods lasted more than a few months but certainly value is still worth something. I have to admit, though, most of the apps on my phone are free. Ad supported or not the digital world is still filled with free. And I know one particular technology company that is thriving, in part, thanks to giving away IP and code. Often I argue that altruism isn’t a brand plank, but in the case of this company (and client) raising all boats is. It’s who they are — part of their mystique.

    So honestly, to free or not to free is still exists today as a business conundrum. At What’s The Idea? I offer a free day of planning to good prospects. It’s often how I get to fee.

    Peace.

     

    Adopt a Business.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    What do brick and mortar businesses do when the supply chain of money comes to a halt? Effectively it turns into a ghost town economy. No peeps, no money, no products, no services.

    There’s an old Mike Tyson boxing axiom “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Well folks, we’ve been punched in the mouth. What shall we do? Business as usual? Sit back and wait it out? Can’t do the former. Shouldn’t do the latter.

    The government believes the way forward is to keep the money supply chain running. Send out gov’t checks so we can continue paying bills. The only winners then become the banks.

    What if we were to have a bill paying moratorium? Say for 3 months. No mortgages. No electric or water bills. No credit card bills. (But also, no credit card purchases.) What would it free us up to do? It would free us up to isolate and heal. It would free us up to help one another in thoughtful, meaningful ways. It would free us up to innovate. It’s a big idea and one that only the federal government can pull off.

    But since that’s not likely to happen what can we do for our brick and mortar brethren? How about this — Let’s get everyone to adopt one brick and mortar business. Then offer them help as safely as is possible. A little money, paint, food, sweat equity – even a shoulder to cry on. Maybe, even just some new ideas.

    Isolation is great for pandemic, but it’s not the best way to innovate out of a crisis. Let’s help one another, but be safe doing it. It will free up many of the burdens of this illness. But we must do it safely.

    Peace.

     

    My Favorite Interview Question.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    One of the interview questions I used while wording at an ad agency looking to hire junior account managers was “Tell me about me.” I’d wait until the interview was well underway so the candidate had an opportunity to hear a bit from me and look around my office. Also, it let me know if they did any homework prior to the interview. I loved this question. At the time I was an account manager not a brand planner or researcher, so pinging a candidate on their powers of observation was, likely, unexpected.

    It was an out-of-left field question that really separated the wheat from the chaff. On so many levels. Are they bull-shitters? Do they pay attention? Are they multidimensional?

    The last time I used the question was with a young woman whose response made me feel I’d crossed the line. Or said something untoward. She couldn’t process it. And I spent more time explaining and justifying the question than I did interviewing her. (Fail…on both our parts.) She overreacted and I overreacted. I should have just moved on.

    I still love the question, especially as a brand planner, but putting on my empathy hat I can see how it may have been off-putting to someone sensitive to roles, power and need.

    Maybe the problem wasn’t the purpose of the question, but the question itself. Perhaps an edit is in order.

    Always thinking.

    Peace.

     

     

    Story or Proof?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    “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.

     

     

    Master Brand Strategy and Me.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I am a self-taught brand planner. The fuel for my business was scores of exploratory interviews with high-level and executive planners from big city agencies. I honed my craft and framework with research, reading books, blogs, newsletters, and by watching interviews and webinars. I have also worked with business consultants.

    My two key discovery tools are 24 Questions, business and financial Qs used to understand how money is made and lost, and a battery of Fact Finding questions used with company chiefs, salespeople and customers.

    I do master brand planning. That is, I create the organizing principle for product, experience and messaging that governs all marketing work. Every tactic used to build sales and loyalty, no matter the channel, should adhere to the master brand strategy. But it’s a job that eats itself. Once the master brand strategy is done, it needn’t be done again. (Unless, the business model changes.) Of the thousand of brand planner around the world, only a few handfuls actually work on the master brand strategy. Most planners are focused on tactical brand insights. Downstream of the master plan. Both jobs are awesome. But there’s only one master. Hee hee.

    Peace.

    .

    Thought Monopoly.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    There has been a lot of talk lately about breaking up tech monopolies. They have too much power. They inflate prices due to lack of competition. They tilt supply chains in their favor. All true. To the winners go the spoils until the government steps in. Or unions step in. AT&T was broken up when it gained too much power. I predicted Google would be broken up years ago; I’m still waiting. Monopolies are polarizing.

    But in brand strategy, the goal of the brand planners to create a “thought monopoly.” That is, to establish impenetrable discrete values for a brand that customers want and at which the brand excels. I call them care-abouts and good-ats. At What’s The Idea? the brand values are 3, no more. The rule of three. And all brand values support a brand claim. The claim being a single idea, easily conveyed. Think of it as a tagline or tagline facsimile.

    And though it’s a thought monopoly, the charter of the brand planner is not messaging alone. Thoughts are developed with proof and action. The fastest way to a thought is experience. So good brand strategy informs the product, the experience and the messaging.

    No brand planner is happier than when they hear consumers play back to them the values they seed and plant in the consuming world. These values are the foundation of good commerce, of good branding.

    Peace.

     

     

    Endemic Proof.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Intentional is the new authentic. These two words, commonly used in brand parlance, sound important but don’t really mean much. What brand planner would try to be inauthentic? It doesn’t make sense. And then there is intentional. Intentional today means with a mission; usually one that is about the betterment of the people and planet. An often an intentional quality is not an endemic product quality.

    Today intentional is way over-used. And therefore diminished. You can’t just donate 1% of profits to a cause and be intentional. It’s not a badge marketers and branders wear, it’s an outcome of the work they do. Unless they are non-profits.

    I don’t mean to be controversial here. It’s a good thing to do good. But be successful first, put your focus on winning in the marketplace first. That’s the job. Once successful use it to start a foundation, make donations, and correct injustice. (Think Microsoft.)

    Brand strategy is one claim and three proof planks. With all the customer care-abouts and brand good-ats worthy of consideration, it’s best to leave the intention (and authenticity) in your heart. And build your brand with endemic proofs.

    Peace.

     

     

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