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    Kylie Jenner’s Coty Deal.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    International Cosmetics Company Coty Inc. is paying spokesowner Kylie Jenner 600 million dollars for 51% of her company. Not a bad day at the office for Ms. Jenner. Does that mean Coty is the “boss of her” now? I think so. Not that they would want to piss her off. Easy come easy go… Kylie could mic drop the company (unless contractually obligated) if she feels mistreated.

    Kylie is smart. Coty is just one percent smarter. Kylie, in effect, has just signed a deal to be Coty spokesperson for life. It may seem like a Bobby Bonilla deal (Google it), but fast forward a couple of decades when spokespeople are paid even crazier money for their marketability (read, media magnetism) and this one-time payout may seem low. Argentina’s Lionel Messi earned $127 million this year. Ms. Jenner is only 22 years old but at age 42 she may regret today’s rate.

    Coty’s main reason for the purchase seems to be Ms. Jenner’s social media following. She has 270 million followers. All In the right demographic…today.

    Is this smart business? My guess is it will be for a few years, but without the right business blocking and tackling this move will water down both brands.

    C’est la vie.

     

    Sweetgreen and Brand Ballast.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    The Sweetgreen brand strategy is a little bit like one of their salads. Lots and lots of healthy things. Take for example the Curry Cauliflower salad, made with blackened chicken thighs, curry roasted cauliflower, shredded cabbage, cilantro, raisins, warm quinoa, organic arugula, Sweetgreen hot sauce, cucumber tahini yogurt dressing. This amazing assort of ingredients provides the tongue with rich tastes and wonderful flavors. Also crunchiness. Sweetness. Warmth. Coolness. In cooking, this approach works brilliantly when done with finesse.

    In branding, however, too many ingredients can cause the brown effect. The color that results when adding too many colors together. Sweetgreen, bless their hearts, tries to do so many good things that their insular message is lost. Or watered down.

    It’s weird because Sweetgreen does many things so right. But from a brand organization perspective it needs to boil it all down…to three, manageable ingredients.

    Here are a couple of lifts from the website:

    “We want to make an impact and leave people better than we found them, and we tailor our approach in each market to reflect the needs of the community.” This is a non-endemic mission with no place in brand strategy.

    “Create experiences where passion and purpose come together.” Marko-babble, though well-intended. Again, not endemic.

    I could go on. This company is well positioned in the marketplace owing to pent-up demand for healthier food options and sustainability. The clientele is loyal, the product outstanding. But those things are replicable. What isn’t replicable is brand ballast. Sweetgreen today needs to double down on it’s brand focus. If so, it will paint a way forward that is indelible and timeless.

    Peace

     

    YETI About to Get Cold Shoulder.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Say it ain’t so Yeti. You are not really opening up more and more retail stores. It sounds as if you’ve been bitten by the success bug and it could be your undoing. Yeti is a very cool brand name, which I first came across on my handlebar grips. It seems there’s a mountain bike company by the name too. Yeti coolers are a gold mine. Now a public company with board members hungry at the trough, Yeti is looking to grow faster than the laws of nature allow. Hence, retail stores.

    The problem is that Yeti is a sales handgrenade for Bass Pro Shops, West Marine, Cabella’s, REI, and Dicks Sporting Goods and an assortment of mom and pop and chain hardware stores across the country. Let’s not even mention Amazon who accounts for 30% of Yeti sales.

    These channel partners built displays around Yeti products. Moved prime store real estate and displays around to help build excitement. These partners were your biggest fans. Now you’re trying to take traffic and sales away from them. Yo lo mistako.

    It reminds me of when Krispy Kreme changed its channel strategy and started flooding the market with product. “Pick up your cold donuts at the gas station,” was the big growth idea. IPO- and CEO-driven initiatives.

    Yeti has a great product but they’ve taken their eyes off the ball. They are going from underdog to over-dog, and their biggest fans will be leading the way.

    Peace.

     

    Brands. Flags. And Design.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Is it possible to like design work, yet dislike the product? I believe it is. Case in point. I find the above variation of a civil Middle Eastern flag quite compelling. Attractive would not be the right word, but there is something about the palm tree and the swords that create muscle memory and power. Swords are cool as design elements even though murdering journalists taints the fuck out of the product. Abhorrently so. 

    Speaking of palm trees, the South Carolina state flag uses a palmetto and crescent dropped out of an indigo background. It’s pert cool though monochromatic. I’ve seen some bastardizations of the flag characters with other colors that really enhance the design. A license plate with some setting sun colors are quite nice. A strong promotional tool, the flag and mark.

    And lastly, and I almost hesitate to type this one, is the confederate flag. It’s an interesting, yet simple design. As a stupid kid who went to college in FL, I hung a confederate flag on my wall oblivious to the pain and suffering it denoted. I liked the design. I also hung some Amerind prints on my wall not knowing what they stood for. I liked the colors.

    Design is personal. As a tool in branding, design can be powerful. It engenders feelings and symbolism. But is also can act as a magnet for negative actions and behaviors. That’s why brand management is so important.

    Brands need to flag the “good.”

    Peace.

     

    Truth or Proof?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    According to Stewart Alter, a McCann-Erickson historian and one-time head of publicity, copy chief Ralph St. Hill, at predecessor company The H.K. McCann Company coined the term Truth Well Told. A brilliant, if simple, piece of poesy, the line illuminates McCann offices on every continent.

    Talk to brand planners past and present and you are likely to hear the word “truth” many times. Words like transparency and authenticity are pop planning words, but truth has generational staying power. Truth in advertising makes lots of sense. If consumers sniff out even a hint of mistruth, they begin to shut down.

    As a brand planner I’ve built a practice around proof. Proof is what delivers truth. Proof is a tangible. It’s dare I say “existential.” Branding and adverting are certainly cousins but branding is the chicken and advertising is the egg. The chicken keeps giving birth to eggs. Brand strategy, done well, keeps giving birth to ads.

    The way to build a brand is to create an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging, the framework for which is one claim and three proof planks, and stick to it. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center may be the best cancer care anywhere (truth), but the fact that they get the toughest cases in the world is the why (proof).

    Brand planner hard drives across the globe are filled with proofs and truths. Search out the former in order to build your brand strategies.

    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.

     

     

    Random Thoughts on Why I Blog?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Yesterday I asked myself the question “Why do you blog?” With nearly 2,600 posts and counting, it’s high time.  I mean I am a strategist after all, preaching focus and intent daily.  Do I blog to teach and make myself look smart? Do I blog to generate business inquiry and revenue? Do I blog to inspire thought and action? 

    One thing I do know, I blog to become a better writer.  No wise cracks.

    A great many of my posts seem to target people who don’t understand brand strategy. And because those people don’t understand, they aren’t searching for it. Chicken and egg. And to be totally honest brand strategy is a fairly arcane and untested science.

    As for my heroes in the brand strategy community, they already know this stuff. They are informed. So I can’t be writing for them. Tyro brand planners? Yeah, they would find these writings more worthwhile. 

    Potential clients, where the consulting money is, are searching for marketing solutions.  So while that target is into baseball I’m writing about football. Doh!

    I like hanging with brand people. Talking insights. Tools. Learnings. And success. Were I to quantify the number of said strategists, however, it would probably number less than 1,000 on the planet. Some might call them a dying breed. (I could even link the decline to global warming if I worked at it.)

    So perhaps it’s time for a redirect. From now on, I will make an effort to speak more to marketers, not planners. Maybe one or two more blog posts a year.  Hee hee.

    Phew, I feel better.

    Peace.

     

    The Secret Sauce Of Brand Discovery.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    At What’s The Idea? discovery is the secret to developing a brand strategy. Discovery being short hand for people talking about the product or service. And when I say talking, it can mean people talking to reporters — who do a nice job of capturing compelling thoughts, opinions and stories. (Tip: Find the best journalists or bloggers rather than the also rans.)  When immersing in a new category I like to ask people who their favorite “read” is. I once asked the publisher of Time Magazine who he thought America’s best editorial writer. William Safire he offered quite quickly. Even over his own columnists. I love truth.


    Where rubber meets the road in brand planning is what one does with all the discovery.  It’s nice to have a lot of different paint colors but you can’t add them all together.  I was reading a recipe for remoulade this morning and dismissed it out of hand. Too much stuff in the recipe.  And I love remoulade. It’s a nice analog for brand strategy. Too much stuff kills brand strategy so the planner must prioritize. In my case, I organize into a claim and proof array. I can’t promise you the claim emerges first, sometimes if does. The scientist in me wants to suggest once the proof array is decided, the claim emerges – but that, too, is not always the case. It’s a little bit art, a little bit science.

    But fear not — organize your proof into the most compelling care-abouts and good-ats (3 proof planks in total) and you’ll be well on your way. Back to the remoulade analogy, you’ll also be able to understand what you are tasting and why.

    Peace.

     

     

    Brand Strategy Informs Product and Product Handlers.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Brand strategy, in this age of service marketing and the internet, where not everything sold has a label, is not as it used-to-was. Here’s a new worldview.

    At What’s The Idea? brand strategy is defined as “an organizational framework for product, experience and messaging.”  The existential function of branding to date has been naming, logos and labeling — followed by the design of marketing materials. But a huge percentage of sales these days come not from labeled products and goods, but from services and digital; things that are malleable and easily changed. Today it’s okay – no preferred – for brand strategy to inform the product, not just the other way around.  

    It’s a strategic palindrome: the product/service informs the brand strategy and the brand strategy informs the product/service. That’s step one. Brand strategy informs the product.

    Step two is brand strategy informs product handlers. This allows everyone instrumental in selling, marketing and product-consumer interface (experience) to do so in a non-random, value-based way. Not cookie cutter. Strategic.

    From metaphor land, product handlers are making deposits in the brand bank.

    Once the product is right and the product handlers are indoctrinated, then we can start to think about messaging. 

    Sadly, branding dollars are mostly spent on naming, signage, collateral design and ads – without a deeper codified thought.  A paper strategy or strategy of words is the brand building fundamental today. It can be measured. And, overlaid with revenue numbers. Try doing that with a logo.

    (Rest in peace mama. You were a treasure.)

    Peace.   

     

     

    First Get The Brand Right.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Here’s my pitch to people who manage small and mid-size companies. Also, to large companies in technology, considered purchase and B2B categories – most of whom think marketing is the main tool of growth. Marketing being defined as creating demand, proper pricing and good distribution.  I explain that marketing today is mostly practiced as a downstream pursuit with time spent on buildables. On tactics and execution. “Update the website. Generate more social engagement. Put on a promotional event.”

    I counsel these people, these builders, to first get the brand strategy right. First and foremost.  Because the brand strategy sets the parameters of winning in the marketplace. It establishes a framework for product, experience and messaging. The irony of my job is that I often have to look and product, experience and messaging, after the fact, to help create the framework.  It’s a little bass-ackwards.

    Get the brand right and it’s so much easier to get the marketing right.  “Ready, fire, aim” it’s not.

    Peace.

     

     

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