Second Screen Twitch.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

The second screen is a fundie of Twitch Point Planning and driver of moving a consumer closer to a sale. The ability to stall or hold the first screen, while pursuing the second, is part of Twitch Point Planning’s “understand” modus. So if one is reading a Kindle and twitches to a Mac or PC for a deeper dive into a topic, that person will likely return to the Kindle after sating their curiosity. Expected behavior. But marketers want a twitch or twitches to end in a purchase or transaction (read: sale, appointment, sign-up), not a quick return to the first screen. 

Sometimes a twitch might not be to another device, it might result in a car or bike ride to the store.  “Damn, I’m going to buy Europe ’72, by the Dead or a Cuban sandwich at Lenny’s.” But for the most part, the richest non-retail selling that will occur will happen on a company website. The last mile, as it were. The product or service website should provide a contextual, informational, aspirational multimedia expression of a product’s use and value. This is less likely to happen on a smartie than a tablet or computer.

As a rule (and rules have many exceptions) a good twitch point plan seeks to close that first screen and commit to the second. Or third. Bookmarking or Digging a site, while watching TV is not as good as clicking on the shopping cart.

It’s all about the pathways and how one uses them. Peace.   

My first paid insight.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

As a young account supervisor at McCann Erickson working on the AT&T private data line business, I visited a tradeshow called InterOp.  In the land of B2B, trade shows are a great place to learn what’s up? They still are, to a degree, for tasting, touching and gauging the veracity of people with whom you’re speaking.  But the web has taken a little wind out of trade show sails.

At InterOp in the 90s, I trod the show floor asking lots of questions, meeting AT&T product people, competitors, chatting up salespeople and visiting presentations. When I returned home I had to do a write-up on what I learned.  The paper was my first real “good doggy.”  It contained an insight about InterOp that had to do with name badges. Every third badge said “consultant.”

At the time data interoperability was such a mess (think the opposite of open systems) that the business was in crazy turmoil. There was no leadership or firm technology consensus.  So many geekuses were making a living solving individual problems, on an island kind of problems, and demand for consulting was great. It was getting messier and messier.

AT&T knew near term that if they fed the mess they would make some nice money. But if they solved the mess, they would make even more money. “Reducing the complexity” was a brand strategy that resonated in the market.  So, you don’t always get your insights by talking to people; sometimes they can be found in the strangest places. “Hey, eyes up here.” JKJK.

Peace.

 

Percent of GDP Spent on Brand Planning.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I am on a quest to figure out what part of the US GDP is spent on marketing. The current US GDP according to the World Bank website is $15.6 trillion. Healthcare in America is estimated to be about 18% of the GDP and my gut is telling me dollars spent on market are probably in the same ballpark.

GDP is defined as “the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products” so one might say since marketing comprise all four Ps, product being one, that all of GDP is marketing, but let’s use What’s the Idea? math and remove the cost of producing goods from the equation.

So what are we counting? Research and development of new products. Headcount of people in all marketing services; within the company and vendor.  All out of pocket for advertising, promotion, PR, research, sales, channel, web and service. Based on my seriously fuzzy math, let’s say we are spending $2.8 trillion in marketing sans production.  That’s some cheddar.

Of that amount, what percent do you think is spent creating an organizing principle that guides marketing? That allows employees and consumers to learn the unique value of a brand…and articulate it with meaningful language. Not taglines like “Chase what matters.”

The answer is not much. 

Were we to take all the revenue of companies like Interbrand, Landor, Brand Union and Siegel+Gale and brand planning practices at agencies, we would find that it amounts to a milli-portion of the total. So we’re building brand with lots of people, lots of tools, lots of services and very, very little strategy. I’m having a brain freeze and not even eating ice cream. Peace.

PS.  Getting to actual spending numbers would be a great econometric project for a business school student. 

 

NSA meets Verizon meets Nielsen.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I’ve been thinking about a friend who has a clothing line catering to female teens and tweens in a particular sports category. A rich one. A co-worker earlier this year mentioned she spent more the $100,000 on this sports pursuit over the course of the child’s school years.

Knowing what I do about this target and its proclivity for texting — between competitions they sit in gymnasium halls and stare at their phones – there is huge opportunity to find “Posters.” Posters are original content creators, Pasters are their minions.

Were we to go all NSA and look at their (mom’s) cell phone bills, would be we able to tell Posters from Pasters? I’m not sure. Were we to go all Verizon on the bill maybe. Perhaps Verizon can figure out a “forwarded message” from an original picture or video post. Certainly the bills can indicates which kids are moving more media – more digits.

Then we need a Nielsen lens to look through so we can see how these young Poster ladies cluster. So  we can find what other media and products they consume and what behaviors they share. (Like listening to iPods while mom drives them to competitions. Hee hee.)

Once we cull the Posters from the Pasters we’re home free. Because, frankly, much of what they are sending across the ether is kids stuff. With a content marketing plan using a social twist, driven by a tight brand plan, we can fertilize this garden already poised to grow and grow. Peace!

History…from the future.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

The problem with history is it’s being made now.  And because it is happening now, no one sees it as historic. The heinous crimes going on today in the Central African Republic are historic. It is Rwanda of 9 years ago, but because it’s happening now, they are seen as a horrid day on the news cycle — not viewed with the context it will be.

Brand Planners need to think historically. Historically, from the future. I like to think that great leaders, the ones about whom biographies are written, have an expanded, longer term view of things. They can remove themselves from the here and now and see bigger pictures…see today within larger context.

Brand planners approach their work this way. They are not pipe smoking academics – heads in cloud – they are charged with seeing beyond the dashboard, beyond the metrics of the day (though certainly guided and informed by them). Only then can they guide the now and the mission. Results today sans mission are serendipity. And brand false. (I loved Barry Diller’s recent quote to Tina Brown, “Enough about traffic.”)

Brand plans grow, mature and adapt. Like children, they are fortified by family and environment. Great plans without great products are few and far between, but not unheard of. (Know of any? Feel free to share.)

Now, wash your hands and go make some history. Peace!

 

Pinterest vs. the Lazy Website.

By
Steve Poppe
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I’m not a pinner or user of Pinterest (yet), but recently visited the site in an effort to help out a friend with a woodworking business; my intent was to get him to display his amazing work.  Pinterst recognized the fact that I was not an active user and so popped up a quickie tour of new features.  The pop up made it sound as if they were sharing new enhancements, but it could easily have just been their way of reorienting and activating me.

Nice finesse Pinterest.  This is how the web should work.  In my world, where a website should represent the brand plan (one claim, three proof planks), pop-ups or interstitial pages that vary based upon your visiting behavior are refreshing. A return visitor that always heads straight to contacts or about should be offered a quick link there. A first time or lapsed user should be treated with special gloves. A repeat purchaser should get the special treatment — perhaps a surprise every now and again, and other delights.

But this doesn’t happen very often.

We have really kind of forgotten the website these past few years as we go all head down on shiny new social media and moble. And now “content marketing” is the haps. Often unbridled content marketing. Off-piste content marketing.  (That’s why it’s smart to use thought leaders in the practice – see Kyle Monson and www.Knock2x.com for instance.)

Fred Wilson and John Battelle in a recent video chafed at the notion of giving traffic to other’s websites.  I agree. Social and content are kind of like chumming and fishing, but once the fish is on the line it needs to come into the boat.

Websites are the biggest most important development in commerce since the telephone.  Let’s get back to optimizing them. Steve Rubel, you with me on this? Peace.

Jeremy spoke in class today.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Last year I worked with an interesting K12 educational development company called Teq. For a brand planner it provided a perfect storm of stimulating elements: a business with a changing model, tons of humanity (tools to teach children), inner city color, political sturm und drang, and pent-up market demand. Oh, and the market could be measured in billions not millions. In addition to developing a brand plan and marketing communications plan I had my eye on creating a social media dept. – something I’ve long blogged about.

Before I landed at Teq I found a dude on the company site named Jeremy Stiffler. He was one of the reasons I really liked the Teq, site unseen. Every company needs a Jeremy Stiffler.  He was a SME (subject matter expert), who without breaking a sweat could be recorded on video and teach the products and services.  Part actor, part teacher, part digital usability savant, Jeremy could look the camera in the eye and walk you through a product or topic tutorial (tute) with flawless effectiveness. Good teachers know when a student doesn’t get something by looking at their expression. Jeremy, intuitively knew it, even from behind the camera.

Social media departments need a good writer, videographer, editor and still photographer.  Obviously, they all need to be orchestrated at the hands of a brand manager and plan.  But the best departments in their respective business will always have a full or part time Jeremy.  Not a pretty on-camera face or rented talent, an illuminating teaching presence who works for the company and gets people. Peace.

Couple, two, tree thoughts for the NYT.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

The New York Times Company reported a profit for the second quarter and that’s wonderful. It’s been a slog for the NYT but the company is getting its act together. It is divesting itself of non-core properties (Boston Globe, Boston.com), ramping up its digital business and leveraging its worldwide brand by investing in changes to The International Herald Tribune, including a new name.

Print advertising is down but more surprisingly so is digital advertising – off 2.7%. In today’s word that’s just a little bit crazy. Perhaps these numbers are the result, not of NYT.com, but of the other properties. Either way, didge should be growing like a dookie and with the NYT imprimatur, faster than the market.

Here’s a couple of thoughts for The Times to accelerate its recovery:

1. Feed the digital natives with more timely news stories, across more platforms. Online, that will require more video, podcast/audio, and slideshows. Immediacy and “first to report” is a key here.  Your audio video editing suite will need to grow significantly.

2. Keep the analysis for the daily print property, but feed and stream the big stuff from around the world on NYT.com.  Live is better than canned. (Obviously make the paper/paper analysis available online.)

3. Do not rename The International Herald Tribune. As much as I love the NYT, it’s an ethnocentric and brand-selfish.  

4. News cannot be commoditized, so continue to reinvent it. Innovate. Don’t curate. In 20 years, we may still have paper and we still may have broadcast; they are the plumbing. But we will certainly have news — and the organizations that capture it best, with the most accuracy and realism will win the day.

Peace.   

Marketing Achievement Gap.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

The words “achievement gap” are often used when discussing education. When discussing poor schools or the allocation of federal funds in order to fix the societal ills. Pols and social scientists often suggest underachieving populations are so because of class, race, geography, and social perception. I can’t disagree. John Wannamaker’s famous line about advertising (“I know only half my advertising is working, the problem is I don’t know which half.”) could also be said about marketing. And follow similar causative logic.

There is a mad achievement gap in today’s marketing landscape.  The larger companies are more likely to achieve, but it’s not always the case. Mid-size and small businesses (SMB) are more likely to underachieve.

In mid and small companies class equates to budget (amount of money to be spend on marketing). Race equates to diversity of background and thought; mid-size and particularly small companies are more likely to be homogenous. Geography dictates the pool of marketing and creative talent. The burbs don’t index high for brilliant designers, writers and coders.  And when it comes to social perception, mid and small companies often don’t have the luxury to invest in or understand the complexities that are marketing – so they do it themselves or shop for marketing partners at Wal-Mart not Macys.  Perceptually, they undervalue marketing; thinking it’s advertising or a website.

Margaret Mead while working at the American Museum of Natural History made psychotherapy mandatory for her direct reports. Her belief being that people who better understood their own psyches were more healthy.  Small and mid-size businesses can minimize the achievement gap, but they can’t do it themselves or on a shoe string budget. They need to better understand marketing to reduce the achievement gap. Peace.     

 

Brand Journalism

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I posted a couple of years ago that all large brands should have departments dedicated to social media. Any smart company with 1,000 people will have a social media group. It’s not the case now but you see signs of it. The department will have a writer, videographer, photographer and coder at the very least.

Shane Snow, co-founder of Contently, published a very strong piece on Poytner.org referring to this phenomenon as “brand journalism.” There are lots of good obs and strats in the piece, yet I will take issue with one thought — and that is the use of the word “newsroom.”

He cites Mashable and the Verge as examples of newsrooms and he is correct. But large companies that sell product and services should not follow this newsroom model. Just as in-house advertising departments fall short in creating quality work, so will in-house news orgs; partly because of talent, partly because of mission.

Brand journalists need an editorial plan to excel and that plan must tie to the brand plan. The claim and the planks. Adam Ostrow, who knows a thing about this topic says:

“I think the biggest things that brands need to think about are the topics and themes that matter to their customers and how can they be a valuable member of that conversation – not just the conversation that is trending at any given moment in time on social media.”

This is how we develop band plans, by prioritizing things customer care about. Then we prioritize things the company is good at.

Newsroom is misleading. News is rarely organized. Brands need a plan. Social media departments need a plan. Consumers purchase based upon your plan – not based upon news. It’s probably semantics, but words matter. (I absolutely love this topic. It is an important part of the future of marketing.)

Peace!  

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