Legacy.

By
Steve Poppe
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I recently did some work for a very cool company in the educational development space called Teq and was lucky enough to walk the halls of many K12 schools in NY State. Thinking about ways to improve the education process in today’s fast twitch, web-enabled world was head spinning.

old teacher

One thing I noticed about some long-tenured teachers was that they were focused on retirement. Many would start off conversations with “Only 2 and a half more years and I’m gone.” Gone being the immediate prize.  This got me wondering how many teachers actually rued the fact they were we close to retirement age. How many felt they were running out of time to perfect their craft and create a legacy? The insight came about when a teacher using interactive white board technology for the first time, said “I wish I wasn’t retiring so soon.”

I’d very much like to do some qualitative research with K12 teachers who are in their last 3 years before retirement (Here’s one for you Randi Weingarten), comparing teachers who are in countdown mode with teachers who feel they don’t have enough time to complete their mission.  Studying the root of these two mindsets would help administrators tweak the system.

Teachers are as much the lifeblood of education as are students. Teachers who spend more time thinking about their legacy and impact they’ve had should be role models. Teachers biding time, not so much. We can help the latter by understanding and modeling the former.

Legacy is an interesting planning discussion.  As you plan your brands and ask your questions, keep that on in mind. Peace.

iPad Clothes.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Over the holiday season, 1 in 6 people who bought computing devices around the world bought Apple tablets.  In retail, the “attachment rate” is the rate at which people attach or bundle an additional product with the main purchase.  If you are a company that manufactures tablet carrying cases, you want your case attached to tablets.  And the notion of one case per tablet is silly.  

Were I in leadership position at a tablet case manufacturer, I’d spend some serious time designing for the youth market and start with college kids.  I’m not talking about putting stickers on iPad cases, I’m thinking much more function and fashion forward. What do college woman want in their cases? Science kids. Business nerds? Rastas, swimmers and lax players? iPad cases need not be the same form sold in different colors, they should be as diverse as the user community.

If you believe tablets are here to stay, then R&D is how you will become a leader in tablet cases.  Create visual designs and functional cases at price points that are affordable and fun.  Think tee-shirt collection. Clothes for your iPad. Some one – probably a college kid – needs to step up.  This is going to be a hot market. Peace! 

Be fresh.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

So I’m reading an article this morning in USA Today featuring interviews with some top hospitality CEOs, and their answers are peppered with language like: “price of entry,” “customer-for-life,” “providing value” and “surprise and delight.” A marko-babble fest.  Not implying these aren’t smart people, they clearly are. What I’m saying is marketing has become filled with terms of art that are nice on the ear but meaningless. 

Do a Google or Bing search of “whatstheidea+surprise and delight” and if this blog pops up, break out a can of whoop ass. Jargon may be acceptable in meetings but it is the antichrist in external communications. It was copywriting great Walter Weir, I think, who said “if it sounds like copy, it’s good copy.”  Dear old Walter was born in ’06.  The industry has published 10 trillion words copy since then. There is an entire class of ad agencies called “creative hot shops” whose sole reason for being is to break away from Mr. Weir’s premise.

So what should we do?  Drop the babble.  Invent your own selling premise and selling language. Be fresh. Freshies (Sorry, racing a storm to Whiteface today.) And it is okay to be a little fresh in a non-puritanical sense.  We are at 10 trillion words and counting. There are only so many pairings – as Google will tell you. Peace!

Cloud brand planning,

By
Steve Poppe
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clouds

Are brand planner’s heads always up in the clouds?  Are they trying to solve the world’s ills though advertising and marketing? In the last year alone, I’ve figured out how to fix education and correct the obesity problem.  I’ve spoken to experts in both fields, immersed myself in data and tools of the trade, studied the science and landed upon rough strategies for positively, demonstratively impacting both. Will it take time and lots of money?  Oh yeah. Will systemic change and cultural change be required? Absolutely.

Now, does someone interested is getting 100,000 hits to a website care about the ills of the world? Does someone trying to fill up Salesforce.com with leads care about the global big picture? Probably not.  But when brand planners are allowed to do their “cloud work” first, and apply that learning, positioning and organizing principle to the tactics required to move the sales dial (the micro measures), that’s when great brands are built. Start with the micro tasks first and it makes the job much more difficult. Go big first and you have a chance.  This is the word of the planner. Peace.

A brand builder.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

There’s a neat article in the NYT about cable TV channel FX. John Landgraf, president and general manager of FX Network, is given a good deal of credit for the channel’s recent success. This guy is building a brand. He has a strategy and over time is implementing it. It is his brand strategy that guided the decision to greenlight shows like Justified and Sons of Anarchy.  It is this brand strategy that helps his people cast shows stars, name show characters and create program titles.

The brand strategy is what is providing consumers with the ability to articulate what the channel stands for. There is a vision here and it’s a vision in rarified air when it comes to TV. This is Steve Jobs stuff. Mr. Landgraf (land grab?) is not allowing focus groups plumbed from American Demographics magazine to decide his programming, he is using data smartly, but allowing his gut and (brand) vision to help consumers toward what’s next in programming.

FX has an idea. Brands need an idea.  Without, they are water lapping the shore. Peace!  

The New Lincoln Mishegas.

By
Steve Poppe
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Would you like to be confused?  Click through to “Steer The Script” the new Lincoln Motor Company something or other. I’m not sure what it is, hence the something or other.  It’s is not a campaign so much as a weak federation of ads. Or not. The only thing I can say for sure is it has something to do with Twitter.  The ideas the drive the comms have been solicited from Twitter and conveyed by Twitter users. Then Lincoln’s agency started writing, directing and filming this Mishegas which I think we will see in :30 or :60 form on the Super Bowl.

I must admit, the new car (can’t remember its name…it has an M in it) is pretty cool looking. And it has a retractable roof – the whole roof, I think.

In an earlier post about Lincoln I made fun of a poorly constructed print ad introducing the New Lincoln Motor Company.  Next they did some advertising on TV with Abraham Lincoln, now this. I’m not sure who is running the show over at Lincoln, but their head must be on a swivel.

This is indeed a “new” Lincoln Motor Company.  And it does sell cars. Luxury cars that are designed for people. People? Other than that, mishegas (Yiddish). Peace in Syria.

  

 

 

 

Where the future at?

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Time Inc. is reducing its global workforce by 6%, effectively shrinking its news organization at a time when news is more extensive than ever.  There is more to report, more media to share, more interest and access. If you were to look at all news organizations I bet they’d be contracting. Well maybe not the HuffPost, but the total number if people in the business.  Why?  I suspect it is because of citizen journalism. Citizens find the news, shoot it on camera phones and send it to the highest bidder in seconds. And they blog it.

A similar contraction has been happening in the network TV business. TV viewership for ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox is down relative to the population. What are those people doing?  They are not reading magazines (another story).  They are on the internech (pronounced neck). But, what are they doing and watching on the internet? Videos.  

In my marketing and brand consultancy, I promote myself as someone who help “redistribute marketing wealth.”  New technology and new trends (see above) redistribute content, functions and services. The airlines were not in the plane business, they were in the transportation business. As the calendar pages flip by, marketers need to not forget to ask themselves “What business am I in?” “What consumer purpose am I serving?” “What role do I play?”

That’s how to get beyond the dashboard.  That’s where the future at. Peace.

First Responders in Brand Planning

By
Steve Poppe
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If I met you for the first time and asked  “Describe yourself to me” what might your answer be?  If I were to ask a consumer a similar question about Langone Medical Center, what might they say?  “They are the NYU hospital.”  Or that’s the hospital with the purple ads.”  How about this question “Describe for me PNC Bank” or “Describe Volkswagen to me.”

Top recall explanations are telling. They are not deal breakers as it relates to purchase behavior – we buy things and brands we don’t know all the time – but those explanations share what is most important to the consumer at that time.   Two things drive first response associations for consumers: product experience and marketing communications.  Readers know that an organized brand plan has powerful impact on the latter.  If all internal and external dollars are used to support a tight strategy, consumers are able to play back that strategy.  “15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance.”  What reader may not know is that a tight brand strategy also impacts the product, offering ways forward for new features, line extensions, aftercare, etc.

The opposite of a tight, embedded brand strategy is every man for himself. And when that happens you become the company with the purple ads or the company that has banking on the mobile phone. Don’t allow that to happen. Peace!

Community Manager 1.0

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Yesterday was Community Manager Appreciation Day.   Here’s a story about Community Manager one dot oh.  In her early 20s, right out of college, she took a job working at a bowling ball manufacturer as an admin all the while looking for a job befitting her marketing degree and minor in English Lit.  She was hired as an intern at a regional 1,000 employee services company with a respect brand name and made social media community manager. All good companies had one.  She was asked to write the job description for HR because, lucky her, she was a pioneer and the company’s first community manager.

On day one Ms. Community Manager was introduced to the marketing staff (she, red-faced) and told to report to the director of marketing (who didn’t have a Facebook account and was awfully busy).  Given a pod, a computer and introduced to the IT person – off she went.  She went to BrandHackers and a few other meetups in NYC and Brooklyn, met a guyfriend, and picked up some tools and jargon along the way. After 5 months she had talked the company into subscribing to HubSpot (who taught her a thing or two), but she felt as if she were on an island. “Where’s the community manager job description?” HR asked.  “One more week please.”

After 6 months, the company had a new look for its Facebook page, two Twitter handles (one for product, one for customer service), a Pinterest account and Instagram photos. They had a dashboard telling them that March was a good month for web hits. The company also bought a video camera for Ms. Manager and finally got its job description. 

On the anniversary of her 8th month, Ms. Manager got a job at a digital ad agency in Brooklyn by telling them she had built a dept. and generated high “time in site” and “registration rates.” This she did, all this without a whiff of a brand strategy. And off she goes.  Like a virus. Peace.

Copy, a lost art.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I often hear “But don’t take our word for it….” in radio ads which precedes some citation of customers or awards won to make a point. “But don’t take our word for it” may sound like good fluid copy but it ridiculous.  It depositions the credibility of the advertiser and of all advertising.   The reason some use this line is because copy more often than not is pretentious, braggadocious and dishwater dull.

It’s not easy to write copy.  It’s easy to write.  It’s easy to type. It’s hard to create words that create desire and predisposition.  That’s what copy is. It’s not information, it is selling.

I was asked to address a bunch of kids on Bring Your Child to Word Day, explaining what marketing was.  “Have you ever had a lemonade stand?”, I asked.  It got most of them nodding.  “You know your parents want that stand in front of the house so they can see you right?”  More nodding.  “But do a lot of cars go by your home?  Did you make the lemonade from real lemons or a package? What did you charge for a cup? That’s marketing.” Ooohhh.

Connect with your audience, get in their heads, then start writing copy.   It is a lost art. Peace!

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