Healthy Marketing.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

He wifus stepped on the bunny’s neck 2 weeks ago (don’t ask) and it caused the big critter  a swollen throat and a good deal of eating discomfort.  Off to the exotic pet hospital she went and with some digestive meds and a bit of gruel all is right with the world. Last evening the bunny doctor’s assistance called to ask how “Alphie” is doing.  The assistant knew about the throat, jaw and prognosis and asked smart questions. She would make a report to the doctor, who would call based upon what I told her, if there was a need.  Poos were part of the conversation.

Most regular doctors today only call remind you of your appointment.  I’m sure HIPPA keeps non-docs from knowing about some of our maladies, but it seems to me a well informed follow-up call from someone at the office, would not only set a patient at ease but clear up some poor patient behaviors. It’s good medicine and good marketing. It is good after care.

Over the next 5-10 years there will be some very exciting changes to healthcare.  We will be remove waste from the system, improve patient records and systematize treatment modalities. Only about 3% of healthcare money spent in the U.S. is preventative, the rest is treatment. Unlike any other civilized country.  That needs to change. A well-placed call from the doctors office following a visit is a start.  After care builds loyalty and behavior change. And not just in healthcare. Peace.

 

Is the channel dead?

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Is the channel dead? Which channel you say? The TV channel. The retail channel. The state channel through the Great South Bay due to Hurricane Sandy? (No, not that one. Ish.)  With Netflix amazing turn around and the growth of all access streaming TV services, one has to wonder if the TV channel will still be around in 10 years.  I don’t travel alot but when I do and try to find Justified while in another city, I have to channel surf the TV live like pig on a ruffle.  By the time I get there, if it’s even the right day, it might be partly over. All of which might be exacerbated by the fact that a commercial might be on when I do hit the channel — whichever it is TBS, USA, what evs.  In the age of Google, this is silly.

As for the retail channel. Amazon and Zappos and Marmot (I yike them) dot com are places to get the products I want, at prices I want, while sitting in my chair. So long as I’m programmed to shop in advance, it saves gas, time, stocking and availability issues and provides good consumer ratings systems. The brick and mortar retail channel has lost some luster. And bucks.

And communications channels are starting to blend together too. Videos are available from newspapers and radio shows available on blogs. Media will shake out and be more about content than the circuits and pipes delivering them.

How do we deal with this? How do we get ahead of this?  We create brands. Brand that transcend channels.  To a hammer everything looks like a nail, you say? Hee hee.

A frigid peace to you.

 

The church and hymn approach.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I was in church yesterday (Was there a blue moon?) and a hymn came up I’d never heard.  Having at one point had a reasonable singing voice and wanting to be a part of the congregation, I began singing. There’s a whole science to singing hymns you don’t know.  The process made me think of my job as brand planner.

The first rule is use the hymnal, the music is in there and give you some cues about the song.  If your church uses PPT to project words stay with the book. Second, let others sing first. Being a quarter second behind lets you follow the pacing. Third, listen to the notes. Listening first teaches you if they notes are high or low.  Next, hear the rhythm of the song and learn where the word accents are — the double-ups, the pauses.  Those give you a sense of the pattern of the hymn, and prepare you for the second, third and fourth stanzas.

Sing softly all the while. What you hear in your head, for some odd reason, comes out louder than you think. Attempt to harmonize. The goal is not only to sound like everyone else, but to make the collective sound better. Learn the song and make it better. Don’t end up trying to be a soloist.  

In summation, actively listen, quietly participate, learn the rhythms, tones and patterns. Keep singing. As you get more familiar turn up the volume. Be harmonious. Then, go get a jelly donut.  Peace!  

 

Brand for life.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

When creating a brand plan it is important to see the long term picture.  Often, that can begin with speaking to teens.  Teens see everything so it’s important to make a good impression.  I once recommended to a health care system, whose young prospects would grow to be middle age prospects, a program to help get answers to difficult questions: sex, acne, puberty and other health things that would put the brand in good stead as those kids grew up. It would buy the system grace and fealty, the argument went.  “Advice about sex is not a good idea” I was told.  The system comment was good from a legal standpoint, not so good from a brand standpoint.  The idea, hand-wringer though it may have been, did support one of the system’s brand planks and provide meaningful information. 

Tactics are for building revenue.  Think of them as rent collectors.  Branding on the other hand is long term, similar to the efforts of the architect.  They must work together for maximum result.  Campaigns come and go…a powerful brand strategy is indelible.  Peace.

Hewlett Packard. To Whit.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Raise your hand if you think computers are going away? Raise your hand if you think the design form of computers will continue to change? Now quick, name 4 computer brands.

If HP wasn’t among those listed, I’d be surprised.

Where the R&D at?

If I were to count every word of every story about Hewlett Packard over the last 5 years, I’m betting the words research and development doesn’t appear in 1% of the search. Why is that? I’m sure they’re doing some R&D, but they can’t be investing in it in a big way. In the PC and computer businesses, I’ve yet to read about any of their design or form breakthroughs. So what are they doing. They’re playing business Monopoly. Moving pieces around, marketing old stuff, managing loss and going to dinners.

There is a huge, huge pot of money in computing. The design form is changing and is certainly not yet done. And HP is busy lounging around with the world’s second leading computer brand.

Next year at CES, HP should quietly in stealth mode launch something big. With all the other big guys not playing in the CES sandbox it would be a highlight moment. But only if they were to launch something out of their R&D garage that mattered. (Como se Make it Matter.) Come on Ms. Whitman. Peace.

An idea for Dell.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Dell Computer, once a darling of the stock trading world, has for a long time now gotten all the small stories in the business pages. Readers of the paper paper will note Dell is rarely on the first page of the business section and articles tend to be 2 columns by 5 inches.  Now Dell is trying to take itself private in the hope that they can start to make some tight money.

Here’s a big idea.  Create a buy-back program. Most every Dell I see these days is a big old clunker. Square, grey, hardish corners and tired. I’m specifically talking laptops now. People using these Dell laptops are pretty much branded “my company is not killing it” or “my company is not edgy.”  Every time a consumer sees one of these laptops, it besmirches the Dell brand. It creates a withdrawal from the brand bank. By buying back these geezers and paying, say $25 per (or making a donation to a charity of same amount), Michael Dell will be updating the company image.

Do the recall under the guise of recycling, or gifting 3rd world countries but to revive the Dell brand these puppies need to be off the street. Next. 

Peace!

Meep meep.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

No back-patting here (okay maybe a little) but my prediction that the Chrysler/Fiat combination was a smart one has come true.  The car market grew 13% last year and Chrysler sales weighed in at 20%.  Chrysler outperformed the market by 7%.  GM and Ford at 3% and 4%, underperformed the market. Bringing a little European design and smaller car sensibility to America has, indeed, translated into sales and margin. The approach, tempered by some Jeep and Dodge DNA, put Chrysler back on firm ground.

A point of concern, however, is CEO Sergio Marchionne’s comment at the Detroit Auto show.  He feels a U.S. recovery will pave the way for growth of his more heavy metal cars and trucks, like the Jeep Grand Cherokee and the Dodge Ram truck. This is just the type of talk that got us into trouble in the first place.  I would expect to hear this from Ford and GM but not Chrysler (Fiat).  Twenty somethings and the emerging car buyer market (read future) will not be demanding guzzlers. And in 10 years a 30 MPG car will be a guzzler.

Don’t fall for this Mr. Marchionne. Keep your eyes on the big prize. Stop the supersizing.  Find beauty in the small. The efficient. Meep meep. This is way forward. Peace.

 

 

Marketing Monetization Musings.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Never is a marketing consultant more ill at ease than when a client asks “How much revenue will this tactic generate?”  Or, “If I run this ad campaign, how many inquiries will it generate?” CEOs and CFOs ask these questions because they want to know what the return will be. I’ve often written about the importance of ROS (return on strategy) over ROI (return on investment) which tends to measure tactics. The reality is, all marketers and their agents want to know their marketing efforts pay off.  But just as tech start-ups get away, quarter after quarter, without monetization plans, marketers keep trotting out the old lazy axiom “I know half my advertising is working, I just don’t know which half” and muddle on.  

That’s why we should be measuring strategy, not tactics. Strategy crosses channels and tactics. Strategy informs tactics. Sure tactics can be strong or weak, but graded on strategy delivery creates a third dimension for analysis.

How well does this package design convey the brand strategy?  How well does this retail experience deliver the brand promise?  How convincing is this video at making a prospect believe the brand claim? Grading our marketing work not simply by action but by brand conviction is the way toward marketing monetization.  Measuring awareness, first mention or a porous tagline is not measuring strategy. Nor is measuring time on page.    

When measures become endemic to your business and not generic, you will know you are on the right path. Peace!

Don’t think different, think new.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Have you ever gone back to your old neighborhood and noticed that everything looks smaller?  It’s not because you have gotten bigger, it is because we tend to fill up empty spaces with more stuff: bigger houses, sheds, plantings and more houses.  It’s what man does. We build and we plant.

This is how I view the media world.  Man likes to build more forms of media. And we add clutter and density to the existing ones. Our job as marketers, planners and media agents it to find new ways to share out targeted messages. New exciting ways.  Ways that move customers closer to a sale. Let’s not add clutter, let’s open new vistas.

Think new. Don’t think add-ons or media extensions.  New.

Peace.

Going Comando.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I was thinking about what’s wrong with education and it dawned on me that a teacher could go for decades without changing his/her  lesson plan.  Okay, that might be an oversimplification but bear with me.  So let’s says that happens for an American history teacher…how does that teacher refresh? Well, one might say they focus on the pedagogy – the teaching itself. With all students being different, the lesson may stay the same but the means of getting though, packaging, and connecting the lesson to “this years” student may change. (Let’s hope.) In other words the material doesn’t change the delivery does.

So what does that mean for branding and marketing? Do we use a syllabus to create our marketing approach? I suspect we do. I, for instance, have been using a couple of planning tools over the years that have not changed much: 24 Questions and a battery of Fact Finding questions.  Sounds kind of formulaic, no?  Am I lazy? These rigors act as fishing nets for me and what I catch will vary. What I do with that catch creates the differentiation. Hmm.

But suppose I approached each assignment more like composing a song. Or creating some other form of art?  It would dash the formula don’t you think? This would be a case of getting rid of the syllabus. And going commando. Let’s think about that in 2013 and see if we can blow some doors off our approaches to strategic development. Peace!

 

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