Life and Story.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Visiting Nurse Service of NY has a new program it is launching called Medicaid Managed Long Term Care (MLTC). It’s a great name, but they renamed it Choice Health Plans, an awful name.

The demand for this program is, and will be, great.  It allows the chronically ill to stay at home where the care will be much more agreeable to the family and to the pocketbook (hopefully).  Traditionally, home care is less expensive that hospital care.

The campaign launched this week and is couple of notches better than typical healthcare stuff.  Nice warm color photos of interesting patients, heartfelt selling copy, a basic description of services and couple of calls-to-action.  Going through the copy, though, I found an idea that could make the work great. “Decisions about member care are made by clinicians, not by clerks.”  This is the idea that should drive the campaign. It has dimension.  It’s real. It’s an idea with life and story. 

To life. L’chaim. Peace.

Yahoo needs a tandem hire.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

The two most important titles at any large public company are CEO and CMO.  The former is the owner of “now” and all business metrics.  The latter owns the future and the money making machinery. When these two positions are in alignment and share a challenge, things should work wonderfully.  When at odds or working cross purposes, things become interesting, exciting and pregnant with possibility. If there is respect, this is a good situation. But when the two titles are ships passing in the night, the company is either lazy, lopsided or in danger.

Operations, HR, finance, customer, sales are all vital to a company success, but they feed at the trough of leadership and product strategy.  That comes from the CEO and the CMO.  In my mind, Yahoo’s problem in the C-level suite is tied to a weakness in the marketing area.  Yahoo doesn’t have an Is-Does. Yahoo is a company of lots of Ises and lots of Doeses. The way out of the problem at this point is to find two people who can work together to solve this thing.  A tandem hire is needed. Peace!

 

Marko-babble.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

“Words are important” is something I have been saying a lot lately.  Misuse of words. Random use of words.  Repetitive use of words — all minimize the promise.  What we do in the marketing business and the advertising business is attempt to find a creative use of words.  Words marketing thought leader Bob Gilbreath might call meaningful.

Nine tenths of marketing is words, so you’d better get them right.  One of my colleagues read me an email he received yesterday from an unknown spamming technology company. The email explained they offered the lowest price and custom solutions, they cared about what he cared about (if they did, they wouldn’t have spammed him), and listed every other marketing promise in the book.  And for good measure they repeated one or two.  We both giggled. A colossal waste of time. It was customer benefits-palooza.  “How could anyone not want our product/service” a would-be marketing director might ask?

The answer is — no one would care.  Because the email was written in the contemporary foreign language called marko-babble.  You can’t connect with buyers by using words strung together in marko-babble. It’s not a language.

Now I’m going out to look for some authentic friends. Hee hee.

Peace.

A Man and His Garden.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

James Dolan should remove himself from Cablevision and focus on Madison Square Garden, Inc.  For my friend Mac who jeers Mr. Dolan after every Knick home game as he passes into the tunnel this idea won’t find favor. But it is the right thing to do.  Mr Dolan’s heart is not in Cablevision and Newsday and telephony and financials the way his head in into sports and entertainment.  And face it, Mr. Dolan has goobed it up a little bit with the Isiah Thomas fiasco, but he still has time to play guitar, smile, and hit the Garden with love in his heart. Did I mention the NY Rangers are killing it?  And NYC has become a mecca of hoops once again.

Mr. Dolan is not the boss’s son at MSG; he is a man learning a business. Every day.  He’s sticking to it and earning stripes by surrounding himself with different kinds of people – some smart, some not so.  (I don’t know Mr. Dolan from Adam, though we made a TV spot together as 20-sometings.) Life it too short, sir.  Give Cablevision to some cable/telco/media nerds and get back to Broadway.  Where else are you going to find Kate Upton, Melo and some crazy happy kids from the Bronx screeching on a Thursday night?  Peace. 

Positivity.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I think positivity is a word…it’s just hard to use in a sentence.  As a principle for brand planning though, it’s a good word and should be used more often. 

There are lots of different kinds of people in the world — and many greys.  But it’s a universal truth that people who share the positive are more enjoyable.  It’s hard to enjoy negative.  As we search for brand planks for our brands – the supports and proof(s) that create brand allegiance and value – it is a good idea to focus on the positive.  Some might look to create a positive that fills the void of a competitors negative, and that’s not an ineffective approach, but it may relate to a non-endemic value of your brand; a second language as it were.

Don’t sell against other’s weaknesses, sell your strengths.

Social commentators are important. Improvement is important.  That said, it’s very mother-in-law like to focus on making things better. Positivity is worthy.  Peace. 

Brands planks, heroes and additives.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

What is heroic about Miracle Whip? What is heroic about the North Shore LIJ Health System? One is a dollop on a sandwich, another is a healthcare org that saves lives. What is heroic about Windham Mountain?  Actually, in the winter the resort has a program for the physically challenged – that’s pretty heroic.

In brand planning I love probing consumers for heroes and pride; rich areas that get to the heart of a person.  Yet many planners ask questions such as “Tell me how you use mayonnaise?” “What’s your favorite sandwich and why?”  “Share with me a story about the best place you ever ate a sandwich?” All nice tactical questions, but not brand plank questions.  And don’t get me wrong, not every brand has or needs heroic traits. In fact, for mayonnaise the notion is silly. But an ad about a kid who stands up to a bully in the school cafeteria and is rewarded with a tasty sandwich may be compelling to a mom.  Context.

Sometimes a brand plank may not have endemic value — it may be aspirational and tangential. It may not relate to heroics or pride but align with other human emotions.  As brand planners, we have to organize brand planks with hard values and soft values.  Just the right amount of lemon can turn Miracle Whip into Hellman’s. Hee hee. Peace!    

 

Picking Ad Spokespeople.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I was reading an article about Nestle’s Nespresso coffee machine today and it mentioned George Clooney is the spokesperson in Europe.  He won’t be used in the U.S. the article went on to say because the ads needed to tell the Nespresso system story.  In other words, the story behind the single serving coffee making machine would be compromised if George Clooney were to tell it.  That’s sort of silly, don’t you think. Or is it?

In day after recall testing,  if asked to describe the TV spot you saw with George Clooney in it would you talk about the brewing process and the special machine, or would you say “That’s the George Clooney coffee maker, right?”

When the talent gets in the way of the message, it’s a marketing mistake.  When the talent selection supports and reinforces the product, it’s a home run.  Courtney Love would make a good spokesperson for run-proof eyeliner.  You feel me?

Talent is important. Everything in an ad is important. Peace.

Fiat 500. A lost loser?

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Reading today how Chrysler sales are soaring I smiled.  Knowing Chrysler merged with Fiat to introduce much needed European design into its cars I was scratching my head thinking about the Fiat 500.  I loved the merger because I knew the cars would get smaller and cooler, but the 500 was such a putz of a design that I’ve been addled.  (And pretending J-Lo would actually drive one was a real slap.)

Then I wondered if it was possible that the Fiat 500 was launched in America as a lost-loser, just to get us to pay attention to “small” and to care about “design?”  Even if it was to say this is design I don’t.  Think about it. I am passionately against the Fiat 500 design, but at least I’m passionate; unlike with many GM builds over the last decades.

Fiat may have used this to get our attention while it gets ready to kill with something really cool.  Dodge has designed some great things.  Chrysler is sweetening some designs. And Jeep has refreshed.  But I’m waiting on Fiat to launch something very Italian – and it’s going to be great. Fun, fun.  Peace!

Bye Jersey.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Poor New Jersey.  Even before Snooki and her tanning bed crew stepped into the limelight, it had a sullied reputation build upon the smoke stacks and cat crackers lining the turnpikes.  For years it was unfairly labeled the “armpit of America.” For anyone who has ever walked the Kittatinny Ridge or driven the roads of western New Yersey (what my Norwegian forefathers used to call it from high atop Cedar Lake in beautiful Denville), the love and understanding of New Jersey’s true colonial beauty runs deep.

I’m digging Cory Booker who I believe will leapfrog Chris Christie into the national spotlight soon, and I’ve long been a fan of Newark – a tough city. There are lots of positives going on in this beautiful state, but what can we do to fix its image. Even the tourist board is advertising the other New Jersey to combat the power of the Jersey Shore TV Show. 

So how do we fix this, Mr. brand planner?  Stop referring to it as Jersey. And start calling it by its respectful full name New Jersey. It has a formal name and if people and promoters start using it and allow the riff-raff to focus on the shortcut “Jersey” the brand will begin the ascent it deserves.  Even Rutgers University ran an ad in the paper today referring to the state as Jersey.  Stop it!

Thank you.  Thank you very much.  Peace!

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