Claim and Proof.

By
Steve Poppe
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Last week at the DMA/PMN social media conference, Steve Rubel, a digital honcho at Edelman, said “information scales, attention is finite.” He couldn’t be more right.  As social media adds more and more conversation to what is already being said about brands in the marketplace, the cacophony grows louder.  It is in this environment that brand planners become even more important.

Creating a brand strategy that is easy for corporate officers and consumers to articulate is job one for today’s planners.  Once that strategy is in place, “proving” it and refreshing it is the real work.  Simply repeating the brand strategy — using words, pictures, speeches or song — is not marketing.  Proving it is marketing.  Proof through actions, deeds, and product innovation is what makes a brand strategy and what makes people pay attention…and remember.  If you have a great strategy and no proof, you fail.  Peace!

Direct and Participatory (Tee-shirt Saying?)

By
Steve Poppe
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1

I attended a really great event in NYC yesterday put on by the Direct Marketing Association and Participatory Marketing Network (shout out to Curley, the DMA’s receptionist of 26 years).  Called Social Media Spotlight, it really exceeded expectations. Steve Rubel of Edelman Digital got things started.  Steve is the Obama of the social media space.  Unlike most speakers about social media, if Steve trots out a statistic, it’s a good one. “More digital information was created last year than in all of history combined.”   Steve, thanks to his PR training, talks in tee-shirts. About the growth of Tweeting vs. blogging he said “A lot more snacking, a lot less meals.” He’s memorable and inspiring.

Rob Krin, a digital dude from Castrol, showed great élan and marketing smarts by suggesting a strategy to “Be everywhere his customers are.” Is that a strategy?  Oh yeah.  A media strategy – but a strategy nonetheless. Castrol has an on-staff photographer who takes awesome action shots at car races and posts them to Flickr.  That’s what car heads want, that’s what Castrol gives them.

Involver

But one of the biggest surprises of the day was @rahimthedream. I’m not going to undignify my send-up by talking about his age—but Rahim Fazal, CEO of Involver, is da monies. I walked into the meeting not getting Facebook Fan Pages, thinking they were a time kill where people went to build their friend lists (which is still partially true), but I left eating some serious crow. Involver is the “app store” for Facebook marketing tools. Think of Facebook as television and there is only one ad agency.  That’s Involver. It’s pronounced Rah-Heem.  Peace!

Social Media Talent Scouts

By
Steve Poppe
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0

crowd

In Jaron Lanier’s new book “You Are Not a Gadget,” he discusses how the Web has spawned an almost mob-like behavior favoring Pasters (those who copy, paste and mash other people’s content) over Posters (original content creators).  The “wisdom of crowds” (James Surowiecki) mentality, he writes, supersedes individual wisdom…and that’s a shame.  

Readers of “What’s The Idea?” know I write about the proper care and feeding of Posters and Pasters in social media marketing.  Understanding the theory is easy, making it happen, not so much. The key to successful, extensible social media marketing initiatives is in finding the right Posters to pollinate the Web.  That’s the heavy lifting.  One needs to be a good talent scout. Finding Posters (in your product category) before they become too big is also key. Find them on the way up, in other words.

How will you know a good Poster when you find him/her? Here are a few hints.  They are doers — they get out of the house or building. They’re creative — experimenting and solving problems in new ways. They are not shy, though their posts and content are not “me, me, me ,me” focused. They blog and have a following. They inspire respectful comments on their blogs or conent channel.

Find a good Poster in your category and learn from her/him. Don’t seek out wisdom in the crowd or hive.   Peace!

Staples on Twitter.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 staples logo

A “social” friend of mine, Julie, turned me on to a Twitter site today that kinda follows one of my best practices for commercial tweeting. It’s Staples.  I preach to clients and friends that corporate users shouldn’t just broadcast promotional info and/or respond to help questions on Twitter. Rather, they should create a persona for their Twitter presence that embodies the brand and inspires positive thought and action. Think of it as a role in a movie with a motivation. The motivation should track to the brand plan and push the brand planks.

In the case of Staples, the “tweet team” consists of five people, each with their own tag. Michelle is MO, Kevin AB, etc. This allows them to be identified and personalized, plus it shares the workload. At this point, I’m not yet sure if these people are SMEs (subject matter experts) or generalists.  It would be a smart if they had discrete areas of expertise and personalities to fit. 

Buy and Multiply.

More and more companies are hiring people to handle social media.  Some are outsourcing (stopgap), others using interns (big gap), the smart ones employ senior management who get the brand strategy.  The big promise of Twitter is not to make customers happy – one at a time – but to inspire customers to buy, share and multiply.  The key word here is inspire. Tweeters have to be engaging individuals…with personalities.  And just like in a retail setting they can’t be shills. They must be sensitive, funny and friend-like.  If you are on the receiving end of a commercial tweet you need to “feel” the company tweeter – and like her/him. The persona is key.

Staples has made a good start here, let’s see hat they do with it. Peace on Haiti.

Social Media Strategy.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

paste brush

On the Web everybody has the opportunity to be a spokesperson.  It’s how you use this fact that determines a marketing program’s efficacy. 

What’s the Idea? readers know that unlike Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, who in their excellent book Groundswell suggest 6 different social computing profiles (creators, critics, collectors, etc.), I focus on only two: Posters and Pasters.  Posters are spokespeople.  Pasters amplify them.  Posters write about products, services and trends. Pasters share those links.  Posters have followings, influencing people they don’t know. Pasters have link buddies, most of whom they do know.   

Taking advice from someone you know or with credentials you trust is and has long been the key to successful commerce. If that advise is well-crafted and convincing, so much the better. That is why targeting Posters with your social media effort is a business-winning strategy.

Social Media Briefs

Good social media programs target Posters, but are considerate of Pasters. Writing a brief for a social program, my targeting takes account of both. For the Poster the idea has to be salient selling. For the Paster it just has to make them a trusted, fun and/or thoughtful poker (to steal a word from Facebook.)  If the brief can not accomplish both, then don’t force the Paster side of the equation, let it be.

On TV, you can pick your spokespeople. On the web you can’t.  Simplify your brand claim, make the proof points powerful and memorable, and manage it. Don’t poop out an off-strategy message in the hope that consumers will turn into creative directors. Peace!

Coke. Ideas vs. Menus

By
Steve Poppe
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0

coke and bottle logo

It may date this blogger, but I still believe Coca-Cola is one of the world’s greatest brands.  At McCann-Erickson in the 90s when the editing floors echoed with the best commercial music extant, Coke’s TV spots were the envy of the business. Then the tea and water craze came about, sales slipped and agency roulette began. Frankly, it had a severe impact on the McCann brand, but that’s a story for another day.

One of Coke’s big pushes today, to lift all Coke brands (Sprite, Minute Maid, Vitamin Water, Honest Tea, etc.), is promoting all the good it does.  Many of these efforts can be found at the “Live Positively” website.  The site has about 90 different links and, though pretty, is a disorganized mess. Too much to choose from, therefore I choose not to choose. The beauty about good advertising is, done well, it tells a simple story.  That goes for websites too. Brand sites need to be “idea based” not “menu based.”

I was reading the paper paper today and after many stories about the devastating earthquake in Haiti, came across 3 consecutive ads by Coke on its good work for Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Student Scholarships, and Rails to Trails.  Nice image burnishing communications.  But menu based advertising. 

Before Coke split into 20 companies, with 500 marketing people in siloed, still-to-be-organized departments, someone smart would have said “Let’s load up one of our planes with Coke and Dasani and fly it down to Port au Prince with some ice.”  That’s “living positively.” That’s an idea. That’s refreshing. Peace!

Detroit and Green Tech

By
Steve Poppe
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0

toyota ft-ch

 

I have been pissing vinegar for years about Detroit’s mishandling of the America car business.  Having recently been on a behemoth cruise ship I can say they aren’t that hard to turn around. (They go pretty fast.)  Back in 2006-2007, I remember reading about the billion dollars losses in De-twah and thinking someone has got to make the tough call and design an energy saving, green tech automobile.  It’s called vision.

Two bankruptcies later, the Detroit Auto Show has finally begun to inch forward. Hybrid penetration is 2% in the states but finally the talk at the show is that the  stand-alone internal-combustion engine’s reign is over. 

I met a tech space angel investor last night and asked if he was looking into any deals in green tech.  He said it wasn’t his sweetspot so “not really.”  Well, green tech can’t be too many people’s sweet spot today, but it needs to be.   If this recession has taught us anything, it is that we need to start producing “stuff.”  And green tech stuff is what can lead America out of its current production malaise. I’m no Barack, but as the kids say “like, like, like, like, like duh.”

Detroit will be the initial driver of our green tech revolution, but sadly 5 years too late. Peace!

A Touching New Book. Marketing With Meaning.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

marketing with meaning

“The idea to have an idea is often more important than the idea itself” is favorite piece of advice I received as a kid in the business.

The book I just finished, Bob Gilbreath’s Marketing with Meaning, reminds me of this quote.  Mr. Gilbreath, chief marketing strategist at Bridge Worldwide, dispenses lots of good advice and some spectacular case studies in the book’s pages, but the “idea to have the idea” in Marketing with Meaning is the call to arms that we need to stop broadcasting one-way messaging at consumers. The idea here is that we all must do the hard, thoughtful work upfront soasto uncover rich consumer insights that will drive meaningful customer response. Everyone talks about customer touch points today.  Mr. Gilbreath talks about TOUCHING customers.

Let’s face it, everyone want ads, websites, direct response and promotions with meaning, but in reality we often don’t deliver. Creating marketing with meaning is hard work.  This book is the trailmap.  I was especially smitten by Mr. Gilbreath’s suggestion that organizations team up on marketing problems, using people from different disciplines and backgrounds. Serendipity is very freeing. (And don’t include people who report to one another, he suggests.)   

Measurement

Mr. Gilbreath also suggests new ways to measure marketing success.  They 3 legs of the stool are engagement (Did the consumer do something?), meaning (Did the communication provide positive value?) and marketing (Did a sale or predisposition to sale result?).  Many marketers care only about sales, but the two additional measures show a refreshing sensitivity toward the consumer.

The other thing I liked about this book is that it elevates the idea and recognizes its roll in delivering sales.  Many agencies have tried to charge for their ideas rather than their time hoping to increase revenue upside. I suspect Mr. Gilbreath’s process and art + science approach gets us one step closer.  And, as he says in his closing pages, all practitioners of marketing, selling and advertising long for the day when we move up the respectability ladder and put some distance between ourselves and lawyers and politicians. That, too, is an idea. Peace!

Worldwide Pricing.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Last week I posted about a concept called worldwide inventory which suggested, king of search, Google will catalog, index and make searchable most things for sale.  When people or companies have things for sale and other people or companies are shopping for those things only time and distance keep them apart.  If Google removes these obstacles search takes on a new dimension – a breakthrough business dimension.  The technology hiccup lies in the inability of inventory data to be captured, a problem I suggested might be solved by barcodes.  Is this a business opportunity for Motorola (Symbol Technologies) or PayPal?

Taking a closer look at worldwide inventory one realizes that worldwide pricing is the real key. As mentioned last week, an US$11,000 hip replacement in Mexico city (including airfare) for someone without insurance is compelling because of the price – so, this next generation of commercial search needs a database component that allows search by price.  Once the world’s products are inventoried and priced, the web will find serious monetization.   And, oh, there will be an app for that. Peace!

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