Ford Motor Company

By
Steve Poppe
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Ford Motor Company has tanked so badly, it is beyond understanding. By some accounts, for every car they sold in 2006, Ford lost $4,700. No genius I, but perhaps someone should have done something a little more sweeping when Ford hit the $1,000 per car mark. 
 
Marketing is still all about the 4Ps (product, price, promotion, place/distribution.)  Ford’s problem was, and is, the product. Too many SUVs, too many big trucks, and too poor car design for the family sedan. When Ford let the best selling Taurus lose market share to Toyota’s Camry, the cards were dealt. Ford will only come back when they build a new car or two that meet the needs of the consumer: small, responsive, gas efficient, youthful — and then surround it with imagination-capturing promotion (another “P”.)
 
Ford is a geezer brand, with geezer management, at a geezer ad agency. All the YouTube videos in the world aren’t going to change that.  By the time Michelangelo was 28, he had done his most exciting work.     

Strategy vs. Tactics

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Here’s what’s wrong with marketing today:  The tacticians are pushing out the strategists. 

Measure, measure, measure is taking over for common sense, sense, sense.  Big strategic branding ideas are being replaced by campaign management, ROI, and marketing metric dashboard mania.  Pay per click? Please.  Our ADD society is being fueled legions of marketing people who only see today and next quarter.  

Big branding ideas take time to build, to take hold, to burst forth from the seed. Tacticians don’t have time for that.  

Campaigns come and go but a powerful branding idea is indelible.  

GoDaddy

By
Steve Poppe
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0
Whether you agree with Bob Parsons, the CEO of GoDaddy.com, or not, you have to admire his tactics. Here’s a man who knows how to use advertising.  It is “we’re here” advertising, which in my book is lazy but people are noticing it. And they certainly know what his company does. (My PR firm, just yesterday, used GoDaddy to buy a URL.) For those unfamiliar, GoDaddy places most all of its advertising energy behind one provocative Super Bowl spot. 
 
According to Parsons, while there are over 800 domain name registry companies out there, consumers can recall the names of only two or three — GoDaddy being one of them. Though it may be a low-interest category, 10% of Americans have Web sites, so the domain name registry business it is not an un-trivial business.    
 
If I saw GoDaddy Girl on the street I wouldn’t know her from Eve, but put her in that flowing white blouse, let her stare into the camera with those pouting eyes on Super Sunday and I’m ready to register…a domain.  

Brand Planning

By
Steve Poppe
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There are two kinds of brand planner practicing today: “side view mirror” and “forward- looking.” Planners of the side view mirror variety tend to spend their time, budget, and resources finding out why people bought product in the past. This is not wasted learning, of course, but it’s only part of the story. Forward looking planners take that learning and apply it to what will sell in the future; to a selling scheme that hasn’t been done.
 
Fashion designers are “forward-looking.” They are some of the most creative people in the business world. Why?  Because they design with the future in mind. They stick their necks out predicting what will sell, not what has sold.  The marketing planners who see the future — who predict the future — are those who will win the day. 
 
The person who invented the Heely sneaker was a forward-looking planner. 

The copywriter.

By
Steve Poppe
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0
It is my opinion that the copywriter is the most important spoke in the wheel that is advertising.  I’m a big strategy guy, don’t get me wrong, and brand strategy is the fundamental building block upon all selling must take place, but the copywriter is the persuader.  The salesperson.  

Is copywriting a lost art today?  You betcha.  And it is very sad.

I forgot who once said “That’s not writing, that’s typing.” but he summed up pretty well what’s going on today in copy.  Many copywriters think their job is done when the facts are communicated. Perhaps with humor. Maybe even using the parlance of the target. Certainly with nice cadence and tempo. However, more often than not, they are not intoxicating the consumer with persuasion and truly creating disposition toward purchase.

Real copywriters can do this.  The good ones still do.  And the really good ones should be paid millions.  

Cessation

By
Steve Poppe
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0

As a kid in the advertising business I was once dressed down by McCann Erickson’s creative director for making a minor copy change to the call-to-action on an ad.  In front of the copywriter, who apparently ratted me out, I was told in no uncertain terms never to change copy.  I guess it would “f” up the art, the gestalt, the continuity.  (She was right, of course.)

Anyway, if an account manager with intimate knowledge of the client and consumer can’t couldn’t change a word or two, why in the world would we cede control over the entire message to a consumer?  Cessation of message control to consumers is going to send our already reeling business even further down the rabbit hole.  As it has with Network TV.  We’ve ceded control of TV to consumers, to a degree, by going the reality TV route.

It all will get better, but we’re in for a rocky couple of years.

Peace one (whatever that means.)

Ogilvy-ism

By
Steve Poppe
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0

One of my favorite David Ogilvy quotes is, and I paraphrase, “Our business is infected by people who have never sold a thing in their lives.”  

It is so true.  I would venture to say 80% of the advertising product out in the media today is “creative for creative’s sake.”   It’s not about communicating a unique product value, it’s about getting people to stop and pay attention. Even worse than that is what I call “We’re here!” advertising.  Basically “We’re here”! ads simply tells consumers what you sell and where to buy it. 

I can’t read the newspaper without seeing this lazy crap.  

If you find someone who really understands advertising and the craft of selling, don’t let him or her go.  They are a dying breed.

To member or not to member.

By
Steve Poppe
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0
I am with a company developing a free Web property. Our hook? It will be the fastest, easiest way to create and publish content to a Web site. One of the things that keeps me up at night is looking like all the other membership-driven Web sites. If there are members, then there are non-members and that is exclusionary. Isn’t it counter to the whole Web culture, the roots of which are tied to offering free access to information? Can you say “Open?”
 
Membership is a data-collection ploy and one designed by and for advertisers to quantify ad buys. In addition, it is also a means by which some site owners can keep information private, which is their right; but the two ideas aren’t mutually exclusive. The whole membership thing, which brings up images of velvet ropes, and gated communities, and cliques, is not right. We can make “non-membership” a competitive issue and advantage, I believe. Part of our brand. Let’s not forget, technology is copy-able, brands are not. 

Too much of a good thing?

By
Steve Poppe
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0

When I went to see Borat a few weeks ago I was underwhelmed. I love the character and his wonderfully zany impolitic viewpoint. (With in-laws from the south, it would have been nice had he not picked on that region so, but that’s life. What’s the word for a northern red neck?)

So why was I underwhelmed? YouTube. So many of the fun bits had appeared on video sharing and media sites that most if the movie wasn’t first run for me. If movie studios keep letting this over-saturation happen it will hurt their numbers at the box office. Trust me. 

Movie studios need to let content out in drips, not open the faucets.

Heroes

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Not the TV show. Marketing and advertising heroes. One of my favorite interview techniques when hiring is to ask the question “Who are your advertising and/or marketing heroes?” Especially for tyro candidates. It shows me to what degree they are really students of the art.

Lately, I have to admit, it might be hard for me to answer that question. If pressed, however, I would offer up David Droga. That guy is a thinker. He sticks his neck out and puts real wood behind the arrow. He will help change our business for the better. Can’t wait to meet him.

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