Swimming With the Tide.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

When meeting with a new client, one should not jump right into the water and evaluate pricing, distribution and promotion — not without first understanding the product. If you begin with the first three components of marketing without fully understanding he product/service, you’re likely to observe, form insights and think about suggestions based upon “generic” category understandings.

Generic category information is what consumers default to, it’s what they believe about your product if they don’t know you.  You are simply a product swimming in the tide of public opinion.

It is imperative, I repeat, it is imperative, to fully understand the product before forming any sort of suggestion about marketing.  It’s a strategy first, tactics last approach.  

Brand strategy is about differentiation. It’s about positioning around heightened value. It is about proving that value with every breath. With every dollar. Mic drop.

Swimming with the marketing tide does not make you Tide. It makes you menhaden.  (How’s that for a mixed metaphor?)

Peace.

 

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Too Much To Chew.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Elon (Do I need to write his last name?) is definitely a smart dude. Politics aside, he may really transform Twitter in a positive way.  But I have a couple of bones to pick with his efforts over the last few days.  One, the rename.  X is not ownable.  It’s not language-friendly.  It’s a letter, not a word. Or name. The second issue I have is the so-called positioning: the everything app. When you are everything, you are really nothing. Been there, done that with a start-up called Zude.

Maybe you can become the everything app — you just can’t position around it.  Let the people make that distinction.  The iPhone was the everything device but it wasn’t positioned as such. Or named as such. That was some serious restraint in branding.

I love Twitter. To borrow a quote from Thomas Friedman, Twitter (or X) makes the world flat. But it is a communication device, with amazing search aptitude. If it becomes payment app, fine. But this?…

“X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities,” Linda Yaccarino, X CEO

It’s a chaotic position. Tech companies and tech entrepreneurs often bite off too much.  This is another case. And you can X me on that.

Peace.

 

Strategy or Brand Strategy. Hmmm.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

When I’m on a roll – and it’s not often, thanks to PCMS (Post Covid Malaise Syndrome), everything I see and read in the news is viewed through a strategic lens. It’s, as the kids would say, strategy fire. Today, for instance, it started with a glance about  a NYT piece on the speed with which Nokian Tyre’s changed manufacturing strategy.  With climate change, geopolitical results-driven planning and change. And they realize quick change is better than sluggish change. The new environment is the catalyst of this change, but strategy the driver.

Notice I didn’t use the word brand one time in that paragraph.

The brandscape was kind enough to teach me my craft yet the word “brand” diminishes what I do for a living. When I position around brand, it sounds cool, trendy and au courant, but it’s not a wining communications value. No one wakes up in the morning thinks brand strategy is the business answer.

When I think about it I am really a strategist.  I find business-winning values, actions, tasks (read: strategies) that add money to the top line and bottom line. My work doesn’t feed the ad agency. It feeds the business and everyone in it.  Which then feeds the consumer.

When Nokia Tyre decided to open a manufacturing plant in Hungary because of the war in Ukraine, they weren’t, per se, using a strategic road map or what I like to call “an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.” They were looking purely at supply chain, cost of business, security, ROI timetable and investment strategy. They were blocking and tackling.  Had they an organizing principle of values to drive all decisions, before they met to solve the many layered challenges, their “time-to-solve” would have been faster and more organized. And, honestly, it was quite fast to begin with.

Strategy would have sped up the process.

For examples of how my strategy based upon proof has worked for other companies, write Steve at WhatsTheIdea.

Peace.

 

ESG and Brand Strategy.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) values are smart pathways for successful contemporary businesses. They are NOT, in my opinion, values belonging in a brand strategy. Not as such. Perhaps tangentially, as in a brand value may give you credit for being an environmentally friendly company, but not explicitly. Being ESG focused is the price of entry today. In brand work you want your values to be more endemic.  Built on customer care-abouts and brand good-ats. Not values universal to other companies. So, as “fresh ingredients” are important to a Thai restaurant, they are also important to a French restaurant. Not a good brand value.  And, the fact that they hire LGBT+ people, though important and critical to the culture and even food, it’s better to dig more deeply into the food and people for values. There is always something there – something unique to your brand.

So to recap, ESG good for business, not brand building. Not today. Being different is the key to branding. Being the same is the key to manufacturing.

Peace.

 

 

I’m Still Cormac-in’.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

“I’ve been a full-time professional writer for 28 years and I’ve never received a royalty check. That, I’ll betcha, is a record.” Cormac McCarthy, 1987

If you don’t know Cormac you don’t know Jack (Casady).  Cormac is a great American author who toiled mightily until he won a Pulitzer in literature. He didn’t make any money doing what he loved until later in life — something I can appreciate. Not that I haven’t made any money as a brand planner, but I really haven’t cashed in on this blogging thing. Well over 3000 brand strategy blog posts later and I can actually attribute a couple hundred dollars, 3 dinners and a massage to my blog.  All from the same engagement.

As with Cormac, I keep typing. I keep sharing. And I keep creating.  Not sure a Pulitzer is in my future, but maybe an Effie or a 4As Account Planning Award.

If you do what you love, you win. I love brand strategy. And as Cormac might have said “I ain’t dead yet.”

Peace be upon you.

PS. Welcome to the world Ruby.

 

 

Benefit Shoveling.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

What do you do?

It’s a question that bounces back and forth at cocktail parties, breweries and work events.  There are a couple of ways to answer: a short form, couple-of-word answer, or go in-depth. In branding, I always encourage the former. Hit them with the Is-Does. What a brand product Is and what it does.

Brands communicators don’t always follow this advice.  They think they need to sell and explain by the pound or by the word. It can leave audiences confused and/or fatigued. Good creative directors know this. They tell a simple story with a beginning, middle and end. A so-called narrative. Problem is, that narrative isn’t often based upon brand strategy.  (Post for another time.)

So back to simple. Was it Benjamin Franklin who said (I paraphrase)  “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter?” 

Marketing is made simple through brand strategy.  It’s objective driven. It provides proof of value. It’s measurable. And it leaves consumers with a gravity or gravitas constructed on care-abouts and good-ats.  It is the oppo of benefit shoveling, a meme I like to share which is the bane of marketers worldwide.

Brand strategy, it’s what’s for dinner.

Peace  

 

 

Influencers and SMEs.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I ran across a LinkedIn post yesterday, the topic of which was Creatorpreneurs — defined as content creators who make money. I’ve been around the web for many years working with AT&T data services during the Pleistocene so I’ve seen some evolution and trends. As an ad person working in telecommunications, getting smarter in technology required asking a lot of questions, reading a lot of literature and following smart people (SMEs- subject matter experts.)  In the early days that meant face-to-face and phone communications and reading a lot of trade magazines. But seeking out, following and communicating with smart people was how it was done.

With the advent of social media SMEs have given way to Influencers. Influencers may be pretty. Handsome. Funny. They may simply have access to SMEs. Or they may be good writers or video editors. They give advice. Sometimes shallow and paid-for advice. It’s a living. Creatorpreneurs.

Well, it’s gotten out of hand and some recent research backs me up.  When a person’s qualifications to advise is not based on their knowledge but the number of their followers we are getting off-piste. Learning from the web can be great (Khan Academy) but it can also be silly (bad AI).  The world needs more sharing from SMEs, less sharing from Influencers. SMEs make the world go round. Influencers make the party go round.

In the business world get you some SME.

Peace.

 

 

 

Nowhere Land.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

My new go-to podcast on branding is Fergus O’Carroll’s On Strategy. (He is my second favorite Fergus. RIP Fergus O’Daly.) One of Mr. O’Carroll’s latest podcasts in on PBR aka Pabst Blue Ribbon. Great brand name. Great brand name acronym.

It takes millions of mouths to create a market. Mine is only one but personally I’m not a fan of PBR.  Let’s just leave it at that. That said, the beer has ridden a wave of positive sales in “hipster” urban areas over the last 15 years. Good price, good targeting. Stars aligned.  But the craft beer phenomenon has conditioned the market toward more flavorful beers and PBR has suffered. Enter the brand planners.

Mr. O’Carroll interviewed two planners from DNA, Seattle who shared three key values unearthed during three brand discovery: Value, Classic and Nostalgia. In other words, it’s affordable, it’s a venerable, recognized brand, and it harkens back to the good old days of beer drinking. The only endemic value of the three here is value/cheap — which honestly, is an important value. But we all know as perceptions of inexpensive go up, perceptions of quality go down. So one needs a balance. Especially with endemic values.

The advertising claim that resulted from the three values is “Pabst is the place.” The problem with this campaign line/claim/strategy is that it lives in nowhere land. “Sitting in his nowhere land. Making all his nowhere plans for nobody.”  “Classic” and “Nostalgia” are inputs for advertising tone, not brand strategy.  Brand strategy incites great advertising. Brand strategy values — or proof planks, as I like to call them — must support the claim.

Peace.

 

 

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I posted earlier this week that I don’t take direction when doing a master brand strategy. That may sound controversial, even dick-ish, but it’s why clients hire me.  If they could do it themselves, they wouldn’t need outside counsel.

Back in the 80s when diagnosed with depression, I didn’t know I was depressed.  I was having dizzy spells and my body was sending signals my brain didn’t pick up. A psychiatrist had to convince me.  You don’t know, what you don’t know.  If more people knew about the power of brand strategy they would be on board.  But brand owners/business owners and especially SMB chiefs think they know everything there is to know about their business. They do know lots of stuff.  But that doesn’t translate into brand strategy.  That translates into the “Fruit Cocktail Effect.” (Google it.) A common brand killer.

Brand strategy is very delicate. Very compartmentalized. Arty. And reduced. A brand that is all things to all people is not a brand. Ads, Promotions, Packaging, Search Terms ungoverned by brand strategy are a waste of air and money.  As are any other unfettered marketing dollars.  Investments supporting a brand strategy (a boiled down set of good-ats and care-abouts”) is money well spent. Money in search of return.

Peace be upon Veterans and veteran families this Memorial Day.

 

 

Client Direction. No Thanks.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I’m a fan of Sweathead, the brand-centric consultancy of Mark Pollard.  He does what I do but way more publicly. We’re likeminds I think.  In a missive today about ChatGBT he mentioned brand planners have a problem when clients provide a lack of clear direction.  He wrote:

“Strategists may struggle when clients or stakeholders provide vague or inconsistent guidance, making it challenging to develop effective strategies.” 

This seems very sound advice. In fact, I recently read somewhere that this a potential weakness of AI — the AI response is only as good at the question posed. Again, sensible.

Interestingly though, in my work, I don’t care if a client provides clear direction. When doing master brand strategy, I’m not looking for direction.  First, I follow the money. Then I interview key stakeholders, happy customers, SMEs and maybe the disaffected (if I can find them). We talk. I query, I follow the threads and look for anything resembling “proof of quality.”  The word direction doesn’t come up. 

What comes out of the sausage maker when all the info is gathered, assembled, boiled down and repatriated? That’s direction. Direction in the form of an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging. The definition of brand strategy.

Peace.

 

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