Monthly Archives: March 2011

Brand Strategy Trumps Formula.

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When is faster not faster?  And when does modular, formulaic construction create an inferior product?   The answer is in marketing communications. Here’s how this shizz should work.  After all the money discussions are complete, after the bosses shake hands, and proprietary company information is exchanged, someone with strategic  bone at an agency should write a brief.   Brand brief, creative brief, project brief, call it what you will. If there is not a strategic idea within the brief that feels right (and I do mean feel), that inspires pictures and music in the heads of the creators and developers, then the brief is poor and should be rewritten.

Time to market.

Once a brief is right and approved (and be prepared for some fighting, fear and diplomacy), only then should creative work begin. A tight brief is the fastest way to good work. For those who like metrics, a tight brief gets to approved work faster.  Approved work gets produced faster. Produced work gets seen faster. And organized, singular work – be it banner, website, promotion, direct, promotion or advertising – gets acted upon by consumers faster.

Where the system breaks down is when the strategic idea is unclear. As creators of marketing deliverables become more process focused and less idea focused, as they become more formula driven, the work suffers. Formula replaces the cerebral cortex when creators are uninspired.  I wrote a brief for a friend’s commercial maintenance company that took some real digging.  The brief likened his operation to that of a team of Navy Seals.  That’s who they were.  That’s who they will be. The company is  “fast, preemptive and fastidious.” That’s a plan creators can get behind – without formula or module. That’s brand design. Peace.

ADD-ification of America

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Sally Hogshead declaimed yesterday at TEDxAtlanta that we have the attention span of about 9 seconds when it comes to marketing.  I believe she also mentioned a neurological study that suggested our brains are evolving so as to better process multiple pieces of information at once.  Being an evolutionist, I would have to agree but add that the effects of that evolution will probably not be seen unto the year 20,010.

Personally, I cannot read a whole article in the NY Times paper paper anymore without checking the web or email and I haven’t even bit the bullet and bought a smart phone yet, which is so in my future.   Last night over a beer with GetMurphy@yahoo.com, I mean my friend John Murphy, he offered up sheepishly that there are actually times when he might go off the grid for 3 straight hours to work – he’s a creative director at Millennium Communications.  (Did you know stevepoppe.com is an available URL?)

I’ve referred to this, as have many, as the ADD-ification of America.  Is it bad? Yes and no.  Is it good? Yes and no.  It just is. I read a Tweet this morning by someone who works for MDC Partners who mentioned that in the course of walking two blocks he saw 3 people walk into immovable objects.

I’m a roots guy. Awaiting a modest overload backlash.  But while waiting I’m preparing for the ADD-ification of my marketing targets. I know that an email that hits a Blackberry is more likely to get trashed than one that hits the desktop. Preparation. Peace!

Ads that Jab Like a Needle.

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When first working on the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System business I thought I was going to dislike the category. Now I’m a fan.  Perhaps I was conditioned to think healthcare was bad and unexciting because the ads were so bad.   My agency,  Welch Nehlen Groome, made recommendations to North Shore to manage the brand as if a consumer packaged good: land on a strategic idea, organized it, stick to it and use the it to manage the client. The approach paid off. In our market “Setting new standards in healthcare”- a promise every healthcare provide would aspire to – was better known than “the best cancer care anywhere” the promise of Memorial Sloan Kettering.

What turned me around on healthcare was the depth and complexity of the sell. It offered very fertile ground for connecting with consumers.  If you did your homework, you could hear great stories about the human condition. Talk about finding the pain?  Stories about relationships, e.g., caregiver, doctor patient, etc. Even stories about heroism.  Then there was the science side of the storytelling.  What the docs did. The role of diagnosis, R&D, the team.  Suffice it to say a lot of info could go into the making of an ad.

The Hospital For Special Surgery ran an ad in the NY Times today that is half brilliant. The headline is “Our doctors work hard to perfect joint replacement. Our scientists work hard to prevent them.” Buried in the copy are no less than 5 awesome stories waiting to be told —  waiting to convince people to jump in their cars to go to HSS. But the stories won’t be read; the headline was either written by a tyro or a beat down writer too busy to connect. Too busy to change or save a life.  When we get advertising right in the digital age, those five stories will be linked web videos. In print, they will be underlined and printed in blue to let readers know there is multimedia attached. When we get advertising right in the digital age, we will write headlines that jab us like a needle. Peace!

The Web’s Next Big Traffic Driver.

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The evolution of web traffic started with technology. Search begat the first big rush — but of course there had to be something to search so HTML really started it all.  After search came social networks (MySpace and Facebook) which allowed people to create websites or webpages thanks to templates and databases.  Allowing everyone (not just coders) to create a web presence opened this door. Then came music sharing sites and other media upload sites like Flickr and YouTube. All technology enabled.

During the build out of these tech-enabled web sites, communities began to emerge.  And so came enthusiast sites: Tech enthusiasts, movie enthusiasts. porn devotees, daters, news junkies. Those interested in healthcare. Communities sprung up, big and small, but mostly big.

Currently, we’re on an entertainment jag, with games and virtual goods, random video chat and anime mash-ups drawing the attention of the masses and venture money. The iPazzle (technology) is creating some new applications for sure, moving everything toward a single device, but it won’t explode web traffic exponentially.

So what’s next? What human need is not being met?  When we get tired of entertainment what will we seek?  What will generate massive traffic and engagement on the web?  It will be micro-communities. Noah Brief and Piers Fawkes might call them LikeMinds. For me, I’d love to chat with kids who went to Amityville JHS, in school the day Martin Luther King was shot. Or people who saw the Allman Brothers early show at the Fillmore East in 1970 the night they shot the inside album cover. Maybe we are not like minds, but we’re like experiencers… at a certain time and place. There’s an idea for Google or Bing, the search experts. Micro communities. Peace!

Promotion and the Human Algorithm.

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The problem with appointment promotions is they don’t really build customer loyalty. When Starbucks tells you to come to the store on Thursday between 12 and 2 P.M. for a free apple fritter and they publicize it in a big newspaper ad, you have to make an appointment to go.  They’re trying to generate traffic. If you must buy a new cup of something in order to get the free fritter, it’s about product trial.  It’s not really a loyalty play because everybody can participate.  Unexpected promotions are much better for loyalty building. 

Unexpected promotions are much better, also, because they’re more social. With an unannounced promotion, especially one of the free variety, there is a wonderful surprise and feeling of serendipity. With mobile phones what they are today and our “always on” culture, free can go viral fast.  And those virused are usually best friends or most appropriate friends. 

Let’s say I go into Starbucks to order coffee and get a blueberry fritter, not my usual apple fritter. As I’m waiting online I might tweet or 4square it.  Or, text my commuting office mate.  Why would I do that?  Because I’ve been hit with a pleasant random act of kindness and I can pass it on. I’ve been recruited to be a good guy.  And Starbucks has enlisted me to curate their promotion.  I mete it out based upon who I think will enjoy it.  The human algorithm.  And, by letting “the people” promote your promotion, you can spend more money on the giveaway itself and less on advertising. Try it you’ll like it. Peace.

Politcal Punking. A sign of…

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Are NPR and PBS left-leaning?  I reckon.  As a southpaw I have tended to not notice.  But let’s remember, prior to president Obama’s election, for 8 years the government was in the hands of the republicans and it still funded PBS and NPR. 

The Schillers Affair is much ado about nothing. Vivian Schiller will be replaced by someone better in a matter of hours.  A few check writers will stop contributing and few more will take up the slack and we will move on.  

Politics as unusual.

Is there any good news in all of this?  I would say yes.  I would say that more people are beginning to take politics seriously.  More people are caring…not less.  Millennials, who know a thing about punking, are paying attention. They may not fully understand collective bargaining agreements, but they do understand what a midnight, backdoor procedural move is and understand what just happened in Wisconsin.  Ask a kid what’s going on in the Middle East and for the first time in 50 years you will get a cogent answer.  

Tip O’Neal said all politics is local. Well, for many, all politics has been quite foreign.  We have not seen the last of political punking; it’s a sign of the cultural times.  In fact, I smell a TV series created by the producers of Undercover Boss.  

The more people care, the more people debate, they more we get involved — the better our country will be. Does this mean I like what Peter King Rep of NY is doing today? WTF no!  Will I defend his right to dialogue? Yes, the Beavis.  Peace!

(Happy birthday Derek.)

Kellogg in the omelet business?

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I love social media.  I do.  It is changing the marketing landscape. Not always for the better, but that’s okay, we can learn from our mistakes.  The key is to use it. 

One of the areas in which I think social media is misused is cause marketing – specifically when paired in transmedia  programs tied to advertising and promotion.  Case in point:  In an article in yesterday’s New York Times, there was a story about the Kellogg Company getting behind a very important cause – feeding impoverished kids breakfast.  Kellogg is said to be donating $200,000 across the country to feed school kids healthy breakfasts.  Yesterday was National Breakfast Day. The cause was clearly a good one.

Where it gets a little hinky and bit forced is when Kellogg campaigns (verb) the effort and promotes a social activity called “Share your breakfast.”  For each picture of a breakfast uploaded to the Kellogg www.shareyourbreakfast.com website a breakfast will be donated to an under-served school.  The program will be promoted via traditional advertising, digital, event, mobile and the rest of the kitchen sink.  There will be a long table TV spot, free breakfasts in Grand Central Station and a bunch of agencies sharing media plans. According to Kellogg this is their largest integrated program yet. 

I truly applaud the “feed the under-served” intent, though $200,000  wouldn’t pay for half the TV spot production.  That said, the total program is a bit like an undercooked omelet prepared with a bunch of back-of-the-refrigerator ingredients.  The initial idea was a good one no doubt, but the transmedia requirement took it way off the rails.  The cause component would have been better handled as a solo PR effort. Perhaps next year will be tighter.  Peace!

Clean tech. Legs, lungs and muffin top.

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The next big thing is clean tech.  Why is it the next big thing?  Because it’s good for the planet and that’s good for mankind.  Foursquare and mobile devices are good for investors, technology companies and engineering schools but I don’t always like what I see when humans  over use technology.  Kids who keep their heads down when walking into a room full of peers, hiding in their devices, is not a good thing…unless they’re communicating with a friend in Tunisia.  But that’s a story for another day. Back to clean tech.

It’s easy to blame the automobile industry and the oil industry for messing up our planet’s future.  The simple fact is, in the U.S. we’re a driven country.  And not in an entrepreneurial way.  We drive everywhere. Mostly out of habit. We drive to the store to buy bicycle riding equipment. We drive to the health club.  We drive to the organic food store. We drive to weight watchers meetings. And we will drive to our clean tech jobs. 

Are we nucking futs?  We really are a smart country but we’re conditioned.  If we start walking, and riding and skateboarding we can begin to eradicate diabetes, circulation problems, headaches (I’m making some of this up, but go with it), sleeplessness, muffin-top and man boobs. Clean tech is coming, but let’s use out legs and lungs to get there. Peace!

4 Ps in Marketing. A lost art?

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They used to teach the 4 Ps in marketing classes: product, price, place and promotion.  The web and venture capital money have made place and price less important. Having worked at a start-up company for two years whose monthly revenue was about $8, received in the form of Google Adwords credits, I know.    

But Apple…Apple clearly is gets all 4 Ps and therein lies its success.  Let’s look at the iPazzle.  Apple launched this new technology last year and priced it to move.  By all accounts, the first iPad should have cost $1,199, but it retailed at more than half that. The basic iPad 2 is $499.  Samsung and Moto can’t come close (without carrier discounts). Apple is reported to be making 25% profit on the current price structure, but I suspect it is way less.  They are not only buying market share, they are creating the market and doing so with the low price point. As for place (distribution) they have stores, so margins aren’t shared with  Best Buy. iMarketing? Enough said. And product? First is first and design is king.  Money and a big war chest begets R&D, talent and more money.

The 4P are still relevant today and that is why Apple kicks azz. Google doesn’t get all 4 of the P and  though kids love that brand, but they will be let down by it at some point. The 15-27 year olds who love free operating systems and free software are the same kids being asked to work at internships for $50 a week.  Hope they live close to the office. Were I a twenty-something, I’d make sure “my employer got me some Ps? Peas!

Dodge Challenger Video

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I’m not a car guy.  My sister knows more about engines than I do, not that there’s anything sexist in that statement (maybe there is.)  I asked my son recently “What’s a Hemi?”  That’s the context.  But I do know advertising and marketing and have an ear for what consumers will like. And the president and CEO of Dodge, Ralph Gilles, talking about his brand and the tres cool Dodge Challenger (in this video) is a winning piece of marketing.  Shot and (perhaps?) concepted by Cobrandit’s Owen Mack, this piece made me want to go trade in my Prius for a Dodge anything. Great advertising makes you feel something, then do something.  In my case the “do” was post to the blog.

Mr Gilles is the absolute perfect salesman for this car and this brand. Just listen to him.  Not a suit, he.  Just a lover of cars and engines and Dodge and, I can tell, people who love cars.  So they will trust him. He’s black, presumably from the motor city, rocking the bald head thing, styling the clothes.  He is very videogenic. And the cars he’s showing are pulsing with power.  As is he — in a very friendly way.

I worked at McCann for a number of years when they would trot out CEOs to walk through the corporate headquarters and tell America that “the road to the future was paved with GM” or some such.  It was suits selling suity cars. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Mr. Gilles can bring back Dodge as long as the cars are good and he keeps talking to the people like this.  Get him on TV and radio.  Show these car designs, spin some Detroit magic, mint some money.  His next Job? The new US Fiats. Peace.