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    brand planning insights

    A moment of reflection…about selling.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    One of the cool things about being a brand planner, probably not unlike being a psychotherapist, is being a student of man. Though I am not looking for maladaptive behaviors as does the psychotherapist I am looking for behaviors. All types. By doing so, I’m always learning. When on the clock, I’m learning about behaviors contributory to commerce in a specific business category, but when off the clock, I’m learning about human nature. Always learning.

    I’ve been a painter, a waiter, and ad guy and a couple two tree (sic) other things, but brand planner and constant learner has to be the best. And when you can share what you’ve learned to help people, it’s among the best feelings on earth. The fact that brand planners help sell things shouldn’t minimize the job. When working on a elemental nutrition formula for infants with eating allergies and observing “a mother is never more protective than of an infant in distress,” the goal was helping, not selling. In my presentation “Social media guard rails,” one of the first slides is about this point. Help, don’t sell.

    The best brand plans help; the result is selling. Words to plan by. Peace.

     

     

    Targets and Insights.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    One of the tools I use in brand planning is the brand brief. It’s a document that tells a serial story leading to the “idea” or what I call the brand claim. The end of the brief outlines three proof planks that give life too the claim. Most brand planners have their own briefs.

    An important part of the brief is the target. Getting into the head of the target(s) helps you connect. It helps you create a message that resonates and fires off the preference synapses.

    I like to give my targets a name…something catchy, not demographic. One such target, written for assisted home healthcare company, was named Captains of the Castle. The product was an acute geriatric care service, costing a good deal more than typical insurance would cover. The target was high net worth individuals. The name played off of captains of industry, which many of the patients were, and also the expression “A man’s home is his castle.” 

    Sadly, for Captains of the Castle, men and women of means used to having their way, assisted home care is really quite the opposite. They tended to be people who have often lost control of their mobility and other faculties. Quite a change in status. The brand claim “individuals require highly individualized care” spoke to this friction. The friction between control and loss of control.  In this case the key brand insight came from the target. Insights can come from anywhere in the brief. Insights are the lifeblood of the brand plan.

    Peace.

     

     

    Outside Baseball.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Get a bunch of brand planners in a room, say at one of Faris Yakob’s beer drinking meetups, and they’ll likemind the shit out of each other.  Similarly, create an event among Mark Pollard’s Sweathead listeners and everyone will speak the brand planner patois. Brand planners will share tools, stories, cases and tricks at the drop of a hat, yet to most business people it’s all inside baseball.

    The primary problem for freelancers and consultant brand planners is no one outside our sphere really gets what we do. (We are partly to blame, due to lack of intelligible frameworks.) More to the point, there is not a lot of pend-up demand for what we do. In small and mid-size businesses nobody is talking brand strategy. Brand maybe, but not strategy. And at Fortune 2000s only a shot-glass full of people understand brand strategy – and the CEO typically isn’t one of them.

    So we are selling something that is not easily understood and not in demand – not prerequisites for VC funding if you ask me. So how do we respond?  We continue to talk to each other.

    No more. This blog has been about talking inside baseball to believers. I am now going to start targeting and contenting (word?) non-believers. Once I explain to small and mid-size companies how brand strategy (claim and proof array) will improve company efficiency, reduce wasted time, make marketing more productive and accountable, I’m likely to gain their ear.

    My new goal. Outside baseball.

    Peace.

     

     

    Insight Beasts.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    There is an interview question I use when hiring, “What is your art?”  It’s a broad question and certainly open for interpretation, but therein lies its beauty. Asking the question of myself, I’d have to say my art is uncovering and romancing consumer insights.

    Back in the day, when trying to learn from brand planning leaders, I’d send out emails asking for exploratory interviews using my “ear” as the bait. I’d write something to the effect that like a dog who hears high pitch sounds humans can’t, I can sit in a meeting or consumer interview and hear insights most don’t. A super power. Hey, it got me meetings.

    Today, it’s still about the ear. My day job is vacuuming up information, usually on the phone or face-to-face. Always prompted by a set of preplanned questions but also following trails laid by interviewee’s answers. An engaged listener is a good listener.  But at the end of the exploration — when all interviews are complete, all data collected, and the boil-down done – the insights left on the table are the fuel that becomes the brand strategy. The care-abouts. The good-ats.

    Planners must be insight beasts. Otherwise they’re simple hunters and gatherers.

    Peace.

     

     

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