Brand Planning Tools

    Brand Planning Interview Techniques.

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    Learning is at the center of everything good.  Teaching doesn’t always get the same rap.  Where would we be without teachers?  Not in a good place. There must be teachers.

    I worked for a company that enlightened me about learning. My job was to organize the selling of leaning tools, be they technological or pedagogical, and it really warmed me to the difference between teaching and learning – how they are perfectly and imperfectly intertwined

    Brand planners are attuned to learning. They take to it like ants to peanut butter and jelly samiches. Interviewing SMEs (subject matter experts), company captains and consumers in true learning mode really lights up the exchange.  Note taking and quiet keyboard clicking makes for a short, dull interview. Smiles, thoughtful questions, stories, and engagement make the time fly. Even when you ask a goofy or counterintuitive question — if done as an eager learner, it can enhance the experience. And try not to teach the teacher. Be Socratic in your method. You can challenge observations or highlight contradictions, but do so with that dog-like “Where’s the ball?” gaze.

    Brand planners who are devout learners, who don’t enter a room with answers, are the ones who turn on the lights. The ones who create illumination. It may be steady, sporadic or rocky, but it is illumination. Puh-eace!   

     

    Brand Planning. The Clarity Cure.

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    claim and proof

    In meetings I love to say “I am a simple man.”  Not sure how much good it does me, but it is me nonetheless. My whole brand planning shtick is tied to the simplification of branding. Readers know that means a brand plan is One Claim, Three Planks. The claim is not a tagline, it’s the strategy that drives business. The planks are the array of proof that give consumers permission to believe the claim. Simply put, a brand plan is a coming together of what consumers want most and what a brand does best. Period.

    I love brand planners, but some are so wound up in inside baseball terms and theory, they lose sight of the goal: Creating an idea in the mind of consumers that predisposes (and post-disposes) them to a sale.

    A brand plan is an upstream thing. Once done, all the follow-on expression of the plan – the tactics – need to be planned as well.  And that, too, is the provenance of the planner. However in all of my travels in the space, I’ve yet to come across one SlideShare presentation, one Plannersphere deck, one Planning Salon video, one Planningness talk that simplifies the upstream brand plan into this 1+3 recipe. So either I’m tripping or we haven’t found the clarity cure yet.  

    One claim, three planks is the cure, he said humbly. Peace!

     

    Brand Planning Tips

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    merle haggard

    So I was listening to Merle Haggard yesterday and the old coot was doing a duet with Jewel and, by God, he changed his vocal treatment – his voice — on the song. It was Merle but he was trying to impress her, trying to woo her. Men! There was a gentleness to his voice that you won’t hear in most of his tunes. The tone send a message. So I’m thinking if he can change his tone and impart different meaning, sub rasa meaning, so can the rest of us. Why not use it as a brand planning tool?  So I’m playing around with an interview technique that will prompt interviewees to answer questions in various voice types. You know the voice you use when someone is confiding tragic personal news to you? Or the voice used to encourage a child who needs support? Have you a sexy voice? The key is to get the interviewee to use a topic-appropriate voice in an interview to impart greater meaning.  To do so you have to put them in a zone; coach them like an acting coach. Get them to a place where they are feeling an emotion then get them to answer your question, truthfully, but that particular voice.

    Try it, I certainly will. Peace.

     

    A Brand Test for CEOs.

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    Here’s one way to see if your company has a brand plan.  Summon department leaders and one random dept. employee into the conference room on a Monday morning. Ask each of them to create a PPT presentation describing the company mission in twelve pages — no more, no less. Make sure they explain what the company Is and what the company Does. (Here referred to as the Is-Does.)  Ask them to report back by 1 P.M., where sandwiches will be served and the work reviewed as a group.

    As with any research, offer up that there are no right or wrong answers and grades will not be issued. 

    Companies with strong brand cultures will share presentations containing similar organizational structure and language.  The other 92% will be a mash-up. What will they mash up?  Learnings from category-leading brands. Things they recall reading in the trade press and news.  A little bit of personal aspiration, maybe some lyrics from the company PR boiler plate and, likely, some CEO language. A doggy’s dinner as Fred Poppe might have said.

    In companies with tight brand plans, every employee knows what business they’re in. They can articulate what products are sold, what customers care about and the business-winning goals. These are business fundies. This is strategy.  It’s worth sharing with employees.  

    Try this brand plan test out and see what can be learned about from a few simple PPT sides. Peace.

    Deeds

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    Many pop marketing discussions today revolve around narrative. Campaigns are bought and sold based on the word. Agencies hired and fired. Social media has cornered the market on brand narrative.  I like the word, in fact.  It’s a much better word than “sell.”  In fact. my brand planning rigor is steeped in narrative.  But it’s over as a selling mechanism…ish.

    Deeds are the new narrative.  Old schoolers might call it “putting your money where your mouth is.” Story tellers tell stories. Leaders use deeds.  What are deeds? Tangibles. Things. Actions. Hands on stuff. Story tellers sit about the camp fire.  Deedists, make the campfire.

    A soldier with lots of medals on the uniform has performed not chronicled. A marketer with a claim and lots of proof to back it up is a marketer whom narrators can get behind.  Similar to my Posters vs. Pasters opine – target the Posters, the Paster will follow – marketers should concern themselves with the deeds and leave the narrative to others.  Puh-eace!

    Deeds vs. Materials.

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    The early Egyptians built with stone and what they built still stands. Shea Stadium was built in the 60s and had to be torn down. It was built with steel and cement. If you were to build a structure today that you wanted to last for 1,000 years what would you use? Perhaps someone will invent a new composite material for building construction that will last 500,000 years.

    The materials with which we construct products – sugar in carbonated soft drinks, salt in French fries, silicon in computer chips – are seen as building blocks of brands. Yet, when I develop brand strategy (1 claim, 3 proof planks) the materials are secondary, perhaps tertiary. What the materials deliver is way more important.

    During my exploration rigor I use a number of tools to mine insights as to “what customers want most” and what the product or service “does best.” Then with all the learning arrayed, I begin to boil down the elements into groups. The groups cluster and point to a common claim…of brand superiority or customer desire. So proof, in fact, comes before claim.

    Rarely are materials the sole heroes of the proof planks; deeds and experiences often are. It may sounds backwards but it works for me.

    Peace.          

                

     

    Brand(ed) Utility.

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    Branded Utility has a number of definitions in the marketing world. In my world it is more than simply a branded public service; it’s something that moves a customer closer to a sale or position of greater loyalty.

    Ingmar de Lange did a neat presentation on Brand Utility, but we are not always on the same page.  Nokia providing a quiet room on city streets for mobile callers is nice, even with a big logo on the door, but it’s not uniquely Nokia.  MasterCard providing an ATM finder phone app is helpful but not uniquely MasterCard. 

    A branded utility, to me at least, is one that no one else can offer.  Users need to plug into the product or service grid of the marketer a for a utility to be truly branded — to use an electricity metaphor.  Simply slapping a logo on something useful and making it free is lazy.  It may be less lazy than a poor boast and claim ad but we can certainly do better.

    I once suggested that Ben Benson give away golf umbrellas to customers of his expensive steak house caught unprepared on rainy days.  Branded utility. Why was it unique? Because the customers were at Ben’s.  When thinking about branded utility ask yourself “Has the usefulness of the gift or a value made the customer more committed?”  Or just similarly committed? If the answer is more, then the investment was worth it.  Peace!

    Brand Planning Tools.

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    I was watching a couple of guys doing some residential construction recently and notice one was predrilling holes through a two by four while the second guy followed, drilling a longer hole through the wood into some concrete. One hole, two men, two drills.

    It seemed like a duplication of effort that may have been corrected with one heavier duty, all-purpose drill. It made me wonder about tools and the construction industry.  And how many labor hours are lost to improper tools. This is not just a construction problem but an American work problem.

    So it goes with brand planning too.

    Are brand planners using the right tools to get to master brand strategy? Are they being efficient? Is the work product accurate? And when I say accurate I mean, does it truly predispose consumers to purchase?

    All brand planners have tools. They have terms for their tools. They have processes. And presentation flowcharts. And briefs. But are they the right tools?  Are they meaningful?

    Before you hire a brand planner, ask to see and have then discuss their tools. Have them take you through their process. Understand the logic of the tools. Don’t just assume the tools are effective.

    One of may favorite interview questions, used to evaluate new hires, is “Tell me about some processes and practices you came up with at your last job to make things work better.” Tools.  Tools build brands.

    Too see some brand planning tools uses at What’s The Idea?, write Steve@WhatsTheIdea.com

    Peace.