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    Elon-ovation?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I don’t know enough about hydrogen cars to state that the pursuit of the technology is brilliant or silly. I do know that when Elon Musk calls hydrogen powered cars “silly” from a podium a podium at the Detroit Car Show, it feels like business as usual. For Detroit. Mr. Musk is nothing if not an innovator. Innovators get to make business decisions. That’s fine. But how dare Mr. Musk pooh-pooh a competing technology — a competing transportation innovation.  It smacks of protectionism.

    In addition to the silly comment, Mr. Musk offered this “If you are going to pick an energy storage mechanism, hydrogen is a dumb one.”  More than most people, he should know the “idea to have an idea is often better than the idea itself.” Belittling innovation is not something I would expect from the CEO of Tesla. (Also the CEO of SpaceX.)

    So let’s all keep innovating our way to fatter asses and bloated arteries and put a car on every keychain. Doh! Peace.

    A few shekels for Ed Tech.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    A couple of years ago I was bitten by the education bug. After spending time learning about ed tech and the ways it was being used to help students learn, I came to the conclusion that proper pedagogy is a fundamental to educational improvement; also, that no two students are alike in terms of their learning ability, attention levels and motivation. (Something I’ve applied to marketing and branding, but that’s a story for another time.)

    Technology is a huge enabler of learning, once we get the pedagogy right. And so, I was quite please to read in yesterday’s NYT that venture capitalists are investing heavily in education. And where there’s money, there is innovation. I have a deck from a couple of years ago, the first bullet is which reads something to the effect that “there has been very little in the way of innovation in K12 education over the past 50 years. Chalkboard –> film projector–> overhead slides–>interactive whiteboard.

    Now we have a new class of education-minded developers creating software tools, real time testing and assessment devices, and course-specific learning modalities the likes of which we’ve never seen. Too cool for school!

    And I love that there is a goal for all of this innovation. Not the goal of ad revenue and eyeballs. Not the goal of creating friends or sharing pictures. The goal is to improve learning — the most human of traits. ‘bout time. Peace.  

    Let’s Rid Twitter of the Effluvia.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    One of the criteria I use for deciding whether to follow someone on Twitter is the degree to which they post original content. If they tend to repost or point to others’ content I tend to stay away. In other words, I favor Posters over Pasters. For me, Twitter reflects a person, place or thing’s personality. Capturing passions, sentiments, humorous moments, or likes and dislikes in 140 characters, is a wonderful way to experience people.

    Done poorly, Twitter is a bunch of people pointing to other people’s stuff. It may be well-meaning but it’s still curation. Any time I look at someone’s feed and see numbers, as in “7 rules for…” or “the 4 best places…,” I know I am in Paster land. Pasters think they are making us smarter. Pasters think they are helping us with our careers. Pasters think we’ll buy their pasta because we’re “friends.” Nuh uh.

    Twitter is the fastest way to get to know someone. Bar none. (Great HR people know this.) But not if that someone is pasting other’s content. That’s effluvia. Peace.

    Coke and the Tech Sector.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Sales of Coca-Cola’s flagship product, the carbonated sugary drink we know a Coke, dropped 3.5% last quarter; proof you can’t go against a cultural tide of healthier living and expect sales to hold forever. Coke’s parent has been doing a great job of diversifying its portfolio the last 10 years by adding juices, milk-based protein drinks, waters and energy drinks. Even with the tide receding for flagship Coke, earnings have been surprisingly okay. Looks like that is not the case anymore.

    If you follow the tech sector as I do, you will know that product innovation can completely change markets is 3-5 years. The beverage sector has lots of innovations, according to Beverage Digest, but they are really incremental. Coconut water, craft beer, energy concoctions, and cold pressed juices are nice ways of redistributing marketing wealth, but haven’t fueled the big ass innovations we’ve seen in tech.

    Coke needs to think differently. I’ve posted before about how they need to send R&D people into the jungles in search of the next cola nut…something with healthy properties. But Coke also needs to think about pricing and delivery. Why 12 oz. cans? Why cans and bottles? Why not explode the price point for a six pack? How about an annual subscription fee? Coke’s head is so tied up in its bottler arrangements, distribution networks, store detailers, fountain business it can’t think like an agile start-up. Sure they can buy 49% of the next Honest Tea, but can they be the next SnapChat.

    My bet is they can. But not if they follow the innovation courses of GM or the financial industry. Follow the tech paradigm. Peace.  

    Solution Selling with a Positive Spin.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    A lot of my hours at What’s The Idea? involve networking and business development. When not being paid for brand and marketing consultation, I’m on the lookout for brand and marketing opportunities to share with prospects. Business development can be a dirty word from the prospect’s viewpoint, however. It has to be meaningful, not salesy. 

    Ten plus years ago someone published a sales book about “solution selling,” a technique whereby a salesperson meets a prospect and asks about their “pain points.” This is supposed to fast track the sellers approach. Done well it has worked. Done poorly, it’s like asking a patient “How’s your cancer?”

    Consultants in the brand business use a promotion called the “communications audit,” where they go into a company and look at the totality of communications. When arrayed, they then point out all the contradictions, mistakes, inconsistencies and meaningless flah-flah-flah – hoping to embarrass the business into an engagement. I’m thinking of a promotion which is the obverse of the communications audit. Perhaps I’ll call it a “marketing high points audit.” Rather than all negative, I’ll only identify the things done well. Proponents of political advertising may disagree with the approach but then I’m not looking to get elected. I’m looking to create meaningful dialogue.

    Tink about it (as my Norwegian aunt might say).

     

     

     

    7 Anxieties.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    1

    banquet I did some freelance for Possible Worldwide (nee Bridge Worldwide) a couple of years ago on ConAgra’s Banquet Frozen Foods. As part of the exercise, all team members were asked to go the grocery store and plan a meal at a given weekly budget. My assignment was “retired man with a weekly food budget of $50.” I was to record what I bought and report in. Neat exercise. Great start to the project. Great formula for priming the pump and creating context.

    Then we had the team meeting. I’m not exactly sure what came out of the meeting but it wasn’t brilliance. I do not really recall any visceral insights or discussions. And recall in planning is where it’s at.

    The exercise could have gotten exciting at this meeting had it been more fluid. The thinking of collectives is best when accompanied by serendipity. Had the in-store exercise been used as a spark and team members set loose to report findings and start discussions in their own ways, we may have had some magic.  I, for instance, may have presented “7 anxieties.”  What goes through a man’s head at shopping time, when budgeted only $50 per week.

    In planning, sometimes the tools we use limit us. It’s natural. The rules we use in planning are also natural. But the excitement comes from agility, inspiration, experimentation. So use your tools then break some rules. Peace.

    Change the signs or change the strategy?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    sign installation Why is it that many companies understand the value of paying for and adhering to new logo designs yet don’t understand the value of and adherence to a brand strategy?

    Logos are expensive and easy. Get a branding company to write a brief (maybe) and turn loose some designers. Approve some black and white options, wait two weeks for the full color spectacular. Then another 2 weeks for the tweaks and 5 more for the big presentation with the graphics standards manual leave-behind. Within a year every building sign is changed, every truck repainted, the website has new clothes and the marketing department is churning out the logo’ed baseball caps and PDFs. Bam!

    But present a brand strategy (claim and 3 proof planks) and marketing plan (obs/strats/tactics) that included not just messaging but staffing, product and experience recommendations and you get that far away stare. It’s easy to change the signs, not so easy to alter behavior. Agencies know what to do with a brand strategy brief. They make stuff. Clients, though, have a harder time navigating brand strategy.

    Top marketing executives understand branding is about claim and proof. Proof and deeds. Deeds and experiences. Strategically organized and tightly managed. Peace.

    The Exploratory

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    As a consultant I am a big fan of the exploratory meeting. Both parties at exploratory meetings are explorers. And I love explorers. Consumers are explorers. But, sadly, we don’t always treat them as such. As much as brand planners focus on repetitive brand behavior, we know that the “buy moment” (as my friends at BrandTuitive call it) is best when exciting and enthusiastic. Dull and droning buy moments create “satisfied” moments. “Satisfied customers will leave you everyday” someone recently said in a seminar.

    So we explore. In search of new stories. New ways to share. New people and inspiration. Every day is exciting for the explorer. And if you can make your consumer’s day a little more exciting, a little richer, you are doing your job. Peace!

     

     

     

    How change happens. Sometimes.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    We Americans don’t like to be pushed around. Yet we are a odd, lazy people sometime. If a story appears in the local weekly newspaper about a malnourished child, the porch of the child’s home will be filled with food by nightfall. However, when we read one third of Yemeni children under the age of 5 are undernourished we flip the page.

    North Korea has bullied Sony and a number of theater chains into pulling the film The Interview, a film that might normally gross $75M. But this bullying has pissed off Americans to the point where we’re actually primed to do something. But what? Were Sony to release the film over the web and ask for a $2.00 donation for special fund to drop DVDs of the movie over Pyongyang, the movie would likely be the highest grossing film of all time. No matter the quality.

    This satire was an important movie. It has the ability to disrupt how films are distributed. If Sony chooses to crowd source funding for the movie it may lead us down a new path. One sparked by a bully. And this is how change happens sometime. “For good people to do something.” Peace.

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