Account Planning
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Earnings reports hit yesterday for Apple and Yahoo and followers were, respectively, happy and disappointed. Apple is really kicking it selling phones, computers and tablets (What else is there, food?) Yahoo is sliding along, selling ads and content. Its revenue was up, but net revenue – revenue after it shares da monies with partners – down.
Carol Bartz, about whom I’ve written some good things, is at that place in time in her tenure as CEO where her performance and the company’s momentum should just about be judged. If not now, certainly in a quarter or two. So let’s table that for the moment.
What Yahoo Should Do.
If Apple is doing so well and Yahoo just gliding via cost-cutting and reorganizations then perhaps Yahoo should take a good close look at Apple custies (that’s bond trader for customers). The account planners at Yahoo’s agency Goodby Berlin and Partners might want to follow around Apple users for a week or so and see what kind of 1s and 0s are passing over their phones, Macs and tablets. Do Apple users intersect with Yahoo at all during the course of the day? And if not, why not? Apple users are worth studying.
Yahoo’s Competition.
Yahoo and Aol (not Apple) are competitors… both fighting for the same cheese. They share the same content strategy so I enjoy studying them. It’s still neck and neck, with a slight edge to Aol. But both need an idea. A powerful brand idea, dripping with beyond-the-dashboard consumer value. I’m waiting. Peace!
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Tags: Account Planning, AOL, apple, Carol Bartz, goodby berlin and partners, ipad, iphone, mac, whats the idea, whatstheidea, yahoo
Just as farmers are toiling now with herbicide resistant weeds, members of the marketing community are having trouble connecting with advertising resistant consumers.
Roots.
Roots is a concept I discuss with my consulting clients; the return to a simpler, more prideful lifestyle. Don’t throw away your million iPazzles — not that type of simple. But do watch old black and white, finely crafted movies on them. (Etsy is a hot web property that plays to the roots phenomenon — catering to the hand-made crowd.)
Because of herbicide resistant strains of weeds, many farmers are back in their fields plowing and manually pulling weeds, a practice hey had long forgone. Roots. Advertisers, on the other hand, rather than creating more meaningful and sales-appropriate messages — also roots — have decided to take their selling messages to new places. Advertising is now all over our favorite web applications and phones and and and… As we become more resistant to sales message we don’t need to invent new media to carry those messages; we need to reinvent the messages themselves. The introduction of account planning to advertising was the first acknowledgement of that. It’s use in digital media is growing and not a moment too soon.
Marketers, here are some words to live by: don’t overly complicate, message the benefit, avoid sameness, read Maslow, and smile (whistle) while you work. Peace!
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Tags: Account Planning, digital media, etsy, herbicide resistant weeds, ipad, ipazzle, marketing, roots, smart phones., whatstheidea. whats the idea
Good account planners have the ability to read data and see patterns. They see holes in the market that can be filled by behaviors playing to those patterns and they jump on them. Good planners, like good anthropologist, do not insinuate themselves in to the pattern, they just observe. That’s a good account planner.
The Ear
Great account planners do all that but have the added benefit of an acute ear and a silken tongue. The “great” use their ears to truly hear what consumers or interviewees hold dear and important. Just as a Galvanic Skin Response test can measure fear or arousal, a great planner knows when a topic is heating up. Megan Kent of Brand Synchronicity tells us that the amygdala (brain part) is the consumer’s bull shit filter, well great planners have a filter too — they filter out the chaff and hone in on the important. Emotionally and rationally. That’s the ear.
The Tongue
The silken tongue comes in during the consumer interview — when the planner is probing, digging and trying to get to the good stuff. It takes a wicked silky tongue to break through a consumer’s defenses. Consumers can see in your eyes and body language if you are really interested. They can tell if you are simply probing or if the discussion is, indeed, two-way and you’re truly interested. If you do it correctly, with good pacing, consumers will tell you a lot more than you expect. But your interest has to be genuine. I must be straight to the heart. And it’s best if somewhat disarming. The silken tongue.
From good ears and silken tongues come the best creative. Peace!
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Tags: Account Planning, account planning interview, amygdala, brand synchronicity, megan kent, whats the idea, whatstheidea
Just got back from my daughter’s Dean’s list luncheon. She’ll be graduating from Loyola University in a month with a psych degree. She’s a bit nervous about what’s next.
When I graduated from Rollins College with a BA in behavioral sciences my love was anthropology. “What are you going to do with an anthropology degree?” everyone asked. “Be a teacher? Work in a museum?” Anthropology is the study of people, adaptation, culture and patterns. Who’d a thunk digging through dirt and southern hemisphere ethnographies would have prepared me for a job in advertising and marketing? Not me. But today my interest in people, behavior and patterns generate ideas that position and sell products from engagement rings to web services. Account and brand planners with similar backgrounds often have an edge over B-school grads these days.
In a meeting recently, I mentioned my love for NYC. How the diversity of behaviors and cultures offers great inspiration for selling insights. “I can find selling ideas in people’s parked cars.” Patterns. The absence of patterns. Observation and a functional understanding of behavior are what good account planners bring to creative teams. New, meaningful ways to see things.
Everything matters: What you study in school. What you study thereafter. So Princessa, “What are you going to do with your psychology degree?” The sky’s the limit! Peace!
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Tags: Account Planning, Advertising, anthropology, Brand Planning, business school, college graduation, Loyola University, marketing, Rollins college, whats the idea, whatstheidea
I’ve been meeting with some really smart people this year, most of whom are in the strategy business. Some are brand strategists, others account planers, a good deal digital strategists. Strategy is such a rich word. “I’m working on the strategy for a Belgian beer” said the head of a hot web boutique. On probe, he admitted it was the web strategy. “We handle digital strategy for the world’s largest technology company” said the head of strategy at a very forward- thinking global direct and digital agency. Ads for the tech company are handled by another multinational. At P&G a ranking digital officer suggests: “Brand strategy is in the hands of the consumer.” An insight, also, shared by the chief strategy and innovation officer at a multinational promotional agency.
It’s not war, it’s marketing.
Sun Tzu might have said there are war strategies and battle strategies — and they can be different — but marketing isn’t war. In uncle Steve’s world (that’s me) there is a brand strategy and the tactics used to support it. Campaigns, tactics, analytics and sales fluctuations will always be around. As will smart people. But brand strategy should be the business driver. Of everything. This includes production, product innovation, hiring, etc. Until all the silos and all employees and their agents really understand the company brand strategy and its simple dimensions, we will have branding anomie. Peace it up!
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Tags: Account Planning, Brand Strategy, Digital Strategy, marketing, P&G, Sun Tzu, war, whats the idea
I had two meetings yesterday at one of the world’s largest ad agencies. (Hint: Its name is 3 letters.) Not only is this agency doing good, effective work but it has a better than average track record of integrating digital and traditional media. The meetings were with an analytics director and a creative director.
Analytics
The analytics guy was inspiring and convincing and made a great case for plotting marketing success through data. Evidence-based analysis, he said, grounds marketing in reality, not sales BS. If the data informs the creative then the brand can work toward one or many measurable goals. This gentleman wasn’t being paid by the teraflop, he cared about selling product.
Creative
My other meeting was with a creative director. “Creative is pretty poor today” he offered. “It’s all the same. Not much stands out. Too much rational thought. People buy based upon emotion. People are emotional. Did you get married based on a rational decision or an emotional one?” This gentleman didn’t obsess about creative awards, he cared about selling product.
So both care about selling product – that’s why this is a good shop — yet these two guys will never meet. Typically they connect via an account planner who writes the brief. The account planner is a little right brain, a little left brain. Good planners act as mediators between these two disciplines. Great planners act as conduits. Brilliant planners find ways to bring them together and help them see the brand through a single set of eyes. Heavy lifting indeed. Peace!
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Tags: account planner, Account Planning, analytics, creative director, marketing, whatstheidea. whats the idea
My consultancy’s mantra is embodied in the statement “Campaign come and go, but a powerful branding idea is indelible.” Powerful brands are built upon powerful brand strategies which are, in turn, supported by creative and colorful demonstrations of that strategy. Powerful brand strategies transcend medium and even language. Good account planners will tell you that a powerful brand strategy becomes acculturated into the company.
For a ski resort, I developed the brand strategy “the best groomed mountain in the Northeast.” Everyone who went to work each day knew what their job was and how to behave. They didn’t need a mupermisor (rhymes with supervisor) over their shoulder every minute when making decisions. They had the strategy.
Did the ski resort’s campaign change? Sure. The website? Yep. Did the cafeteria employees show up to work with messy clothes. Nuh uh.
Do consumers own the brand as some will tell you? Hell no! Do they buy the brand, inform the brand. Sure. But consumers don’t own it. Do brand managers own the brand? Heck no. (Notice the subtle downgrade in passion?) Brand managers come and go, too. The average tenure of a company CMO is 18 or so months. So who does own the brand? The Answer: The owner of the brand strategy. Peace!
PS. Today marks the 3rd anniversary of What’s the Idea? My dad Fred Poppe was an ad man and a writer; sadly, he passed away before blogging became a thing. He would have loved blogging — especially in his later years, while sedentary. To you dad!
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Tags: Account Planning, Brand Strategy, cmo, fred poppe, whats the idea, whatstheidea, who owns the brand.
Adrian Ho made an insightful observation yesterday on his Zeus Jones blog (Does anyone else type “blob” accidently?) about the different marketing functions of strategy and production.
He wrote “There are, of course, fairly significant business-model barriers in bringing together these two different kinds of skills in a company. Production skills are often billed on an hourly basis, while strategy is typically priced based upon value. However, I think that the more difficult barriers are cultural. These two archetypes have historically been polar opposites and simply putting together people who embody one aspect with people who embody the other is a recipe for disaster.”
Mr. Ho is focused, I suspect, on digital production in his piece because he discusses social media but this strategy and production yin-yang (pronounced yong) extends to all customized creative forms. It’s the reason account planning was developed in the advertising world.
I’m working with a jewelry manufacturer who creates custom pieces. The model maker rarely sees the customer. The input for the piece is handled by a designer who gathers from the customers: pictures from magazines, drawings, descriptions and memories, all of which are put into a little bag with some notes and sent into the back room. Producer-strategist.
The companies with the ability to translate strategy into elegant, compelling production create the best work. When trying to determine good marketing partners from bad, the questions one should ask should relate to this very process, but most don’t ask about the nexus of strategy and production. They ask “Tell me about your strategic process” or “May I see your work?” Frankly, the magic happens in the hand-off. In the case of the jewelry company you need to see what’s in the bag.
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Tags: Account Planning, adrian ho, marketing, production, strategy, whatstheidea. whats the idea, zeus jones
There is a tradition in the Zulu culture where a bull is led into the kraal (corral) and 20 or so young warriors must kill it with their bare hands. The even is meant to celebrate the new harvest, but followers of functionalism in anthropology would suggest it’s a way to indentify future leaders.
So let’s say you’re put into the krall with the whole village watching: family, boyfriends, girlfriends, teachers etc., and the bull is let loose. Are you going for the tail, a leg, head or horns? The answer lies within; the result of your fortitude, life goals, skill, agility and pain threshold. Your fearlessness. My guess is there are not a lot of young Zulu warriors jumping on the head. But then I’m from Long Island.
Rearview Mirror Account Planning
Many times I’ve posted about the overabundance of rearview mirror account planners – those who watch the past and what’s approaching from behind to plan for the future. (The best planners, as the metaphor goes, look ahead seeing past the dashboard.) In the culture of brand planning the good ones focus on the head. The same attributes required of the greatest Zulu warrior are required of the best account planners. Go for the head! Peace!
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Tags: Account Planning, functionalism, marketing, rearview mirror account planning, whats the idea, whatstheidea, Zulu warrior
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