Brand Planning
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I say brand plan you say________? Right. No one really knows what a brand plan looks like. That’s not to say Proctor and Gamble and L’Oreal don’t have brand plans. Or that Publicis, Ogilvy or Crispin Porter don’t have them. They do. But what they’re called and how they are organized are all quite different.
Brand Strategy Statement.
My brand plans are simple to understand. They contain a brand strategy statement which I tell clients is a suit strategy. It’s not very catchy, not creative or tagline-worthy, but it tends to hit the CMO and CEO right in the solar plexus. It may be contextual and/or contain metaphor but it’s certainly a quick, decisive statement of the brand value.
Brand Planks.
Beneath this simple statement are three planks. Brand planks. Borrowed from Bill Clinton’s first election campaign when the mantra was “It’s the economy stupid,” a brand plank is a product development and messaging directive. My planning process begins with the gathering of formation. Then I boil it down into its most powerful, tasty flavors and those flavors became the planks. Of course, I make sure the planks are key consumer care-abouts and key company strengths (or potential, attainable strengths).
But lately I’ve been analyzing the planks to see if they share any formula for success. Thinking about what makes good brand planks before I fill the stock pot with data and get sidetracked is (sorry Bud Cadell) what consumes me.
I haven’t gotten there yet but here’s a quick start:
One plank should educate (it’s what leaders do). One plank should engage (motivate preference). And one plank should personalize (create a personally meaningful connection between the brand and consumer — bring the consumer closer to the brand).
This stuff is mapping the branding genome hard. Or not. But when I finish, it’s going to be exciting. Peace!
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Tags: Brand architecture, brand plan, Brand Planning, bud cadell, crispin porter bogusky, L’Oreal, mapping the genome, Ogilvy, Proctor and Gamble, publicis, what consumes me, whats the idea, whatstheidea
Noah Brier once asked me “How do you define a brand plan?” Everyone, he suggested, has a different view of what a brand plan is. My ability to answer in a few words with a simple explanation impressed (I think). A brand plan is really just an organizing principle. In order to create a good brand plan, one must first get the Is-Does right. What a brand IS and what it DOES. The Is-Does is one of the easiest and at the same time hardest exercises known to marketers. For instance, is the iPhone a phone?
Technology companies have a terrible time with the Is-Does. Here’s an Is-Does example from a website:
A global provider of digital advertising technology solutions that optimize the use of media, creative and data for enhanced performance.
Try explaining that to your great aunt.
A video on the same website, presumably created by someone with agency chops, refers to the company this way “A global leader in digital advertising campaign management.” Much better, no?
What Makes a Good Is-Does?
The litmus of a good Is-Does is its ability to be played back by consumers. Ask a consumer what your brand Is and what it Does and they should be in the neighborhood. If they have to use a competing brand to define you, that’s not good. And here’s a tip, don’t put words like “solution provider” in the Is-Does or use marketing poesy or made-up concepts.
If you have some really bad Is-Does examples (usually found on the boiler plate of press releases or the first sentence of the About section of a website) please post in the comments.
My Is-Does? Marketing Consultant (Is) that helps companies find powerful, sales driving brand strategies (Does). What is your company’s Is-Does? Peace!
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Tags: Brand Planning, Brand Strategy, Is-Does, marketing consultant, noah brier, whats the idea, whatstheidea
Paul Gumbinner, a NYC recruiter, writes the great blog entitled View From Madison Avenue. He published a piece yesterday suggesting job seekers should never take career advice from parents or friends; the best advice comes people who study companies and “employee fit” for a living. Brilliant counsel.
As a brand planner, one trick I use to understand the market place I’m working in is to interview senior competing HR people in that category. As Mr. Gumbinner I’m sure will attest, this technique generates lots of qualitative data about the market, the people, competitive set and chatter on the street. An HR person who interviews scores of mid-level and senior people a week in, say, the enterprise software business, tends to know who’s hot and what’s hot. You planners out there should try it. Nice shortcut. Peace!
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Tags: Brand Planning, HR, paul Gumbinner, view form Madison avenue, 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
A new favorite question I use when planning is “What makes your brand important?” When asked of a brand manager or corporate executive it’s a way to cut through the shizz. “Because it has 54% market share” is a business answer not a brand planning answer. “Because it’s a healthy source of protein a working class family can eat for dinner” is important.
Intel
I’ve been paying attention to Intel, who is spending again, wondering what makes it important. Is it that they are in the majority of computers around the world? According to the logic above, no. It makes them powerful but not important. Is it the “rock star” or “our nerds are a different breed” campaigns? Maybe a little, since R&D is a nice spin, but probably not. Is it the so 1980w “Intel inside?” Nope. Is it embedded in the newish tagline “Sponsors of Tomorrow?” Me thinks the answer is yes.
One of the most important things Intel does and owns is the Science Talent Search. Every year around this time Intel announces the top three winners of its contest looking for the best Science minds in America. As this program grows over time and important scientific developments are attributed to its graduates, Intel will grow even greater in brand stature. Can you say Nobel? Pulitzer? Chips and technology is Intel’s business, but the future is what makes Intel important. Bring a better future to life through products and deeds — and you have a powerful, important brand idea.
USNews and World Report.
I know of a huge healthcare organization in NYC whose sole marketing mission is to elevate its position in the annual USNews and World Report Best Hospital rankings. Its goal is not to hire better docs or reduce infection or cure cancer, per say, it’s to raise its rankings. To do the latter, it must do the former, but the rankings is a clear, tight strategy. It’s measureable and brilliant. USNew is an importance maker.
What makes your brand important? Peace?
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Tags: Brand Planning, Intel, nobel, Pulitzer, strategic planning, USNews and World Report, whats the idea, whatstheidea
Following a successful pitch a number of years ago, I was told we won the business because we were bold enough to suggest keeping the previous agency’s tagline. According to one board member who had been with L’Oreal, this was unheard of in the healthcare industry. The brand strategy we pitched was perfectly in synch with the organizations existing tagline, so why get rid of it? The problem was, the incumbent agency’s advertising wasn’t proving the tagline. Their ads were communicating and informing but not in an organized, brand-building fashion.
Marketers have to find a brand promise, believe it, live it and invest in it. It should be supported in news, trade shows, retail, ads, Adwords, tweets, etc. As a client once said to me, all communications need to make deposits in the brand bank. Not random deposits — planned, meted, brand-differentiating deposits, based upon a brand plan. A brand plan is hard to make but simple to follow. It comprises a claim or promise and three discrete support planks. Prove the promise through the planks every day – in messaging and product development – and you will build your brand and market share. The brand plan sets you free. Peace!
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Tags: adwords, brand planks, Brand Planning, Healthcare Marketing, marketing, support planks, taglines, whats the idea, whatstheidea
There are two factions in online marketing these days: Cashiers and Conversationalists.
Cashiers
Cashiers care about the sale. They have the small dashboard that tracks click-to-sale and spits out an ROI calculations. Cashiers can’t wait to wake up in the morning to see the new numbers. They are in to usability testing, shopping cart abandonment, media optimization and other measures but their interest and energy pretty much stops at the sale. The buck stops there.
Conversationalists
Conversationalists are a daintier. They immerse themselves in the process. They want to make friends. (Like the kid with the runny nose in grade school, sometimes they just walk right up to you and ask “Do you want be my friend?”) In my world, conversationalists are actually more likely to find truths and insights about their products and win in the long term. All the pop marketing gurus today are into the conversation. They are not technologists, thank God, so they are easy to listen to and learn from but their failing is that they’re a little too caught up in the sausage making, not the sausage tasting.
CMOs
For a CMO it’s great to have both types of people on staff. A Yin and Yang thing. Cashiers are imperative for sales now. Conversationalists care about future sales, and loyalty and sale predisposition. But it’s hard to take predisposition to the bank. Good CMOs have a brand plan in place that gives direction to the factions. A brand plan is informed by the work and findings of both factions, but it drives them. A brand plan helps Cashiers and Conversationalist organize “claim and proof” in a way that creates Return on Strategy near and long term. Peace!
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Tags: brand plan, Brand Planning, Brand Strategy, cashiers, claim and proof, cmo, conversationslists, return on strategy, roi, shopping cart abandonment, whats the idea, whatstheidea
Blackberry’s current TV campaign built around the Beatles song “All you need is love” is goofy. Pretty to watch, great editing, hum it and smile – but it really has no inherent brand building value. And in a slipping market for Research In Motion, manufacturer of the Blackberry, this is not good thing. Enter a print ad today on battery life. The headline reads “Imagine falling in love with a battery?” Does anyone hear the “beep, beep, beep” of a truck backing up here?
The Blackberry is a stud phone. My son in college has one. My friend’s high school daughter has one. As does his wife, for work. Now we don’t live in “the valley” and I know that the kids might like an iPhone as an accessory, but they are sold on the Blackberry’s ability to get them on the net and text with grace and ease. Why? Because it works. It delivers. Blackberry owns the word “work” — in its two dimensions. Get on mass transit and see who is using Blackberrys. Fill up a gym with kids – put the Blackberrys on one side, the iPhones on the other. What do you see?
Research will tell you love is strong, but it’s not reason to buy a Blackberry. This is a difficult, difficult category for brand planners. I don’t have the inside track, but I will tell you this: “Love” isn’t it. Beep, beep, beep. Peace!
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Tags: "all you need is love", Advertising, apple, beatles, blackberry, Brand Planning, iphone, Research in motion, whats the idea, whatstheidea
Last week at the DMA/PMN social media conference, Steve Rubel, a digital honcho at Edelman, said “information scales, attention is finite.” He couldn’t be more right. As social media adds more and more conversation to what is already being said about brands in the marketplace, the cacophony grows louder. It is in this environment that brand planners become even more important.
Creating a brand strategy that is easy for corporate officers and consumers to articulate is job one for today’s planners. Once that strategy is in place, “proving” it and refreshing it is the real work. Simply repeating the brand strategy — using words, pictures, speeches or song — is not marketing. Proving it is marketing. Proof through actions, deeds, and product innovation is what makes a brand strategy and what makes people pay attention…and remember. If you have a great strategy and no proof, you fail. Peace!
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Tags: Brand Planning, Brand Strategy, claim and proof, DMA, edelman, PMN, social media, Steve Rubel, whats the idea
When I worked on the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System business with Welch Nehlen Groome, system CEO Michael Dowling would meet every Monday morning with new employees and welcome them. The system employed about 30,000 people so Mr. Dowling had an opportunity to go really viral with his mission.
At face value the mission, embodied in the tagline “Setting New Standards in Healthcare,” didn’t sound like much. Operationalized, it was a brand game-changer.
The brand planks supporting the strategy were unassailable and uniquely North Shore – creating tremendous wealth for the brand. Yet what was missing from the equation and where I didn’t do a good job as brand planner was getting senior management to acculturate the brand plan through the employee world. Had every Monday morning Mr. Dowling shared the brand strategy with his impressionable new employees, imagine how much stronger his brand would be today.
People think health systems are about saving money. Done correctly, they are about redistributing healthcare wealth (clinical and economic). North Shore had a system for doing this. It was, and is, its secret sauce.
All companies, big or small, need to share their unique brand strategies with employees. Otherwise, every employee at every company is driven by the same strategy: earn a paycheck.
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Tags: acculturation, brand plan, Brand Planning, healthcare advertising, Healthcare Marketing, marketing strategic, Michael dowling, North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, Welch nehlen groome
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