Is-Does

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Brand Planning Starts with the “Is-Does.”

July 1, 2010 in Marketing by Steve Poppe | 0 Comments

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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Google Trivestiture?

February 11, 2010 in Brand Planning, Featured Articles, Marketing, Search by Steve Poppe | 0 Comments

I’ve been writing for a few years with great admiration about Google and its amazing, transformative search tools.  Co-founder Sergey Brin’s original vision or brand idea “We deliver the world’s information in one click” is what allowed Google to become the NASA of the web. Case in point: Yesterday I was looking for a blog post on my machine and used the Microsoft search tool; after three strikes I Googled “whatstheidea+things we remember.” In less than a second I found my text on the Web.  Thanks, YO.

More recently, though, I’ve found myself commenting on how Google has wandered from its original mission – getting into the productivity software, social net, chat and now phone businesses.  The brand planner in me asks “How does one articulate Google’s Is-Does?”  The Googleplex is filled with amazing minds but many seem to be trying to out-engineer one another; me thinks they have lost sense of mission.  Steve Rubel’s post today on Google Buzz so reflects. 

Culture of Technological Obesity.

Amidst Google’s amazing growth and all its Benjamins, a culture of technological obesity has developed.  It’s time for a change.  Here’s what will happen.

The company will go through a corporate divestiture, or as was the case with AT&T, a Trivestiture.  It won’t happen now…probably within 48 months.  My bet for the three parts? Search (Web and mobile), R&D Think Tank/Consultancy, and (surprise)  Advertising Analytics.  How would you break it up?  Peace!

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Branding and the Is-Does.

October 27, 2009 in Marketing by Steve Poppe | 0 Comments

When I say I like Good and Plenty, it really means I like licorice. When I say I like Budweiser, it means I like beer. Granted there are lots of flavors of licorice and beer but the point is one doesn’t have an innate, built-in need for brands. (I said innate.) If I like Maytag, it means I like clean clothes. The iPhone? Staying in touch…with everything.

Some of us in marketing forget this, spending too much time on a distended version of the brand story. (“We must break though the clutter!”)  But it is a product we are selling, not the story.

The way out this trap is by focusing on a product’s Is-Does: what a brand Is and what a brand Does. I came upon this notion when reading some branding literature while at McCann-Erickson. Eric Einhorn created a document exploring what a brand is and what it means. I rolled the “means” over on its side to make it more concrete. 

For me the pursuit of the Is-Does became particularly necessary when planning in the tech sector where chief technologists have a hard time explaining their products in less than 50 words. Was Apple’s iPhone really a phone? For most marketers and planners, the heavy lifting is in the Does, but even here one can go off track. Does Coke really provide happiness (today’s strategy) or Does it provide refreshment ( real strategy).  Find the right Is-Does and you tell better stories, create more loyalty, and sell more shtuff. Peace!

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Consulting Faceoff.

August 28, 2009 in Marketing by Steve Poppe | 0 Comments

Here’s a faceoff. Holding one hockey stick is the Altimeter Group and holding the other the Dachis Group. Who wins?

 

Here are their Is-Does statements:

 

Dachis Group (Dachis Corporation, Inc.) was created to unlock the value of social technologies for large corporate enterprises through its Social Business Design global advisory practice, and technology implementation program.

 

Altimeter: A consulting firm focused on helping businesses integrate emerging technologies into their strategies.

 

Similar at first pass, but also different if you look deeper.

 

Altimeter is a consulting company and will make its money in fees. Dachis, also a consulting company, appears to want to sell technology which had mondo revenue upside if the software/service is replicable.

 

My guess is Alitmeter will win the faceoff. Their value prop and marketing seem pretty tight. Dachis Corp. on the other hand will skate around for a while, keep practicing, passing and tightening their game plan. When ready, they should score quickly and often.

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A Strong Is-Does

August 27, 2009 in Marketing by Steve Poppe | 0 Comments

Back in the day, I was on a McCann-Erickson task force for business client AT&T and we created a tome entitled “Emerging markets? Does advertising drive adoption?” We looked at numerous categories of new products, with a particular view toward technology, and compared units sales to annual advertising expenditures. A statistics nerd then used some formula with a funny symbol the word “slope” in it to prove advertising did, indeed, drive product purchase.

 

That was then….when people were educated about products and services through TV ads, print ads, radio ads and brochures.

 

Today, many new products are first introduced to consumers online. The FUE (first user experience) of a product happens above the fold on a home page. A well defined, well thought out brand does a good job with this. Most don’t. Steve Rubel posted today about how poorly, even the top tier social media sites explain their services. Check it out here.

 

The Is-Does

A good brand plan articulates what a brand Is and what it Does. And it accomplishes this in a simple, unambiguous, differentiated statement. I call this the Is-Does. A string Is/Does is the most important step toward brand success. Peace! 

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Trust, Authenticity and Transparency.

July 21, 2009 in Marketing by Steve Poppe | 0 Comments

Trust, Authenticity and Transparency are the three "pop marketing" words of the day. ROI was last year. Trust, Authenticity and Transparency can be found on every marketing blog and in every social media webinar worth their free price of admission.

 

Sound like I have a bug up my arse? You bet.

 

Here’s the problem with brands today: They don’t mean anything. Most brands are not imbued with an idea, but with many ideas. They are defined by campaigns, not a brand strategy. We, as consumer, are therefore so confused we default to the “is” of the Is/Does.  Levy’s is jeans. Coke is cola. And with so many people managing these brand across so many silos we don’t know what the brands “do.” We can’t land on a brand value, because it is ever-changing.  

 

That’s why everyone is talking about Trust, Authenticity and Transparency.  Everyone is  confused.  And with social media added to the brand management fray, there’s even more confusion. Return On Strategy (ROS) is the most important brand metric there is. Not the ROI which measures tactics. Too much ROI leads to the need for? That’s right. Trust, Authenticity and Transparency. Peace!

 

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The “Is-Does” in Branding.

April 2, 2009 in Marketing by Steve Poppe | 0 Comments

 

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, advertising, positioning and marketing are all about finding a strategy, getting management to support it, then turning it into a powerful branding idea. With a branding idea in place you’ll find it pretty easy to create a campaign (not an overrated approach today) and tactics which will allow consumers to hum your brand tune. Metaphorically speaking. 

 

A branding idea is nothing more than an organizing principle that focuses selling messages to the masses. Often companies do a better job organizing their outbound messages – branding – than their inbound messages. This is most evident in early stage start-ups, where when you ask ten employees what the product is you get 7 answers.   Branding must acculturate consumers and employees.

 

In its simplest form a branding idea is a claim (a consumer promise) backed by a product quality.  For Coke, “refreshment” is both a claim and a quality.  I sometimes refer to this as the “Is-Does.” Once you have a claim, it only takes hold if accompanied by believable supports or reasons to believe.  Supports should be organized too.  Brand plans, I preach, should contain 3 support planks.  Sounds easy no?

 

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