noah brier

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Brand Planning Starts with the “Is-Does.”

July 1, 2010 in Marketing | 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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Some of My Favorite Bloggers.

June 28, 2010 in Marketing | 0 Comments

I follow lots of people but a couple of my favorites are Charlene Li, Jeremiah Owyang, Peter Kim and Noah Brier. Charlene is just smart. She has morphed from a tech analyst to a social media expert to a management consultant, all within 3 years.  She’s a media darling who reinvents herself almost annually. Jeremiah Owyang, who works with Charlene at the Altimeter Group is also another schmarty pants.  He loves grids and quadrants, he loves to write, share and listen – and he loves to use technology.  Analytical with a capital A.

Peter Kim is cut from the same cloth as Charlene and Jeremiah (all three are Forrester Research alums) but landed at the Dachis Group – a company filled with doers.  Dachis will crack the code on bringing Web 2.0 to the enterprise and make a banana boat of bucks doing so. Peter likes to mix it up a bit.  A proud man.  Then there’s Noah Brier — chief strategist at the Barbarian Group.  Like a racehorse in the paddock who you know will win the Derby someday, he’s exciting to watch.  The beauty about Noah is you just don’t know what’s next. He’s random, brilliant, a doer and he loves bounding about in that paddock.

I wish these four blogged every day.  If they would just give me a 100-150 words (no more Jeremiah), I’d be satisfied and so, so nourished. Please hit those keys.  Peace!

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An unlikely mind.

March 9, 2010 in Marketing | 0 Comments

Noah Brier is an exciting, off-piste marketing strategist.  His post the other day suggesting some businesses would do well to have born on dating is a case in point. 

 Head of planning and strategy at the Barbarian Group, Mr. Brier is unique because he likes to question rules, norms and the tried and true. He looks at the blacks, whites and grays.  His mind mashes up things and, I suspect, he sometimes introduces a bit of randomness to his rigor – just for flavor. In the advertising or creative business some might call this approach disruptive. I think of it as natural. Seeds grow in the oddest places…not always where the farmer plants them. They blow around, are carried by birds, find unlikely hosts for germination. If Steve Jobs is embodied by the advertising tagline “think different” Mr. Brier of similar mind and value in a strategist’s body.

 Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Brier can go head-to-head with traditionalists – he just doesn’t always chose to.

 His monthly likemind – something he and Piers Fawkes came up with – is an audacious idea bringing people of similar views together in coffee shops around the world.   I suspect it won’t be long before he and Mr. Fawkes invent UnlikeMind.  Let’s start with one here in the states on the topic of healthcare. Might work. Peace!

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Look Behind the Digital Curtain.

December 7, 2009 in Digital Marketing, Marketing | 0 Comments

oz curtains

There is an amazing theory in physical anthropology called phylogeny recapitulates ontology which suggests that the ascent of man from micro to human form is recreated every time a baby is born. From fertilized egg the form grows fishlike, reptilian, birdlike, to muuun-key (as Peter Sellers used to say) and finally goo-goo gah-gah person.

I think every marketer needs to experience life as a small business before making decisions for a large business – and that doesn’t always happen. Small business owners have to do it all and be responsible for all. They may not be good at everything, but they need to experience and understand everything.  Only when they “get” each business and marketing function can they make fair decisions about execution. Not all large business marketers see the whole picture and it’s a shame.

Noah Brier a smart digital strategist at the Barbarian Group has said every marketing who uses the Web should take an interest in and learn, however rudimentary, to write code. Most slough off this advice, but he’s right. Like the marketer who needs to understand the evolution of the business from small to large and the scientist who should be aware of single cell to complex organism, the online marketer is better off if understanding just what’s behind the digital marketing curtain. And understanding its power. Peace!

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Face Without the Book.

October 19, 2009 in Marketing | 0 Comments

Have you ever been to a high school football game and watched kids walk the bottom row of the stands? It can be more fun than the game itself. Some kids parade as if it’s a Narciso runway show while others skulk, head down, hiding from the world. The paraders are filled with “hi’ and “heys,” the skulkers, not so much. It’s a matter of confidence. But now the skulkers have a tool — texting. They have a reason to avert their eyes while looking tre cool and busy.

Subways and buses in urban centers are other places people like to hide from stares, ergo you’ll see a preponderance of iPods and texting.

Today, technology is often a diversion, especially for kids, giving them an excuse not to socialize. Early MySpace cadets and current Facebookers called what they were doing “being social” and to an extent it is. Certainly, there are nice apps on Facebook allowing people to expand their circle and do new stuff. But let’s face it, sitting on your ass and typing to friends and neofriends smells of the letter-writing, attic-recluse types of yore.

I’m betting the next group of cool apps will be closer to FourSquare than Facebook — helping people actually get out of their chairs and meet others with whom they are comfortable. “Likeminds” as Noah Brier and Piers Fawkes might say. There’s social and there’s social. I for one, prefer the version conducted in person. (He said typing from his chair.) Peace!

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Brandhackers and Brand Tags

September 15, 2009 in Marketing | 0 Comments

I went to a Brandhackers Meetup last night in NYC with my friend Chong Na to see a presentation by Noah Brier, creator of BrandTags.net .  It was held at Dewey’s Flatiron in midtown south which, BTW, has very cool ceilings.

Brand Tags is part consumer game, part brand planner research tool. On the site, a logo pops up and you are asked to enter one word in a data box as a stream-of-consciousness, word association. The words are collected and a tag cloud created. (In a tag cloud, the type size of the word displayed indicates the word’s frequency or importance.) For BMW the tag cloud displayed “asshole” in rather large type. Presumably that’s not an engineering fix, but it does point out an addressable brand issue.

My bud Chong asked if this was just a planners playground and Mr. Brier admitted it might be (lately). Though at the time of launch when the first wave of publicity hit, visitors flocked to the site from all walks of life.  There are 1.8M tags today.  Brand Tags is a cool app and will be even cooler if users can sort the data temporally – in “way back” mode before a campaign ran. You can pay for this type of data today but free would really make the app sizzle. As would the very sort that allows users to see how quickly a tag is typed. Those who tag a brand in under 7 seconds are way more committed to their decision than are those who type it in over 7 seconds. Cool stuff. Check it. Peace!

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