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    Brand Strategy

    Voice. Tone. Personality.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    This may be sacrilege in the brand planning community but I’m not a big fan of tone, voice and brand personality.  I believe those are words born of ad agencies not true brand strategists. Tone isn’t a strategy.

    Tone and voice are the domain of the creative agency. Of the campaign.  That’s not to say those things aren’t important, they certainly are. Tactically.  So long as they advance the brand strategy: “an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.”

    Brand strategy defies what is business-winning in the market pursuit. Creativity in delivering that strategy is what agencies do. Making the claim and proofs original. Interesting. Captivating. And those pursuits may require a change in tone and voice from time to time.

    George W. Bush once used a phrase I loved talking about cowboy wannabes. “All hat and no cattle.” My brand planner take on that when disparaging a marketing campaign would be “all voice no strategy.”

    Peace be upon you.

     

     

    Brand Solutions.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Brand strategists and brand planners make a living uncovering problems. Sales problems, targeting problems, product problems. I could go on and on. In my brand planning rigor, I delve into customer care-abouts and brand good-ats.  When customers care about something your brand is not good at, you’ve got work to do. That’s a problem. Pretending is not a good brand strategy. So you can see why many brand planners circle the problem.

    But I like to think of care-abouts and good-ats as positive qualities.

    Unabashedly a contrarian, I don’t spend my days looking for problems but for solutions.  How does one plot success for a brand without looking for hindrances? Weaknesses? Negatives?  Well, by looking toward the light.

    Twenty years ago when baseball god Mike Piazza emerged from the NY Mets dugout with blond hair, he gave men everywhere permission to color their hair.  Did L’Oreal or other hair care companies use that moment to double the hair coloring market? Nope. An opportunity missed. A solution, sans a problem.

    Attempt to be a solution seeker not a problem solver. It’s harder work, but more rewarding.

    Peace.  

     

     

    Comfortable?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    In my business I have clients. And many people would agree the first order of business in a service industry is to make the client happy – make them comfortable. When companies need brand strategy help, it’s typically because they’re experiencing some chaos in their marketing. So, to a degree, they are already uncomfortable. The question is, is it my job to make them comfortable? Well, yes. Certainly. But only comfortable in their decisions about the brand plan. Comfort resides in the decisions they make that will improve business.

    But getting to those decisions can be discomforting. And that, too, is my job.

    I’ve written a number of times in this blog how some of my brand claims contain a single word clients find awkward. They approve of the strategy but the mention of one word unsettles them. It’s like if you have a big nose, you don’t like to talk about noses. My response to these clients is “we don’t have to use the word” – my claims are not taglines – “but we do have to follow the idea.” With that explanation, I almost always get agreement. “Leave it to the agency to deliver the word.”

    Sometimes I wonder if my job it to make clients comfortable to uncomfortable. I am not in the gladhanding business, I’m in the improving business business. And you can’t do that without breaking a few eggs.

    So long as you are honest. So long as you are truthful. So long as you are being true to the product and the consumer, a little discomfort is healthy.

    Peace.   

     

     

    Attitudes and Evidence.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    When it comes to brand strategy, most say it is hard to measure. I beg to differ.  With the proper brand strategy framework – claim and proof — measurement is easy. Albeit expensive. There’s a fairly common research methodology called Usage and Attitudes. Well, when measuring brand strategy, I suggest an Attitudes and Evidence Study is more appropriate.  Leave usage for more product specific work.

    Quantitative research into consumer attitudes about a brand and key competitors is part one of the A and E Study. Part two is the evidence that forms those attitudes – the memorable proofs underlying those attitudes. Diving into the “whys” attitudes are formed is the domain of the brand strategist.

    When one hospital is believed to offer superior cariology care to another, it is the evidence is that sets the bar. It’s not marketing words like “innovation” or “caring doctors” or “cardio procedure” gobbledygook.  When a restaurant is deemed to have superior flavors, it is the evidence that provides the proof. James Beard Awards. Nationally renowned chef. Unique technique.

    Research that uncovers the evidence behind the attitude is what is measurable. It’s the science behind the strategy. Once these metrics are established and logged, then usage and sales can be overlayed. And the real fun begins.

    Brand strategy measures are primordial. They shouldn’t be add-ons.

    Peace.

    Brand Strategy Building Blocks.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    In an article about the promotion of Parag Agrawal following Jack Dorsey’s step down as Twitter CEO, the NYT referred to Parag as “…having stood out for his strong skills in math and theory. If you are good at the theory, you can have the ability to be analytical, to reason, to make decisions.”

    Math and theory or science and theory are also critical competences of a brand planner.  The science part is unquestioned, but often underdeveloped. That is, we are all supposed to create strategies that predict success. Be it in sales or preference. That’s science. Finding replicable “if/then” equations.  But theory — theory is where brand planning gets a little dicey. The abilities to be “analytical” and to “reason” are critical but the ensuing “decisions” or last mile are the planner’s secret sauce.  And that last mile often lacks science. Planners, you see, talk about science and art. While the science may be right the art can derail it.

    Rather than provide science and art in brand strategy, I suggest we provide a science and theory strategy…and leave the art to the creative peeps.

    At Whats The Idea? brand strategy comprises one claim and three proof planks. Claim without proof, goes the logic, is entertainment. Yet a strategy built around one claim and three proof planks is theory — not art.  And when that theory is tied to science, you have building blocks. You have things to measure.

    I love when I hit a creative triple or home run. It’s not my job. Science and theory are my job.

    Peace.

     

     

     

    Thanks and Giving.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Fresh off a really neat brand strategy assignment, I wanted to share a few “tings” (as my Norwegian aunt Inger would say) for which I am thankful. Over the years I’ve probably met with a hundred people in the brand planning business who didn’t know me from Adam. These planners were kind enough to have a coffee with a needy planner-wannabe and toss me enough knowledge and crumbs to keep me on the trail.  I learned my craft from all of you. I made a living because to you.

    The planning community is really a curious and friendly lot. It’s a community that likes to teach and learn. You all inspired me in one way or another.

    Then there are the friends and colleagues who kept up the lines of communication. One, a co-worker from 20 plus years ago, recently introduced me to his son who partook of the What’s The Idea? planning rigor. Learned a lot from that young ‘un.

    I’d like to thank friends with ad agencies who used my services and reupped from time to time. Also, those who used me once. I worked on some of the most amazing brand because of you. And I’d like to thank the little guys who entrusted me with their brands and budgets. Also thanks the pro bono brands from whom I learned tricks and ways to plan on a shoestring.

    Since I started brand planning under the sobriquet What’s The Idea?, I’ve worked with scores and scores of brands and interviewed thousands of people. The key to success is — and it may sound hokey – allowing myself to fall in love with each brand. That’s how you care enough to invest.

    To all the peeps who invested time in me. I thank you. Paying back your kindness, passing it forward, is and will continue to be my greatest pleasure.

    Happy Thanksgiving Megan, David, JoAnn, Kevin, Bob, Pat, Amber, Faris, Sean, Heidi, George, Marianne, Tom, Peter, Cory, Eric, Ty, Jonathan, Scott, Jane, John Durham …

     

    Advertising Success Lies in Proof.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    People who know me have heard this one before “Advertising is 90% claim and 10% proof.”  That miscalculation is the foundation of What’s The Idea? That, plus the propensity for most advertising agencies and marketers to utilize the lazy tactic of benefit shoveling (see post earlier this week).

    When you shovel benefits or advertise by bullet point you lose focus. You water down your idea. One of my mentors, Dick Kerr, once told me Joe Louis never knocked anyone out with his first punch.  It was always the second punch. (He was talking about media buying, but it pertains to strategy as well.)  Don’t claim something then move onto the next benefit. Say it then prove. Then prove it again. This is how you communicate an advertising message. Advertisers who make a living proving their claims are advertisers getting their money’s worth.

    In a study published last month called the Better Briefs Project, it was reported that 33% of marketing budgets are wasted due to poor briefs. And 7% of agencies felt they were poorly briefed.  When you don’t have a sound, differentiated positioning idea what do you do?  You get the work approved by breaking out the shovel.

    Peace.

     

     

     

     

    Benefit Shoveling is Not Branding.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I received a lovely mailer today from my financial investment company trying to get me to move my credit card over.  The art direction was great, the copy good, but the strategy lacking.  You see, the promotional piece suffered from something I call benefit shoveling — the listing of consumer benefits ad nauseum. The bennies weren’t organized in an discernable way, other than, say, most impactful first. Plus they weren’t arrayed in a way that was brand salient. They were shoveled, one after the other.

    I work with a financial client in a similar business.  We have just landed on a claim and proof array (brand strategy) that captures what consumers want most and what the brand does best.  When I look at the credit card promotion-piece I received, it became perfectly clear to me how a brand strategy would have helped. Rather than shoveling benefits, a strategy would have built the benefits into a coherent story. A story that only one institution would tell.

    In fact, were I to rewrite the credit card promotion with my own client’s strategy, the shovel would disappear and the cement ready for mixing – as the strategic building blocks were already in place. That’s brand strategy at work. As Marilyn Laurie, world famous AT&T brand expert would say, “Make deposits in the brand bank.” Shovel no more.

    Peace!

     

     

    Branding Pablum.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Mission Health, an operating division of HCA Healthcare, is based in Asheville, North Carolina, and is the state’s sixth largest health system. In 2018, for the sixth time in the past seven years, Mission Health has been named one of the nation’s Top 15 Health Systems by IBM Watson Health (formerly Truven Health Analytics). Mission Health is the only health system in North Carolina to achieve this recognition. Mission Health operates six hospitals, numerous outpatient and surgery centers, post-acute care provider CarePartners, long-term acute care provider Asheville Specialty Hospital and the region’s only dedicated Level II trauma center. With approximately 12,000 colleagues and 2,000 volunteers, Mission Health is dedicated to improving the health and wellness of the people of Western North Carolina. For more information, please visit missionhealth.org or @MissionHealthNC.

    The above 130 words are an example of boilerplate copy; a wonderful exercise undertaken by PR (internal or external) to convey what a company “is” (in this case a regional healthcare provider), and some of its best characteristics. Unlike a brand strategy, boilerplate gets to be lengthy and inclusive. The problem with most boilerplate is it rarely acknowledges brand strategy. And for those not overly familiar with brand craft, brand strategy is not just for consumer packaged goods. It’s for all businesses.

    The above boilerplate example does a good job of sharing company provenance, scale, along with a couple of cherry-picked “bests/onlys.” It does not explain “how” it is a good health system. The closest it gets is buried at the end “dedicated to improving the health and wellness of the people…” This sentence is the same for every health system extant. It’s marketing pablum.

    What this boilerplate needs, probably in the first sentence or three is a demonstration of that so-called dedication. Branding is about claim and proof — but mostly proof. Organized proof.  While healthcare is getting better at branding but it’s still, en masse, pretty awful.

    I love the challenge of messy brands. I wait by the keyboard.

    Peace.

     

     

    Company Culture.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I read a lot about company culture.  When I first started working at McCann-Erickson I was told the culture was entrepreneurial. That translated into “Do what you think is right until a boss tells you differently.”  Or “Fall forward fast.” I guess that’s culture.

    The brand strategist in me however asks the question “Is company culture prescriptive or is it free-flowing?”  Coming from the strategy side of the business I go with the former.

    At What’s The Idea? brand strategy is defined as “an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.”  I certainly could add the word “culture” here but it’s kind of superfluous. Kind of implied.

    When studying anthropology at Rollins College it was a given fact that culture resulted from structuralism and/or functionalism. I forget what structuralism is but functionalism suggests that cultural behaviors are tied to functional outcomes.  Well, in brand strategy functional outcomes are prescribed. And that’s not just “sell more stuff.” It’s “sell more stuff because”…  If you are a company that makes web development easier or loan applications easier, then the company culture should be about improving usability. But sometimes culture decouples from business-winning pursuits, e.g., ping pong tables or kegerators. And that’s off-brand if you ask me.

    Peace.

     

     

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