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    Brand Strategy

    Naming. And Breweries of Jackson County.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I went to a brewery yesterday in Sylva, NC branded Innovation Brewing. The logo contains a machined gear in place of the O.  The good news is the beer is better than the branding. The tap room was well organized, all the beers listed by beer type. And they seemed to be in descending order of alcohol content. I liked the taproom set up, the tables were cool, the bar was well done and the outdoor seating quite fine.  

    That said, the name was just wrong — for a beer company in the mountains. Nothing inside the taproom said innovation. It was a tap room. Innovation was just a random word. And a non-endemic word at that.  Having done a ton of work in the technology space, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard about innovation as a brand quality. Is the word an inside joke? As in, it’s beer for God sake.

    Whatever the strategy, the name doesn’t work.  Not for first timers. Having never been there before, had I a choice between Innovation Brewing and Balsam Falls Brewery (not a Google result for “Breweries Near Me,”) I would have selected the latter…site unseen.

    Naming is important people. Especially for first-time consumers.

    Peace.

     

     

    Credit Card Brand Craft.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    “Something Brighter” is the new tagline for the Discover Card.  I heard it on a radio commercial yesterday. It gave the brand planner in me pause. Say what? Ohhh. It has to do with the logo. The sun, thing-a-ma-bob in the word discover. Oy.

    I like to believe that most taglines are brand claims. (A brand claim is half the brand strategy; the other half being proof planks.) But this isn’t always the case. Sometimes the company tagline is simply a line from the advertising campaign. Shoddy brand craft, if you ask me. It’s a touch lazy but something the expedient thing to do if the advertising is great.

    Something Brighter means what exactly? Better than other credit cards. That’s not much of a positioning; not when you consider most credit cards are trying to convey the same thing. Capital One’s “What’s In Your Wallet?” is an advertising line. It, too, hides the brand strategy.

    The credit card category is lacking in brand strategy. American Express used to do a good job, (Membership) but I’m not so sure anymore. Mastercard, whose ad campaign strategy “Priceless” is good, yet somewhat tired, almost has a brand strategy but it’s not an endemic card quality.

    There’s a saying in advertising “If you don’t have something to say, sing it.”  Well, this is not the case for brand strategy. They have to be meaningful and product-centric.

    Something brighter needs to happen in the credit card industry and it’s not the advertising.

    Peace.

     

     

    Jab, Jab, Jab.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Brian Morrissey, former editor of Digiday, when guest editing newsletter Why Is This Interesting recently wrote:

    “Brevity is more important than ever. There is simply too much content let loose on the world these days. During early Digiday, we did some kind of personality exam that advised people dealing with me to “be brief, be bright, be gone.” Many publications could stand to heed that too. 

    I hope this next interaction of digital media becomes more concise. Removing the unnecessary to get to the essence improves products and shows respect for the audience. “Engagement” is too often confused with time spent. The measure is actually just an imperfect gauge of value. Saving people time is always a good product strategy.”

    I agree completely with Brian. Tight is might. I recall reading that blog posts, in order to be found by the search engines, need to be at least 400 words, ideally closer to 800. Hell no! Not at What’s The Idea?  This isn’t The New Yorker. I’m not in the click bait business. I’m looking for readers. And it’s tough out there.  I’m hoping they will come back every day or at least weekly, so I need them to think. I don’t need to show that I can think.  And you can’t get there by pontificating and being verbose. Jab, jab, jab.

    Peace.

     

    Movements, Demonstrations or…

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Strawberry Frog likes to tout its brand and advertising strategy “Creating Movements.”  Movements are a slow burn – so, some might argue it would be more expeditious to “create mobs?”  Well, the difference between a mob and a movement is virulence and no marketer wants their followers to be hostile or spiteful.

    The business of branding is to influence in a positive way. To build value appreciation through customer care-abouts and brand good-ats. Research even suggests introducing an element of danger in advertising can cause consumer unease making them less likely to purchase. Sunny day anyone?

    Physics reminds us movement from a standing still position causes friction.  And brand people love to talk about tension. They uncover competitive tensions for breakfast.

    Most will agree creating mobs around brands is wrong. Stop gun violence. Stop the war. Better pay for nurses. All three of these examples offer the potential for anger but I wouldn’t call them mobs. Yet I also wouldn’t call them movements. Demonstrations might be a better word. Legal. Careful. Pointed.  Plus, I love the word demonstrations. Demonstrations also support the “claim and proof” framework which is the backbone of What’s The Idea? It works two ways.

    There is probably a good word between the passive movement and the more animus-infused demonstration. The search is on. Thoughts?

    Peace.

     

    A Thought On Corporate Culture.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Much in branding has been written about corporate culture. Most believe it to be a good thing. I would respectfully disagree.

    A company does not need a culture.  In fact, it can be a detriment and lead to group think. Every organization needs outliers, obstructionists and contrarians; otherwise, it can become stale, even boring. Change is good and an overbearing culture may resist change. It may even keep good employees away. That said, what mustn’t be diluted are business objectives. And the brand strategy designed to meet those objectives. Of course, brand strategy (the organizing principle for product, experience and messaging) can change if the product or market changes, but it has been my observation that done right brand strategy can live on for decades.

    As for corporate culture, it’s overrated. Our great country was built upon diversity: of thought, religion, culture and political background. Culture cannot be prescribed. It can and should grow organically and change. It must remain fluid. Don’t color by numbers.

    Peace.

     

    The 3 Ps…Levels of Brand Strategy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    First and foremost in brand strategy is the Promise.  I have also called it the claim.  I prefer claim because you can willfully break a promise, whereas a claim is a claim  not made to be broken. But let’s use Promise as it’s a nice branding word, both warm and fuzzy. A promise is bound by an objective. The right promise in branding is tied to a business winning value – and that value is either a brand good-at or customer care-about. Ideally, both. Coca-Cola’s brand promise is refreshment. Something the brand is good at and customers care about.

    Proof, the second P, is something I write and talk about all the time. It is the evidence of the claim. Proof that a restaurant is good is a Michelin Star or a James Beard Award for the chef. Proof is what consumers tell other consumers to get them to believe recommendations. Proof organized into three planks is how you create memorable brand values and memorable brands.

    And lastly, there is Persuasion. Persuasive delivery of the promise and proof is an accelerator to brand building. Often, this takes the shape of creative. Brilliant brand-building creative delivers the promise, with proof, in a emotional and rational envelope that sticks to the ribs and brain. Persuasion leads to action. There can be persuasive creative that doesn’t deliver promise or proof yet that is just advertising art. Good for the agency, bad for the business.  

    Use all 3 Ps in your brand strategy and it will be hard to fail. This, of course, providing you have a good product. Someone once said the fastest way to kill a bad product is with good advertising. The fastest way to make good advertising is with the 3 Ps.

    Peace. Or is that Ps.

     

     

    Education or Decoration?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I’m a firm believer that the best marketing is based on education. This goes for branding. Give people information that stimulates and is new to them and they will retain it. Of course, that information must be about brand value, brand function, brand discernment and personal utility. Not necessarily all at the same time. Hee hee. As a smart branding mentor once said, make deposits in the brand bank.

    I am not a firm believer that the best marketing is based on decorating. Decorating attempts to gather attention through beauty or other creative means and build off that attention with an often hidden and or/shoehorned sales message about the product. Attention is important, don’t get me wrong. If you are not being scene and referred, you are not likely to be considered and purchased. But you don’t want to be all hair gel and no hair.

    The best approach to marketing is not to decorate for attention, then sell as an afterthought. The best approach is to establish a brand strategy, which you only need to do this once, then use your marketing budget to educate your way to preference.  Sadly, I’d estimate 80% of marketing and advertising budgets are spent on decorating.

    We need to flip that equation.

    Peace.

     

     

    Proof. And Its Successor.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Readers and clients know my brand framework revolves around “one claim and three proof planks.” To readers passing in the night and the those steeped in brand-speak and the many theories of brand planning, claim and proof may just be new flavors of the same old.  But to those who have actually been through the What’s The Idea? planning rigor, the notion of mining proofs is unique brandcraft. When president Trump says there’s election fraud, that’s a claim. When he actually trots out proof of fraud we (will) take notice.  When a bank says it offers the best customer service, that’s a claim. When they take 15 minutes to pull up your computer records that’s the opposite of proof.

    But when talking about brand planning and brand strategy, claim and proof aren’t always the catalysts that cause people to buy. It’s inside baseball. It’s fill-in-the-blank stuff. Generic inputs. Only when they see actual proofs from their own company does it make sense. Does it become salient.

    I’ve landed on a new rubric for selling brand strategy that is aligned with proofs but uses a notion which is much more easily understood. It revolves around a word more obvious in its ties to selling: Persuasion. Rather than call the selling keystones of brand strategy proofs, I will begin calling them persuasions. Proof out of context is generic science. Persuasion, as a word, stands on its own.

    Stay tuned for more discussions of the framework around persuasions. It’s going to be fun!

    Peace.

     

     

    Are KPIs a Brand Tool?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    KPIs (key performance indicators) came into active use in the 90s, though codifying business objectives has been around since the 1800s. In an interview by Ana Anjelic of two founders of South Fork Pottery here in Asheville I noticed a reference to establishing KPIs for each department. Measurement dashboards are au courant. But that means lots of KPIs. How many KPIs is too many I wonder.

    Jeff Finkle a smart VC and finance dude came up with a wonderful performance objective a number of years ago I have used with clients for years. It’s a key branding objective really and it is tied solely to the brand claim.

    Every day, at the end of work, as each employee is walking to their car, that person should ask themself “What did I do today to (insert brand claim here)?” If they did nothing to advance the brand claim, it wasn’t a great day. It was a day they could have been more productive.

    Sharing the company or product brand claim with every employee is free. Reminding them they are there to advance the claim is free. Creating incentives and culture around a brand claim is business-winning. It puts the entire company into the marketing effort.

    KPIs are for spreadsheet and dashboards. Brand claims are for the people…and the bank.    

    Peace.

     

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