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    Brand Strategy

    Branding Is an Act.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    In his farewell Op-Ed piece in The NY Times last week John Lewis said about democracy “It is not a state. It is an act.”  Well, this statement can be co-opted for brand craft as well.

    Branding, the act of making brands, is an active pursuit.  It takes the actions of brand managers and consumers. Consumers build brands by consuming but also by advocating. By sharing their experiences with friends. Or, in the online world, with other consumers. Advocates with no agenda are easy to believe.

    When I refer to brand strategy as an “organizing principle for product, experience and messaging” I am outlining a simplified way of packaging a product or service, highlighting what is most special about it and what customers most desire from it. This organizing principle helps the product people say on track but it also conditions consumer expectations and repsonse.

    When brand managers and cohorts stick to the plan, consumers experience the benefits in expected, replicable and understandable ways. Branding is not a state it’s an act. An ongoing act.

    Too many marketers rely on telling consumer what to feel rather than making them feel. A flaw in the system.

    Peace.

     

     

    Vision Quest? Nah.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I am beginning to think I need to get out of the strategy business and into the vision business.  Everywhere I turn when talking about brands there are people talking about vision. Vision statements. Company vision. Brand vision. Business vision. Professional vision statement.

    It’s tiring. To me it seems like vision is for people who have a hard time identifying a strategy with acuity. Vision seems a little unfocused, a little blurry.  It can be malleable with moving parts.  Vision for me is antithetical to focus. And focus is strategy.

    Our vision is a better life, through banking.

    Our vision is a healthier society, through better eating.

    Our vision is the American dream, through clothing.  

    I guess if you need to convince yourself, your employees and custies that you are a good company, it can’t hurt to go on a vision quest.  But at What’s The Idea? we don’t have time for that. Plus, most brand planning customers don’t really want to pay for that. What my customers care about is building brands. Brands that have bank. Brands that earn.

    So we are in the focus business. Not the gauzy vision business.

    Try getting bank loan, from one of those people who want you to have a better life, using your vision statement.

    Peace!

     

     

    Roots Rock.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I’ve got it — another brand strategy metaphor. Hee hee. You can finally get some sleep tonight.

    Late last year I was speaking with an agritech business.  If we are to ever truly sustain and be a resilient planetary organism, we are going to need agritech businesses.  Agritech, cleantech and sustain-tech are the planet’s future.  As is brand strategy.  JKJK.

    So here’s the metaphor borrowed from agritech.  Roots. Not Americana music with a little mandolin — plant roots. Roots are fundamental to plant life.  They are adaptable. They are life giving. They are the root of all flora.  When I hike I sometimes see trees growing out of, and over, massive granite rocks. The roots sometime envelope rocks.  Roots give stability to a plant or tree. And nourishment. Well that’s what band strategy does for products and services.  It creates roots. And strength. And nourishment.

    The biggest problem with brands today is that the roots are shallow. To much change. Brand strategies often changes when the ad campaigns changes. And then one has to start all over again.

    Campaigns come and go. Directors of marketing come and go. CEOs come and go. Ad agencies come and go.  A powerful brand strategy is indelible. Roots!

    Peace.

     

     

    Retrofitting Strategy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    For new business and startup owners there is nothing more exciting than jumping into marketing. Naming, logo development, your first retail or business sign. Don’t forget leasing space and buying furniture and equipment. Picking carpet maybe. It’s a flood of exciting choices. 

    The excitement is not unlike buying a new car. All you want to do is drive. No time for the owner’s manual. That is often reserved for a rainy day.

    Well when it comes to start-up and new businesses owners, the single most common error is putting off strategy development. Brand strategy development. Because brand strategy undergirds all marketing efforts. And everything is marketing. From the product or service name, to the logo, retail experience and everything all the way to your first announcement ad. 

    But few new owners start with a paper strategy; something that acts as an organizing principle for all decisions. Brand strategy first should be in every business book.

    Many of my customer engagements begin after a company has been around for a while. And that’s okay. Everyone needs to get organized. Everyone needs marketing obs and strats. Better to get organized later rather than never.  So, in the brand building business there is a lot of retrofitting going on.  But it’s always best to plan up front.

    Peace.

     

    Fines for Brand Strategy Noncompliance.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    What if brand strategy noncompliance came with a monetary fine?  Rules are made to be followed.  Fines work in banking, why not branding?  And we all know adherence works best when there is a carrot or stick involved.  Well, in brand management the carrot doesn’t seem to work. Creative people believe in campaigns but they are usually put off by strategic structure.   That’s why lots of creative people don’t like briefs.  “The shorter the better they say.”

    I want the absolute best out of my creative people.  I want them amped and excited.  But I also want my artists to be hitting the positive brand-building values set out in the brand strategy (one claim, three proof planks.)  And it is not good enough to just kill work as a brand manager. Killing work is a cancer at an ad agency. Letting work fly, regardless of strategic intent, is cool.  But it’s not. That’s not how you build brands.

    So why not hit the team with a fine each time they provide a solution off-piste. Money and compensation make the world go around. Why not consider using commercial disincentive to keep teams on track?

    Probably my worst idea ever. I love it.

    Peace.

     

     

     

    Gartner’s 2020 Annual CMO Spend Survey Research

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I love this chart.  I freakin’ love this chart.  For CMOs to acknowledge the importance of brand strategy, overtaking analytics and all other measures, is a powerful endorsement of brand work. Gartner’s study queried 432 CMOs.

    I could get caught in the weeds asking questions like “How do the CMOs define brand strategy?”  or “What does your brand strategy framework look like?” but I won’t. I’ll just bask in the glow.

    Apparently, brand strategy was near the bottom of this list when asked in the 2019 Annual CMO Spend Survey Research, so this is quite a leap up in importance.  Now, one could say the Covid-19 Pandemic is playing a role in this leap; the logic being, when marketers cut budgets and activity, strategy becomes more important — but I am going to take the win here.

    Great job Gartner. Great job CMOs.

    Peace.   

     

     

    Marketing Communications Without Brand Strategy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    What business are we in as marketers? Most would say sales. Drill past that and ask how marketing gets to sales, the next up word is likely communications. Marketing communications is a term of art in the business of sales.

    I am in the branding business. Way back when, branding referred simply to identity. Brand a cask of olives. Brand cattle. Brand Chinese porcelain. Today the term is way overextended. Neophyte marketers misuse the term as a verb, all the time. But that’s a story for another day.

    Brand strategy — how you build a brand — is a means by which to organize communications and experiences to create a value (supported by a subset of other values) in consumer minds. Unorganized communications detract from this effort.

    Any person at a company or acting on behalf of a company, involved in communications, must know the brand strategy to operate effectively. To be a participant in brand building. It guides every blank sheet of paper, every empty computer screen. Hopefully, every creative thought.

    Truman Capote once wrote and pardon the translation, “That’s not writing; that’s typing.” This is how I feel about marketing communications sans brand strategy. It’s typing.

    Am I right Adrian Ho?

    Peace.

     

    The Two Types of Brand Strategist.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    My practice, What’s The Idea?, works on master brand strategy not everyday strategy. I set the strategy for all brand activity, for now and ever after. Unless there’s a big business discontinuity or business model change I’m only needed once. Brand strategists who work at large ad agencies on the other hand, are more seen as ongoing problem solvers. Or creative department lion tamers. They’re a strategic lens for important projects — to keep them scientific and on track.

    My work is upstream. Agency brand strategists tend to work downstream, closer to a sale, in project land. I’m not denigrating problem solvers, I love these people.

    Both type of brand strategists are critical but if you ask me the most critical work, the fundamental brand work, is with the master brand. Think strategy for winning the war, not strategy for winning a battle. Without the former, the latter can be randomized.

    My main competitors are large standalone brand strategy companies like Interbrand, Super Union, Landor and Siegel+Gale. But in addition to doing what I do, they also offer naming, logo development and graphic standards. That’s why an engagement from one of those standalone shops begins at $250,000 ish. I unbundle the paper strategy from all the add-ons. It’s a cleaner approach to master brand strategy.

    In master brand planning we discuss the import of importance.

    You feel me Jane Geraghty?

    Peace.

     

    Advocacy in Brand Strategy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    One of the least understood parts of branding is advocacy. When discussed in marketing circles, more often than not, it’s referred to as loyalty. But loyalty really just means repeat customers. Advocacy offers a multiplier effect. Advocates refers other customers to the brand.

    In social media circles advocates are called influencers; people with social media followings who often shill for products. They are Posters (not Pasters) who others look to for advice about hallowed brands. Social media has taken advocacy and renamed it and tarnished it, in my opinion. They have overly commecialized it.

    A personal friend or acquaintance, with a Jones for a restaurant or brand of hiking shoes, is way more believable as an advocate than is a social media promoter.

    Advocacy accounts for a shit-ton of sales. Word of Mouth. Peer to peer. Personal recommendations. Whatever you call it, advocacy does a lot of heavy lifting in the sale process. When you look at Steps-To-A-Sale models, the most famous of which is probably AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action), you can see how a face-to-face advocate can collapse those steps in a matter of minutes.

    It’s important to develop your brand strategy claim and proof array that works for advocates. One that constantly gives them new fuel to help in their work. Advocates for your brand that sound like broken records burn out.

    Peace.

     

     

    Selling Is To Buying What Teaching Is To Learning.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I’ve spent my entire career (save for a few painted houses) in businesses allied with selling; mostly advertising, marketing and brand strategy. For 8 months I worked at an education technology company. Not only did I have to learn the products and services of the company, I had to learn the language and culture of the people who bought and used them: teachers and administrators. Taking it a step further, because that’s what planners do, I wanted to also understand the needs of the teacher’s customers: the students, parents and communities. I did a really deep.

    My education in education changed my outlook on marketing. It changed my outlook on selling. You see, there is a difference between selling and buying. We sell so people buy — but they don’t always. Similarly, there’s difference between teaching and learning. Students are taught but don’t always learn.

    If you are teaching and the kids aren’t learning, are you really teaching? If you are selling and the consumers aren’t buying are you selling? When the answer is no, marketers often change their ad agency or hire a business consultant.

    I’m here to suggest, if you are selling and consumers aren’t buying, you have a brand strategy problem. Brand strategy at it’s most foundational level identifies what a brand (company) is good at and what its customers care-about. With this information in hand, learning begets buying.

    Peace.

     

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