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    Brand Strategy

    Working With Creatives.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Creative people are typically problem solvers. We non-creatives tend to think they stare at a blank page as if a Sisyphean obstacle.  But they’re creative. Their brains boil over with ideas.  They love a blank page/screen.

    Strategists think we help creatives by giving them direction. Stimuli. A subjective hand. Well, more often than not they don’t want it.

    I recently sat through a Sweathead preso where Aisha Hakim, a creative director at 72 and Sunny, told hundreds of planners not to write longwinded briefs. In fact, she said don’t write briefs at all. She doesn’t use them. I get her POV. The longer the wind, the more the blank page isn’t blank. Confusion may reign. Her advice, if I got it correctly, identify a problem, explain why you’re the solution, and drop the mic. Let the creatives go.

    Is there a happy medium?  Yes.  It’s called the client. Creatives in advertising or do have a daddy.  The client.  The person who approves the work. Without a client and money to spend a creative is an artist.

    So, sell the brand strategy to the client well before the work begins. Prepare the client for a value proposition that is business-winning and make sure they believe it.  It is about them, after all.  Then let them be the arbiter of the work. Brand planning must take place up stream.

    Don’t tell creatives how to do their jobs. Share the business winning framework with them, give a hint or two, then get out of the way. Let them thrive. And let the client be the client.

    Peace.

     

    Selling In 30 Seconds or Less.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I was in a meeting yesterday in which mentors were demonstrating techniques to help early-stage companies build sales and teams. The mentee company founder explained his software company as one that monitored employee workflows with the goal of smoothing them out and making things more efficient and productive. My words not his. His explanation was more cumbersome, acronym filled, and, as is the way with coders, rather technical.

    One of the questions I use in my brand strategy practice came to mind for the three mentors during this exercise. It has really helped me over the years when interviewing technical people.  The question was born of work for Capgemini many moons ago. 

    It was meant to be asked of salespeople but works for founders.  “If you had only 30 seconds with a CFO, what would you tell him/her about your product in order to get a meeting?  Craft the answer as if it were a cold voice mail.”   

    If you have ever spoken with CFOs, you know a couple of things about them.  Numbers are their jam.  They’re revenue and expense driven.  They aren’t big students of the FM (fucking magic) or technology undergirding product management.  They also don’t take kindly to marketing bullshit. So, when crafting your 30 second speech, get the Is-Does right – what the product Is and What the product Does. Explain your key benefit — don’t benefit-shovel. And solve a problem with pent-up demand. You just may get your meeting.

    Peace.

     

     

    Brand. Strategy. Framework.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    One of my favorite definitions of “brand” is “an empty vessel into which we pour meaning.”  It’s a statement about the malleability of brands. But under further scrutiny the definition isn’t 100% accurate — most brands aren’t really empty, are they?  Blaze Pizza has a special crust, sauce, cheese.  Fat Tire beer offers a unique malty taste profile. A Ford Mustang Mach-E is a line extension containing lots of built up and carry-over meaning. Nothing empty about that. And, of course, brand have names. Names which when done right, offer up a view into the product and, hopefully, convey a special value.

    It is the job of the brand planner and brand manager to take what exists inside the vessel and enhance it. Refine it. Compliment and strengthen it.  It’s the brand strategy that lets creators and marketers develop and energize the bond between consumers and the brand. It all starts with the brand strategy.

    My definition of brand strategy is “an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.”  And to organize you need a framework. Mine is built upon claim and proof. My framework simplifies decision-making, adds direction to the creative process and informs all four Ps of marketing.

    Get yourself a vessel. Get yourself a framework. And land on a brand strategy. Chaos be gone.

    Peace.  

     

    Smarten-up.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I’m not the smartest guy on the planet. Sometimes it takes me a beat to get a joke. I didn’t get As in college until my senior year.  I can’t finish the NY Times Sunday crossword puzzle (but I do help my wife finish it). This somewhat average acumen serves me well in my brand strategy practice.    

    I can tell a story, I have an ear for consumer likes and language, and have good taste in styles – all assets that contribute to my business. So there’s that.

    H.L Mencken once wrote:

    “No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”

    You’ve heard the expression “dumb down?” Well, when crafting brand strategy for the masses, you don’t want to be the smartest person in the room. Brand planners who are off-the-charts smart sometimes overthink and overcomplicate brand strategy. Whether challenging themselves or making points with the client or creative team it hurts the work.  Conversely, other planners who get that 330 million Americans come in all shapes, sizes and aptitudes, work to “dumb down” brand strategy to a lowest common denominator.

    I take issue with both these approaches.

    The opposite if dumb down is smarten-up. In my planning rigor, I boil down brand strategy to one claim and three proof planks.  The claim may border on common but the proof planks are certainly the “textures of belief” that appeal to consumer smarts.   

    So brand people, smarten-up your strategies. And H.L. Mencken be darned.

    Peace.    

     

    Brand Strategy Proof Planks and Interdependence.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I studied Anthropology in college.  Cultural anthropology – the fieldwork, the unfettered observation of people and cultures has helped my brand strategy practice.  But so has physical anthropology, the study of the adaptation to change by living things.  You know, the ascent of man stuff.

    In his Op-Ed column this morning, Thomas Friedman talked of climate change and how it is not the strongest or smartest species that survives climate change (dinosaurs, for instance), rather it is the most diverse,  “…the most adaptive ecosystems are usually the most diverse, offering different ways to adapt. They thrive because they’re able to forge health interdependencies among the different plants and animals, and in doing so, maximize their resilience and growth.”

    Brand strategies, too, must offer a diverse and interdependent way forward. The secret to my framework is three proof planks. Taken together these planks create the business-winning proposition. Individually they are ads — or floating claims in a kelp bed of marketing. Brand strategy is a long-term game. Sometimes the 3 proof planks can be at odds. One may diminish the other. But life is messy and branding can be too. Yet taken together, in support of one claim, three well-thought-out brand planks provide a healthy interdependence that can last the tests of time. And the test of change.

    Peace.

    PS. For examples of how planks can be at odds and yet work together write Steve@whatstheidea.com

     

     

    Advertising versus Branding.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    For years I called myself a brand consultant, a title conveying something different than does my current title brand strategist.  Both deal with brands but only the latter deals with brand position, brand value and key proofs. 

    The market has been conditioned to think of brand consultants as artists and developers of design flourishes surrounding a product. Brand strategists, on the other hand, are the boring ones. The writers of dull, business prose – albeit prose whose sole purpose is to “sell more, to more, more times, at higher prices.” (Thanks Sergio Zyman.)

    I love great design. I love great creative. I love selling that challenges the status quo. All things good advertising does. But my job as a brand strategist is to lay the groundwork for the sales art. To give it a purpose. A goal. A strategy. Art without purpose belongs in a museum or living room. Art with a purpose is marketing. And the best marketing is based upon brand strategy. It gives you something besides sales to measure. If your only measures are advertising and sales you are fishing without bait.   

    If you think your best sales tool is advertising, you are missing the big picture and the little picture. Brand strategy is the foundational tool.

    Peace.

     

    Believability Vs. Recognition.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I recently came across a brand consultant who rallied around the concept of neuro marketing. Another planner in the brand space whom I really admire is also a fan of the brain and refers to the amygdala a lot in teachings and sellings.

    What sets these two smart people apart from a number of brand strategist is that they, apparently, are selling to people with brains. JKJK.

    All planners work our brand strategies for people with brains but we must realize those brains are so inundated with sales messages, ad claims, and sales memes, that consumers have become inured to most selling efforts. At the same time marketers have become so attention deficit disordered that they change horses in the middle of the race.  Yearly. Monthly. Sometimes weekly.  And with Google AB testing, even hourly.

    This can mess with the amygdala.   

    When swimming in an ocean of marketing, where creative is often the differentiator, it is vital to have a selling idea. A selling claim. And it’s not just good enough to say your claim over and over again, you must prove it. Believability is different than recognition.

    With all deference to the intricate workings of the brain, brand strategists need to help marketers simplify brand value propositions.  Create patterns of value. And bring them to life through creative means. Without this discipline marketers are shouting into a tornado of wind.

    Peace.

     

     

    Nonbinary Selling.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    There are two kinds of selling. Demand selling where people are actively shopping for a product. And interruption selling where the consumer is not shopping just living their life and you attempt to connect and convince them to buy from you. Think having your credit card in hand and your browser open to Amazon (demand) versus eating dinner and having a solar panel salesman knock on your door (interruption).  

    The latter type of selling is harder because first you need get the consumers’ attention. Then you must convince them of the need for the product. And lastly, you have to convince them why to buy your product. A three stepper.

    The toughest job I ever had was as a consumer salesman.  Working for a kitchen remodeling company, I was tasked with intercepting consumers at big box stores and signing them up for in-home free estimates. It took me months to figure out how to get people to stop and talk  — only then after breaking the ice could I begin to sell.  

    A great deal of advertising today is about capturing attention. Think Geico. It’s 90% attention 10% sell.

    Branding strategy is way different than advertising. Brand strategy is totally focused on convincing consumers “why” your brand. Brand strategies that spend time garnering attention or trying to convince consumers to buy a product they’re not shopping for is someone else’s job. The agencies job.

    And brand strategies that promise consumer happiness as a brand value are ridiculous. (Unless selling Xanax.) Brand strategy is about selling product. Not movements. Not emotional outcomes. Not attention. It’s about positioning your product, de-positioning competitors, and as Jack Trout and Al Ries would say, establishing a unique place in the mind of consumers tied to an endemic brand advantage.

    Brand strategy development is nonbinary. Find your single, key consumer benefit and lock it down.

    Peace.    

      

    Shell Life of Brand Strategy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Brands grow up just as people do. Company employees change. Products change. Consumer behaviors change. And brands mature. It is the job of brand strategy to hold it all together but also to keep the brand relevant. Well-crafted, the deeply identified values of a brand strategy live on as a brand matures. A good master brand strategy keeps a brand from aging.

    Brand strategy defeats the aging process by offering brand managers a way to constantly revive and make more exciting an evergreen handful of product or service values.  And lest we think these values are rules which impede creativity, think again. Creativity is as deep or shallow as the purveyor allows. Brand strategy provides an ownable lingua franca, in an overly confusing world of salesmanship.

    The best brand strategies live forever. The brand strategy written for ZDNet nearly 25 years ago “For Doer’s Not Browsers” can still be seen in the current line used as a tag on the website “Tomorrow belongs to those who embrace it today.” Sounds like doers to me.  Brands should never dull. They should stand as pillars to the values they impart to consumers. And hang tough.   

    Peace.

     

    Marketing Coach?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I often speak about “pent up demand” and how important it is to brand and marketing strategy.  If people are clamoring for your product or service you only have to position it and promote it.  But if people don’t know they need your product or service — perhaps it’s a new category, or a complicated value proposition  — then you first need to educate them. Only then can you sell them.  It’s a two-step approach and much more expensive.

    What’s The Idea? was initially positioned as a band consultancy. Then it was repositioned as a brand strategy firm. The latter position making it clearer I didn’t design logos or websites or collateral. I do strategy. Everybody knows what strategy is. But brand strategy?  Even brand strategists have a hard time explaining it. 

    My problem is brand strategy is not easily explained on the back of a business card. Nor is it something people wake up in the morning thinking about.  It doesn’t directly solve a common problem.  But do you know the problem it does solve?  A problem that most marketers have (pent up demand)?  Poorly performing marketing.

    I’m giving serious conside-ration to another reposition: marketing coach.  Everyone knows what marketing is. Everyone knows what a coach does. Two words, no ambiguity.

    And guess what my key tool will be as a marketing coach: uh huh, brand strategy.  AKA “an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.”

    Peace.

     

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