Facebook Instagram X Youtube
    Latest

    Marketing

    Too much advertising.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    The movie John Carter cost a couple of hundred million to make and netted only $30 million its first weekend. Come se dog?  Disney made it and, I suspect, allowed it lots of free advertising on ABC-TV.  Promos for the movie were everywhere.  It was so overexposed most people felt they’d already seen the movie. Way too much advertising.

    I’m not the demographic for the movie and roving 10 ton gorilla-dogs are not my thing but even so this movie would have done better at the box office had every person in America not seen an hour of promotional video. They out-Geicoed Geico this month.

    Peace! 

    Apple should retire the iPad2.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    Technology marches on and that was evident yesterday in San Francisco when Apple announced “the new iPad” (not iPad3 as some expected it to be called). Taking the hottest product on the market and improving it almost before it has had a chance to massify is an exciting Apple tactic.  That’s vision stuff — without the vision marko-babble, i.e., doing rather than saying.  But here’s the rub – and it’s a little rub.  Apple should retire the second generation iPad which it is now pricing at $399. That would be very Jobsian if you ask me.

    Innovation and design should never be put on hold – for a company like Apple it’s a step backward.  A second best iPad priced a hundred dollars lower encourages consumers toward the wrong behavior. Yes, it gets more people into the market and increases market share, but it’s a marketing tactic for challenger brands not leaders.

    My 2 cents.  Peace!

    The Craft Economy

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    One of my first insights as a young planner while working at Poppe Tyson on a brand called Ravensburger, maker of wooden puzzles and educational games, was the insight that competitors who were flooding the market with what we called “junk games” borrowed from the term junk food. 

    Some might disagree with me on this, but I’m afraid a good deal of the products we consume today can be classified as junk. Products for most of the populace are not build to last. Clothes, sneakers, outerwear purchased for under ten dollars at discount stores start unraveling on the way home. But what the heck, they didn’t cost anything.

    Carlota Perez, an economist interviewed by Fred Wilson at Web 2.0 last year, says the way forward for our planet is to make products that use less raw material, last a long time and can be serviced by real people earning a wage. This mentality is what I’m calling the Craft Economy.

    If we make and consume craft products, we’ll take better care of them.  Craft beer isn’t swilled the way mass market pasteurized beer is.  It’s savored.  Refrigerators that last 25 years, a pair of shoes that are resoled rather than tossed – these are the things of a craft economy. Let’s lose disposable everything. Razor blades. Paper towels. Let’s use more natural products and think sustainability.

    The craft economy is coming. And as a trend it will grow faster as economists start building cases for the inherent savings. More Etsy, less junk. Peace!

    Visuals.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    There is subtext in every marketing piece.  For instance, today there is a big hubbub (and rightfully so) about a Mad Men outdoor billboard showing Don Draper in free-fall high atop a building on the West Side of Manhattan.  (The board is 95% white space.) To show watchers it’s an iconic visualization of the show and Don Draper’s life.  To New Yorkers and others who lost friends and loved ones 9/11, it’s an insensitive punch in the como se llama. 

    Visuals, more than words, tell immediate stories. We need to be mindful.  Pictures that show danger may be eye-catching but convey danger which research shows can transfer that feeling subconsciously to the brand.  Imagery that conveys happy (Coke’s happiness factory) can transmute smiles.  Visuals that depict chaos or disorganization similarly hurt an organization story.

    Ergo, think before you select a visual.  Not everyone sits around a computer for hours trying to select a visualization to match a brief.  Most pass marketing pieces with nary a glance.  So look up. Stay true. Be sensitive. Peace.

    Advertising’s Drivel Fest.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    I enjoy simplification.  Almost daily I refer to marketing and branding as consisting of claim and proof. Organized proof. Why is it that so many marketers don’t use proof – preferring platitude?  Health care organizations that can cut your brain open, re-jigger the synapses, cauterize a bleeder but only capture that in an ad with some drivel about “uncompromising care” or “unparalleled treatment?”

    Most advertising today is a drivel-fest.  Who is writing this stuff?  Who is approving it? Is an algorithm doing it?  Ads used to make you feel.  Now they inform and if we’re lucky make us laugh. But they do very little else. 

    I learned a lesson at AT&T in the 90s.  Build a book of proof.  Find the proof that is most evocative and convincing and celebrate it.  If we find our claim, organize the proof and acculturate it into the company, drivel is easily illuminated and becomes quite unacceptable.  Peace.

     

    Promises vs. Deeds

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    I’m all about the deeds.  In marketing, promises are like air. Deeds on the other hand are few and far between. Okay, bringing coffees to a sale call is a deed. So is lunch.  But they are not brand-meaningful deeds. For a great reference on meaningful marketing check out Bob Gilbreath’s bookThe Next Evolution of Marketing.  Deeds are about putting your money where your mouth is.  About delivering proof that you care. Words are important. Deeds are marketing currency.  Deeds make one believe the words.

    The first print ads were no doubt all type.  Words. Then came the ability to reproduce pictures in ads so marketers could pair products and usage with the words. Advertising now is in end-benefit land.  Yet it still feels like “me” advertising not “you” advertising. When we market through deeds rather than promises we connect.  We create muscle memory for our brand ideas.

    One good deed can support months and months of promises. And I meaningful it.  Hee hee. Peace!

     

    Find or Form

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    In brand planning there are typically two approaches.  Find  the brand Idea, which is a bit like a truffle hunt or form the brand idea, more akin to gestation. They are both fun and both hard. 

    Find usually takes the planner through the grasses and woodlands of the brand’s past. Readers know I’m not a rearview mirror planner, but the past contains many clues. Hard and soft.  It helps to know where you’ve trod in order to know where you are going. But going forward you are. Understand the product, people, place, price and promotion fore and aft – and those of competitors — and you should be able to locate a brand idea that suits your business strategy.

    Form focuses on new products and services; those that have never seen the light of day. Form brand ideas require mad context.  Who, with what, and where will this new product be competing?  If in a completely a new category, what person, place or thing will this new product replace?  A rich new rich jungle tea might, for instance, compete with coffee not other teas.

    And remember be it find or form, your idea needs organized support planks — planks that prove the idea.  Lastly, do not confuse a brand idea with a campaign.  As we all know, campaigns come and go. Peace!

    A Moment of Silence.

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    “I’m so sorry for your loss” is what most people say at funerals to bereaved family members.  We say it because it works for people we’re close to and also for people we don’t know well.  Sometimes, though, words are weak — especially words everyone says.  Gestures, on the other hand, are strong.  A silent hug. A sympathetic frown. A teary, quarter smile. These things often say much more.

    Words are not feelings.

    As marketers, we often live our lives through words.  We type, we text, we speak, we present. The words we create are used to develop pictures, videos, audio and interactive media.  But often they are still just words. I’ve noticed a trend in TV drama lately where the best shows cut down on the number of words.  Shows where the white space between the words is amplified.  It makes our minds work harder. Anticipate. Ruminate. Feel.

    Good marketing and marketing communications do not heavy up on useless chatter. Great art director know this. I believe it was James Farley of Ford who said “Great advertising makes you feel something then do something.” Word! (Oops)  Peace. 

    Storify

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    Ads are not stories.

    And that’s the problem.  Ads are selling schemes.  They are attention grabbers first — at least those coming from good agencies.  (But many ads fall into the “We’re here!” category, simply telling people what the product does and where to buy it.)  After grabbing attention, most ads tout claims: “me, me, me, me.”  The claims tend to emanate from the executive suite and marketing department.  If the ad creator is any bit the craftsman the ad will also contain some sense of consumer insight.  But you’ll really have to dig for it.  Often it remains on the brief.

    Were ads stories, they would have a beginning, middle and end.  A plot, storyline and moral. There would be a harmony of parts and characters.  And that’s a good thing. People hang around for stories. People remember stories. And though sometimes people remember ads, more often than not they don’t recall the products accurately.  If you are a category leader and a competitor does a great ad, many times you get credit for it.

    So let’s story it up Dan Draper. Everything  — that’s everything — can be storified. Peace!

    What is the plural of “new”?

    By
    Steve Poppe
    -
    0

    I saw Jonah Peretti speak at a social media conference a year ago and though I had heard of BuzzFeed was not aware it was his baby. He co-founded the Huff Post, by the way. Mr. Peretti is a didge native and gets the whole Poster Vs. Paster thing.  His content is king school is the approach I believe Yahoo and AOL need to jump their sites forward.  AOL bought some serious properties to make me think they were on the right path, but fumbled them and weren’t able to jump on the ball.   Yahoo didn’t even try, it seemed.

    Mr. Peretti has two marvelous quotes in today’s New York Times – quotes that media properties in the digital world should heed:

    “There is nothing more viral than news that no one else has.”  

    And “News is the killer app and does not depend on search optimization.”

    The common denominator here is news.  Not everything is news. That’s why there is SEO. But as we hunt and peck our way to site traffic gains, we need to think about news. And what is new. 

    Today in marketing and advertising, 90% of everything is old. Perhaps served up with a new color, a new flavor, a new voice – but  old it is.  As Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg infuse our digital worlds with more and more marketing and crowd noise, as the buzz gets louder as something akin to a scene out of The Hunger Games, it would be smart for marketers to be chase new. Think new. And sell new. Peace.

    1...111112113...208Page 112 of 208
    © Newsmag WordPress Theme by TagDiv