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    Podcasts and Care-Abouts.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    WNYC, a NYC public radio station, just announced it will open a new $14 million facility to create and distribute podcasts. It’s a brilliant marketing idea. I’ve always had a soft spot for radio and podcasts feel like a smart new media content play. The brilliant investigative series “Serial” by Sarah Koenig last year sparked the podcast movement.

    Podcasts are also a good content play in the marketing arsenal. Companies create lots of words and video to hanging off their websites to drive traffic, action and sales — a tactic mostly born to feed the Google Algorithm. And lately content has been championed by ad agencies looking to make more creative buildables. Podcasts have been overlooked.

    Smart companies will begin to delve into podcasts. What’s the Idea? has been recommending podcast creation to clients for years.  Here’s how it works. The brand planning rigor at What’s The Idea? drives clients to care about what their customer’s care about. The nexus of customer care abouts and brand “good ats” (Thanks Robin Hafitz, for the wordsmithing) drives the organizing principle that is the brand plan. And the care abouts are where we mine for podcast development.

    When you create content people find interesting (versus content about yourself), you connect. People found “Serial” interesting. If you are in the tooth whitening business how do you decide what consumers are interested in? How do you keep it fresh? How do you make deposits in the brand bank? These are good, tough questions. Questions with answers. Questions for a new medium.

    Peace.

     

     

     

     

    Charlene the Meme-alist.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Charlene Li, a great business mind, recently sold Altimeter Group to Prophet, a long standing brand and marketing concern. Charlene is, and has been, a great meme-alist. She comes up with big business ideas and memes them. These memes helped put the Altimeter Group on the map. Each meme, a mini brand, constitutes a “proof” of her innovative business approach.

    Now at Prophet, however, she seems to be doing things a bit differently. Next week she is hosting a webinar on improving employee engagement. No doubt it will be a good one, because engagement has become big business these days. (Back in the early 80s my dad Fred Poppe used the word in a number of Ad Age thought pieces, giving him national cred.) That said, engagement has become a pop-marketing term and the title of Ms. Li’s talk feels a bit “early majority,” perhaps even a little “late majority” to use Geoffrey A. Moore’s framework.

    What I love about Ms. Li is her “beyond the dashboard” approach. She needs to settle into her new office before mad redecorating. I suspect she will be back on her game shortly. Then watch out!

    Peace.

     

     

    Is Amazon Making Unfriends?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    amazon handmade

    Everyone loves Amazon. Mostly, everyone. We all feed at the Amazon trough. I bought twice from them yesterday. Once, only to find out the non-Prime product would be delivered in close to a month — which I then cancelled — and a second time a few minutes later when the same product popped up with free delivery in 2 days.

    Amazon is loveable, but beginning to make some enemies. With its launch yesterday of Amazon Handmade, direct competitor of Etsy, it made some unfriends. I once accused Google of a “culture of technological obesity.” Amazon, seems to on track for a culture of retail obesity. Why? Because it can. In March Amazon added Amazon Home Services, to compete with Angie’s List and others. Amazon Business, nee Amazon Supply, is an effort to compete with MSC Direct, Grainger and Global Supply. More unfriends.

    And let’s not even get into margins. If you sell a product on Etsy to give them 3.5% of sales, plus a minimal listing charge. If you sell on Amazon Handmade you give up 12%.

    These new business segments will indeed make extra m/billions for Amazon. But it’s a technology play. Etsy owns the heart. Angie’s List owns the heart. Amazon needs to stay away from retail gluttony. Remember Amazon, business people are consumers when they go home. Don’t go overboard on your overdog status.

    Peace.

    Cognitive IBM and Ogilvy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Ogilvy launched a new ad campaign and idea for IBM yesterday. And in Ogilvy fashion it was big. Big media, big idea, big investment. The campaign idea is Cognitive Business. Copy pays of the claim with “A new era or technology. A new era of business. A new era of thinking.” The platform is IBM Watson, the mega computer that attempts to rival Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories biggest iron. The specific products are 28 APIs (application programming interface) that can be built into one’s digital business to crunch numbers that deliver insights and new processes….drum roll please…to create solutions for a smarter planet.

    Campaigns come and go, a powerful brand idea is indelible.

    Cognitive Business is Solutions For a Smarter Planet writ small. Same idea, new creative envelope. More productized envelope. To me it feels like an idea IBM marketing directors can more easily cozy up to. Cognitive Business is a little advertising retro but a strong evolution.

    Brand ideas work best when combining “what customers want most” with what “the brand does best.” The most effective ideas, however, always favors the consumer. This idea and its support planks feels a bit too IBM focused: cloud, infrastructure, security. But it’s only day 2 let’s give it a chance. Glad to see some movement around Watson. Peace.

    PS. Two really great TV ads here and here.

     

     

     

    Jack Dorsey. America’s Newest CE…Leave the O Off for Savings.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I’m sure Jack Dorsey is superman. But this whole dual CEO thing makes me a little crazy. Not a fan. It’s hard enough to run a prosperous company as a single person — but to split time between two companies with one public and under intense pressure and scrutiny? It’s not a recipe for success. Mr. Dorsey must know this. Perhaps it’s an ego thing. Even if his brain is two times bigger than the average executive, he’d be better off focusing his full attention on one company…as he did as when helping found Twitter. Leave Square to someone else for a few years.

    Twitter is way more than a technology company. It’s a learning company. A news company. A comms company. An earth flattening company.

    Part of the problem today for Twitter is earnings. That’s what happened to public technology companies. As an advertising medium Twitter is average at best. It wasn’t built for advertising. Imagine shutting down the emerging America railroad system before it crossed the country because it couldn’t sell enough ads on the sides of trains to pay for the rails.

    Let’s all take a breath. Rushing Mr. Dorsey into accepting half-a-job and putting pressure on him to deliver revenue before its time is a mistake. The outcome won’t be pretty long term. (Hope I’m wrong.)

    Peace.

     

    A New Marketing Leader.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Eliza Esquivel, an executive marketing lead at Mondelez, spoke at Google Firestarters-NY earlier this week. This lady can ball. No marko-babble from her.

    I really sat up when she used what seemed an inside term of art “Building Memory Structures.” It warmed my self-taught heart to hear this because I’ve built a similar framework but never put it so elegantly. I often speak and write of “building muscle memory” and doing so using “1 claim and 3 proof planks,” but these words from the Mondelez camp explain why it’s a company to watch. And why Ms. Esquivel will someday be Ad Age’s Marketer of The Year.

    In this Fast Twitch Media world, filled with more Pasters than Posters, Google brand planners (planner who rely on Google only for insights), in a country where every business owner feels s/he is a marketing expert, it’s nice to know there’s are some marketing 30 somethings coming up with big eyes. A generation not smitten by shiny ephemeral tactics and automation technology. Ms. E has some serious vision and a lovely sense of control.

    It’s going to be fun watching her career.

    Peace.

     

     

     

    Master and Commandee.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Last night at Google Firestarters, Chet Gulland, head of strategy at Droga5 NY, mentioned “1 idea, 50 briefs.” For another Droga brand he spoke of 30 briefs. (The topic of the event, as you might imagine, was the brief.) The brief is what keeps agency planning departments in business. Each project should have a brief. It should outline the task, opportunity, problem and provide a solution spark. The more insightful and powerful these briefs, the better the work…so goes the logic.

    An undercurrent at Firestarter and an undercurrent about briefs in general (check out this exceptional video) is that briefs are better seen not heard. Shorter is better. Problem-focus is important. Agile and open are also key.  One panelist, in fact, suggested no brief is the best brief – but he was from a product development/innovation company.

    I completely agree with Mr. Gulland though I might word it a little differently. One brand brief, 50 creative briefs. At What’s The Idea?, the idea (claim) is the brand strategy. It is supported by 3 proof planks. Any creative brief, developed by any cohort, must be on idea. The actions, experiences and programs used to generate sales, guided by individual creative briefs, should all celebrate the idea (claim) and support one of the proof planks. Claim and proof.

    The brand brief and the many creative briefs it sires will keep planners busy for years to come.

    Thanks to Google, Ben Malbon and Abigail Posner for another wonderful event. Eliza Esquivel of Mondelez was exceptional too.

    Peace.

     

     

     

    Brand Strategy Licensing Fees.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I was talking to a colleague last week, a newly minted consultant, who asked my opinion on licensing brand strategy.  I suggested once a brand strategy is sold, it makes sense to put an annual license fee on the strategy, for as long as the company uses it. A nominal amount. Rather than simply sending an invoice each year, the fee should come with value. And that value is an open-ended offer to the client to share work with me for validation – so they know it’s on strategy. The fee would also cover an annual refresher or training course on the brand strategy – one which new employees or agencies should attend.

    One of my biggest regrets with What’s The Idea? is that I often finish a brand strategy then sail into the sunset; leaving the brand and marketing managers to deal with compliance. At mid-size, small and start-up companies marketing directors typically don’t have these skills.

    My friends at Brandtuitive are good at this. They make sure training is part of their engagement. The notion of making a company pay a recurring annual fee for training and compliance, albeit a small one, makes lots of sense. But is has to be more about compliance than a license of the idea. (And remember “Campaigns come and go, a powerful brand strategy is indelible.”)

    Thought?

     

    Marketing Buildables and Strategy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I’m guessing the percentage of global marketing budgets spent on strategy is 1%. Maybe sub. I’ll also go on record as saying that 90% is invested into buildables – the ads, websites, POS, and content we built to help sell. That leaves 9 percent for what? Measurement, analytics, quantitative research.

    This is a shame. It’s also why only half of advertising works. It’s why Google is killing it and in many cases becoming strategy for marketers.

    What is strategy? It’s a plan to accomplishing a goals. An organizing principle for tactics. Talk to many marketing and you’ll find many who confuse objectives and strategies. And tactics and strategy.

    The absolute most important part of a market plan is the strategy page. It’s the page that requires the most thought, the most time, the most discussion and the most complete buy-in from senior management. When the marketing plan is reviewed by senior management, in what typically is a 2 hour meeting once a year, it’s the budget page that gets the most attention. Who will get the most buildables? Who will create them? Where will they go? What will they achieve?

    It’s backwards. For every percentage point taken from buildables and put into strategy, the payout is truly significant. As my Norwegian aunt used to say “Tink about it.”

    Peace.

     

     

    Brand Ideas and Words.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Words are to strategy what notes are to music. A great piece of music lays a set of notes into a unique order that can make a song bird take notice. Words by Dickens are constructed differently than those by Dennis Lehane. The words used in a powerful strategy idea (the claim) are powerful and rich but are just words. Does the word “polydimensional” mean the same thing as “multi-channel” or “multifaceted”? Probably. But as part of a brand strategy claim it can take on added ballast.

    Poly suggests science and medicine. Also academia. Dimensional suggests 3-D. Linear but vast. As someone once said about brands “they are empty vessels into which we pour meaning.” But a good word can help guide and organize meaning.

    Choose your words very carefully. Be sure the context is rich, but do not fall into category babble or nomenclature. It’s okay to use some counterintuitive or incongruous words, so long as human context makes sense. Never confuse. Be artful and find words pregnant with meaning. Malleable meaning that create value for your brand. And, as in music, it doesn’t hurt to offer a bit of poesy or a lyrical feel.

    Peace.

     

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