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    All Things Purchased.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I’ve written about the brand diaspora as it relates to Microsoft. Diaspora meaning “the spread or dissemination of something originally confined to a local, homogeneous group, as a language or cultural institution.” It’s a topic about which a very boring branding book could be written.

    It will be very interesting to see how Amazon handles branding as it continues to take over the retail world. On Long Island, 52 A&P stores are being sold or closed. Wal-Mart earning have slowed, only being kept positive by international sales. Online commerce accounts for a growing portion of all things purchased and it’s not slowing down. Ask real estate sales people – count the brown paper covered windows in local strip malls.

    En masse, retail is changing — and the winner is and will continue to be Amazon. Amazon is getting into the industrial distribution business. Hear that MSC Direct? Hear that Grainger? Do you think Mr. Bezos is not thinking about food distribution logistics? And ways to make locally sourced food products cheaper to purchase and deliver?

    The future is not now. But one can see it in blurry focus…and Amazon will def be at its center. Plan ahead defenders.

    Peace.

     

    Straight Outta Amazon!

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    When your corporate culture and work practices are skewered on the front page of The New York Times, you have two paths forward: respond defensively or not al all. Jeff Bezos and Jay Carney opted to respond. With a tail lowered a few degrees, Mr.Bezos smartly wrote his employees telling them the characterization of his company as a harsh place to work was, in his mind, inaccurate. And in some of the cases cited in the article, very un-Amazonian. Anyone, said he, who feels they have been wronged should “write me directly.” He also suggested, harsh working conditions and lack of empathy will not be tolerated. Mr. Carney brought this internal memo to the NYT and public. Those mea culpas out of the way he went on to say the story was inaccurate.

    The second approach would have been to do nothing. Nothing externally. That’s the approach I would have taken. It’s a big company. Nasty happens. Hard work happens. Has anyone ever worked at an ad agency? Doh! Bad managers are just like bad people, they exist.

    By going public, extending the news cycle another day, the NYT ended up gathering more stories to publish. Women Bill Cosby raped began “coming out” when the crimes became topical. Hard work at Amazon is not a crime. Slashing a percentage of workers each year is not a crime – it’s Jack Welchian.

    I suspect Jay Carney counselled Mr. Bezos to lay low and he did not abide. Or, it could have been the other way. Either way it was a learning moment. Either way Amazon will rule the world (silly drone idea aside) in 10 years.

    Peace be up on (not “upon”) you. (Saw Straight Outta Compton last night. Crazy, crazy great movie!)

     

    5 Hour Energy. When Extra Strength Kills.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I was listening to the radio yesterday and heard a spot for 5 Hour Energy Extra Strength. Say what??? This is a business mistake caused by a branding mistake. 5 Hour Energy is already perceived as extra strength. Hell, it’s in the name. 5 hour Energy was a category-busting product in one of the fastest growing beverage areas around, according Beverage Digest. Sure you can improve the flavor and add new citrus punches and the like but by introducing extra strength it neuters the regular brand.

    This is not to say product management shouldn’t have been looking for ways to expand sales, they should. Just not at the expense of the master brand. They would have been better off launching a newly named, newly formulated product. Not, though, like Monster who has 30 +brands.

    There’s pushing the envelope and ripping her open. I believe Extra Strength is a case of the latter.

    Peace.

     

    A Soar Plan in the Craft Economy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    The promise of the craft economy is higher quality products. There’s little question that the love that goes into craft beer (or batch beer) is exponentially greater than that going into mass produced brew like Bud Light. Sir Kensington Ketchup is another example of a craft product in search of a sliver of market share. With less sodium and sugar and no genetically modified ingredients, the product has a built in market. So long as the taste is there. Hampton Creek’s Just Mayo is a successful craft product. The craft economy is growing.just mayo

    Here’s the thing about the internet age. A craft product can go from zero to 3/5th of a mile in ten seconds like that. Distribution channels aside, if a craft product “hits,” demand can soar in hours. New product producers and manufacturers need to have a “soar” plan.

    And not all craft product people want to mass produce (wink wink), but those who do shouldn’t be caught off guard. It takes months and lots of money (in stocking fees) to get consumer packaged goods onto a grocery store shelf. That’s too long. You need a plan. Costco? BJs? Direct to consumer via the web? Options all.

    New product people in the craft space – crafty they must be.           

    Peace?

     

    Teaching Teachers to Teach. Digitally.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    News Corp. is looking to sell off Amplify after a failed experiment in the education and educational technology business. The coup de grace was a $371M write down announced yesterday. The NYT suggested “the moves highlight the difficulty that has confronted News Corporation and others looking to move teaching into the digital age, relying on the Internet and tablets to update traditional curriculums.”

    Moving teaching into the digital realm is, indeed, difficult. But does anyone disagree it’s a bad idea? I understand teachers over 35 are having difficulty getting acclimated to new devises, e.g., interactive whiteboards, assessment clickers, curriculum apps and education software, but passing advanced chemistry in high school wasn’t a walk in the park either. It’s a learning thing.

    Professional development in K12 is such a big business because many teachers don’t get the new technology. Layer that with new Common Core standards and you are beginning to see the “perfect storm.”

    Amplify will be bought by either Pearson or Google (or a smart super-rich tech spender) who will reengineer how to teach teachers to teach, using a new digital curriculum. It won’t be easy, but when it works (and it will), the results will change U.S. education by leaps.

    Ar-ne Dun-can, clap, clap, clap clap clap. (Baseball stadium reference.)

    Peace.

     

    Google Trivestiture. Not.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I Googled “whatstheidea+google trivestiture” to see when I predicted Google would be split into 3 companies. Seems it was February 2010. According to yesterday’s news, “right pew wrong church.” Google is being reorganized — deconstructed into parts ,actually — but it won’t be at the hands of the gub-ment. It’s Google itself that will separate the company.

    Alphabet will be launched as a brand new holding company. Google will continue on with search, YouTube, Android and apps (and Chrome?), all reporting to Alphabet. And smaller unique businesses such as Nest, Fiber, Google Ventures and Google X will stand alone – also reporting to Alphabet.

    So divestiture is happening, just not as I predicted it. My trivestiture thought was all about monopoly breaking. This move is about business and accountability.

    It doesn’t mean Google still can’t be broken apart, it just makes it a little less likely.

    Nice move Messrs. Brin and Page.

    I was wrong. Happy to admit it. Tear a stripe of my uniform. And ahead we shall march.

    Peace.

     

    Coke’s old new idea.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Consumption of full sugar drinks is down 25% and Coca-Cola is feeling it. Michael Bloomberg take a bow. It was front page news in the NYT today that Coca-Cola is getting behind a pig push to reduce obesity and they’re doing so by educating people that the main culprit in obesity is inactivity. They’ve started a group called GEBN, which is an acronym for GEBN. Their PR peeps are pushing hard, taking the obesity, which leads to diabetes, very seriously. It’s good business.

    If you’d read What’s The Idea? before you know I follow Coke and cut my teeth in the business thinking about their big brand idea REFRESHMENT – an idea a decade ago replaced by “happiness,” a non endemic money suck.  Well, refreshment plays to the new Coke PR idea of #physicalactivity in spades. Yes one can be refreshed by simply sitting in the sun and dehydrating, but the best refreshment comes from activity. So does the best narrative.

    The NFL “Play 60” is behind activity, certainly Nike is… but no one owns the “peak experience” moment (and product) Coke does.

    I love that Coke wants to finds inactivity and obesity. It’s part of their core brand promise. But it doesn’t have to be a PR onslaught or lackluster Twitter campaign, it can be just good old advertising.

    Peace.       

     

    Fruit Bowls

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    fruit bowlI was recently looking at photos of a number of remodeled kitchens. All were nicely done. The counters were immaculate. But no signs of life. The art directors logic being — see the beauty of the kitchen, not the clutter. No people, no cooking instruments. And, of course, there was the obligatory fruit bowl used as a color accent.

    It made me wonder if there is are obligatory elements every brand planner uses in his/her work. I very much doubt it, but you never know. Planners should ask themselves before arriving at a final work product “What is my obligatory fruit bowl?” Couldn’t hurt.

    Client ad managers have obligatory fruit bowls. And it’s one of the reason advertising is so bad. Things like product shot. Key benefit. Secondary benefit. Consumption or use shot. Whatevs. It’s like these fruit bowls were taught in ad manager school.

    If we are to break through with our strategies and ads, we must provide unexpected learning and unexpected experience. Keep the fruit bowls in the pantry. Peace.

     

    Mouth-Watering Brand Strategy.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    shake shack burger

    Quick, I say Danny Meyer, you say___. I say Shake Shack you say____. I say New Orleans Po Boy, you say_____. The word associations for many food brands are mouth-watering. They bring to mind powerful senses. Reading the NYT Food Section this morning, with colorful pictures of summer veggies and toasted bread crumbs created for me a sensory moment.

    So how do we create sensory moments with brand ideas in B2B?  Not easily. But that’s our challenge. Lazy planners default to ideas like “a good night’s sleep” or “make more money” or “customer centricity,” but that’s every company’s strategy. To arrive at a mouth watering B2B idea you must bathe in the customer experience. And in the customer’s customer’s experience. Each B2B category has it’s own language. Learning and using that language when selling a brand strategy helps. It gains you trust and acceptance. Don’t be a foreigner to the category.

    But most of all keep asking yourself, it you have landed on a mouth-watering claim. Will it register on the Galvanic Skin Response? Keep pushing until you find it. It is there. And it’s worth the pursuit.

    Peace be upon you.

     

    My Brand Planning Definition.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I came to a conclusion the other day while at the Griffin Farley Beautiful Minds competition in NYC. I decided my definition of brand planner is different from most other’s. Most feel a brand planner is a person who does strategy for individual projects, understanding the brand strategy and writing briefs for particular tactical projects.  In a brand’s life there is one brand strategy yet scads of individual executions or communications supporting it. These executions give brand planners constant day jobs.  My definition of a brand planner, however, is a macro definition. In my world, you write the brand strategy once and you are done. One tight brand strategy (1 claim, 3 proof planks) sets the “organizing principle” for life. The creative and the tactics then become ongoing expressions of the brand strategy.

    I’m not talking about building Levittown here. There can and must be a crazy amount of creative inflections throughout, but the goal is to sell more stuff, to more, people more times at higher prices (thanks Sergio Zyman) using “a single claim and proof array.”

    There is no doubt that the industry’s definition of brand planning – the ongoing supervision of a brand idea – is a solid one. The marketing and ad worlds are better places with planners around. But at What’s the Idea?, my vision is to teach marketers and creatives to fish. Using one amazing hook.

    Peace.

     

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