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    Percent of GDP Spent on Brand Planning.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I am on a quest to figure out what part of the US GDP is spent on marketing. The current US GDP according to the World Bank website is $15.6 trillion. Healthcare in America is estimated to be about 18% of the GDP and my gut is telling me dollars spent on market are probably in the same ballpark.

    GDP is defined as “the sum of gross value added by all resident producers in the economy plus any product taxes and minus any subsidies not included in the value of the products” so one might say since marketing comprise all four Ps, product being one, that all of GDP is marketing, but let’s use What’s the Idea? math and remove the cost of producing goods from the equation.

    So what are we counting? Research and development of new products. Headcount of people in all marketing services; within the company and vendor.  All out of pocket for advertising, promotion, PR, research, sales, channel, web and service. Based on my seriously fuzzy math, let’s say we are spending $2.8 trillion in marketing sans production.  That’s some cheddar.

    Of that amount, what percent do you think is spent creating an organizing principle that guides marketing? That allows employees and consumers to learn the unique value of a brand…and articulate it with meaningful language. Not taglines like “Chase what matters.”

    The answer is not much. 

    Were we to take all the revenue of companies like Interbrand, Landor, Brand Union and Siegel+Gale and brand planning practices at agencies, we would find that it amounts to a milli-portion of the total. So we’re building brand with lots of people, lots of tools, lots of services and very, very little strategy. I’m having a brain freeze and not even eating ice cream. Peace.

    PS.  Getting to actual spending numbers would be a great econometric project for a business school student. 

     

    NSA meets Verizon meets Nielsen.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I’ve been thinking about a friend who has a clothing line catering to female teens and tweens in a particular sports category. A rich one. A co-worker earlier this year mentioned she spent more the $100,000 on this sports pursuit over the course of the child’s school years.

    Knowing what I do about this target and its proclivity for texting — between competitions they sit in gymnasium halls and stare at their phones – there is huge opportunity to find “Posters.” Posters are original content creators, Pasters are their minions.

    Were we to go all NSA and look at their (mom’s) cell phone bills, would be we able to tell Posters from Pasters? I’m not sure. Were we to go all Verizon on the bill maybe. Perhaps Verizon can figure out a “forwarded message” from an original picture or video post. Certainly the bills can indicates which kids are moving more media – more digits.

    Then we need a Nielsen lens to look through so we can see how these young Poster ladies cluster. So  we can find what other media and products they consume and what behaviors they share. (Like listening to iPods while mom drives them to competitions. Hee hee.)

    Once we cull the Posters from the Pasters we’re home free. Because, frankly, much of what they are sending across the ether is kids stuff. With a content marketing plan using a social twist, driven by a tight brand plan, we can fertilize this garden already poised to grow and grow. Peace!

    History…from the future.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    The problem with history is it’s being made now.  And because it is happening now, no one sees it as historic. The heinous crimes going on today in the Central African Republic are historic. It is Rwanda of 9 years ago, but because it’s happening now, they are seen as a horrid day on the news cycle — not viewed with the context it will be.

    Brand Planners need to think historically. Historically, from the future. I like to think that great leaders, the ones about whom biographies are written, have an expanded, longer term view of things. They can remove themselves from the here and now and see bigger pictures…see today within larger context.

    Brand planners approach their work this way. They are not pipe smoking academics – heads in cloud – they are charged with seeing beyond the dashboard, beyond the metrics of the day (though certainly guided and informed by them). Only then can they guide the now and the mission. Results today sans mission are serendipity. And brand false. (I loved Barry Diller’s recent quote to Tina Brown, “Enough about traffic.”)

    Brand plans grow, mature and adapt. Like children, they are fortified by family and environment. Great plans without great products are few and far between, but not unheard of. (Know of any? Feel free to share.)

    Now, wash your hands and go make some history. Peace!

     

    Pinterest vs. the Lazy Website.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I’m not a pinner or user of Pinterest (yet), but recently visited the site in an effort to help out a friend with a woodworking business; my intent was to get him to display his amazing work.  Pinterst recognized the fact that I was not an active user and so popped up a quickie tour of new features.  The pop up made it sound as if they were sharing new enhancements, but it could easily have just been their way of reorienting and activating me.

    Nice finesse Pinterest.  This is how the web should work.  In my world, where a website should represent the brand plan (one claim, three proof planks), pop-ups or interstitial pages that vary based upon your visiting behavior are refreshing. A return visitor that always heads straight to contacts or about should be offered a quick link there. A first time or lapsed user should be treated with special gloves. A repeat purchaser should get the special treatment — perhaps a surprise every now and again, and other delights.

    But this doesn’t happen very often.

    We have really kind of forgotten the website these past few years as we go all head down on shiny new social media and moble. And now “content marketing” is the haps. Often unbridled content marketing. Off-piste content marketing.  (That’s why it’s smart to use thought leaders in the practice – see Kyle Monson and www.Knock2x.com for instance.)

    Fred Wilson and John Battelle in a recent video chafed at the notion of giving traffic to other’s websites.  I agree. Social and content are kind of like chumming and fishing, but once the fish is on the line it needs to come into the boat.

    Websites are the biggest most important development in commerce since the telephone.  Let’s get back to optimizing them. Steve Rubel, you with me on this? Peace.

    Jeremy spoke in class today.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Last year I worked with an interesting K12 educational development company called Teq. For a brand planner it provided a perfect storm of stimulating elements: a business with a changing model, tons of humanity (tools to teach children), inner city color, political sturm und drang, and pent-up market demand. Oh, and the market could be measured in billions not millions. In addition to developing a brand plan and marketing communications plan I had my eye on creating a social media dept. – something I’ve long blogged about.

    Before I landed at Teq I found a dude on the company site named Jeremy Stiffler. He was one of the reasons I really liked the Teq, site unseen. Every company needs a Jeremy Stiffler.  He was a SME (subject matter expert), who without breaking a sweat could be recorded on video and teach the products and services.  Part actor, part teacher, part digital usability savant, Jeremy could look the camera in the eye and walk you through a product or topic tutorial (tute) with flawless effectiveness. Good teachers know when a student doesn’t get something by looking at their expression. Jeremy, intuitively knew it, even from behind the camera.

    Social media departments need a good writer, videographer, editor and still photographer.  Obviously, they all need to be orchestrated at the hands of a brand manager and plan.  But the best departments in their respective business will always have a full or part time Jeremy.  Not a pretty on-camera face or rented talent, an illuminating teaching presence who works for the company and gets people. Peace.

    Couple, two, tree thoughts for the NYT.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    The New York Times Company reported a profit for the second quarter and that’s wonderful. It’s been a slog for the NYT but the company is getting its act together. It is divesting itself of non-core properties (Boston Globe, Boston.com), ramping up its digital business and leveraging its worldwide brand by investing in changes to The International Herald Tribune, including a new name.

    Print advertising is down but more surprisingly so is digital advertising – off 2.7%. In today’s word that’s just a little bit crazy. Perhaps these numbers are the result, not of NYT.com, but of the other properties. Either way, didge should be growing like a dookie and with the NYT imprimatur, faster than the market.

    Here’s a couple of thoughts for The Times to accelerate its recovery:

    1. Feed the digital natives with more timely news stories, across more platforms. Online, that will require more video, podcast/audio, and slideshows. Immediacy and “first to report” is a key here.  Your audio video editing suite will need to grow significantly.

    2. Keep the analysis for the daily print property, but feed and stream the big stuff from around the world on NYT.com.  Live is better than canned. (Obviously make the paper/paper analysis available online.)

    3. Do not rename The International Herald Tribune. As much as I love the NYT, it’s an ethnocentric and brand-selfish.  

    4. News cannot be commoditized, so continue to reinvent it. Innovate. Don’t curate. In 20 years, we may still have paper and we still may have broadcast; they are the plumbing. But we will certainly have news — and the organizations that capture it best, with the most accuracy and realism will win the day.

    Peace.   

    Marketing Achievement Gap.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    The words “achievement gap” are often used when discussing education. When discussing poor schools or the allocation of federal funds in order to fix the societal ills. Pols and social scientists often suggest underachieving populations are so because of class, race, geography, and social perception. I can’t disagree. John Wannamaker’s famous line about advertising (“I know only half my advertising is working, the problem is I don’t know which half.”) could also be said about marketing. And follow similar causative logic.

    There is a mad achievement gap in today’s marketing landscape.  The larger companies are more likely to achieve, but it’s not always the case. Mid-size and small businesses (SMB) are more likely to underachieve.

    In mid and small companies class equates to budget (amount of money to be spend on marketing). Race equates to diversity of background and thought; mid-size and particularly small companies are more likely to be homogenous. Geography dictates the pool of marketing and creative talent. The burbs don’t index high for brilliant designers, writers and coders.  And when it comes to social perception, mid and small companies often don’t have the luxury to invest in or understand the complexities that are marketing – so they do it themselves or shop for marketing partners at Wal-Mart not Macys.  Perceptually, they undervalue marketing; thinking it’s advertising or a website.

    Margaret Mead while working at the American Museum of Natural History made psychotherapy mandatory for her direct reports. Her belief being that people who better understood their own psyches were more healthy.  Small and mid-size businesses can minimize the achievement gap, but they can’t do it themselves or on a shoe string budget. They need to better understand marketing to reduce the achievement gap. Peace.     

     

    Lazy Brand Planning Trade Craft.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    I was at the Beautiful Minds event recently, celebrating the work of Griffin Farley through a competition of tyro brand planners, and was asked a question by someone I admire about the quality of the work. On the spot to say something important, I mentioned the work was very nice and of the problem-solution variety. “Very nice” when speaking to a Brit means okay.  Brilliant means good. Hee hee.

    The work was good indeed. The irk for me, however, was the problem-solution thing. Understanding problems and solutions is important for context. But if you stay in problem land it can be lazy trade craft.

    Using brand planning to promote hope and justice and other feel-good ideals, related to the endemic “sell” of a product, is taking planning to the next level. And please don’t read that to mean donate 1% of sales to a cause (not that there’s anything wrong with it). We need to be bigger and more aspirational with our brand strategy ideas. And, if not with the ideas, then with the brand planks supporting those ideas.

    Movements, storytelling and culture are the haps in planning these days, but hope and justice is what sparks these things. Can there be skin justice in a Nivea brief? How about hope in a Chevy brief? Let’s find out. It’s better than problem-solution.

    Peace.

    Follow the proof.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    The boil down is what happens in my brand planning rigor after I feel I’ve collected enough data and information. Lately, I’ve been using Microsoft OneNote, to capture all the market info and links  — a cool tool. When the boil down begins I am looking for proof and patterns.

    I was reading an Op-Ed piece about Egypt yesterday and came across two pieces of proof that set me off onto insights – which lead to strategy. These two proofs were the increase in sale of police dogs to citizens and skyrocketing tour guide unemployment.   Lawlessness and fear emerge as problematic outcomes of the unrest in Egypt. Proof informing strategy.

    Good planners look to brand strategy that offers both claim and proof.  Too much strategy today is all claim, little proof. Too much marketing, the same. And 90% of advertising is all claim, no proof. Ground up brand planning starts with collection of product strengths, consumer insights, competitive pressures, cultural biases and proclivities, and a deep search for insights and proof. Find the right proof and you are free to move about the brand craft. Peace.

    The maturation of Algo.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    In the Netflix earning report yesterday it was noted that 75% or all streamed hours of content were recommended by the algorithm.  What does that tell you?  It’s an example of the algorithm winning over social recommendation — social recos being the “likes” and “ratings” and “reviews” which are the ballast of so many web communities.  

    Many marketing studies rate purchase influence and far and away the winning source of influence is always  “friends.”  Advertising is usually way down in the pecking order.  But where is the algorithm in those studies? Not included.

    Ad serving is pretty dumb most of the time.  I’m still getting ads served based on project work, not even closely related to what I care about in my personal life. Sluggish algorithm.  But the algorithm employed by Pandora and Netflix?  Now these use energetic algorithms. This is where big data targeting is going. This is where Twitch Point Planning is going. In the “understand, map and manipulate” triumvirate of the TPP process, smarter algos will feed the understanding component. (I am so excited about Twitch Point Planning I could pizzle myself. Even The New York Time paper-paper is using it by providing video links to twitch to a multimedia part of the story.)

    Understand the algo — the many competing algos — they are the keys to the marketing future. Peace!    

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