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    Creative. Ideas. Showmanship.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    The finals last night at the Griffin Farley “Beautiful Minds” brand planning competition came down to two ideas: “Bikes with Benefits” and “Don’t Take That Shit.”  The former selected for its cultural currency and energy, the latter for its create-a-movement potential.  The judges, looking at briefs on the CitiBikes program, made the right call giving the competition to the Bikes With Benefits team.  

    Great ideas should be able to come from anywhere, yet Bikes With Benefits was a creative idea as well as a strategy — and that can be a problem for some creative teams. Don’t Take That shit was not so much creative as it was a spark for creative. It may have won the room but it didn’t win the judges.   

    Another Farley, Jim Farley of Ford, once said great advertising makes you feel something then do something. Both ideas accomplished this. Both strategies were strong.  One idea showed better. Peace.

    PS. Great job BBH, Sarah Watson and Angela Sun.  This event is a keeper.

     

    Bidirectional Learning.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    When the economy is bad often the first things businesses cut are advertising and training; line item entries that are not headcount. Sadly, lack of training is hard to compensate for when recovery comes. Training is teaching. And teaching done well is also learning.  Learning what’s what among the young. It’s bidirectional.

    When developing a brand plan for a K12 educational technology company I noticed the young teachers were adept at teaching the not-so (how to use technology).  The natives teaching the immigrants, as it were.  

    Corporate and business trainers also benefit from the teaching and learning bidirectional approach.  But they have to listen a bit. Everyone is looking for skills and in a changing world skills are not just top down. While working at a social networking start-up I learned how in Japan, kids and seniors are more agreeable to the mentor/mentee thing. There was bidirectional value for both.  In Bedford Stuyvesant, Bailey’s Café has a similarly focus and it is brining the community together.  

    The best teachers understand leaning because they have their own learning switch on. Planners are learners first. Socializers second. Strategists third. Always be learning! Peace.

    Opt-In

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    As smart phone penetration increases (we are at 61% according to Nielsen), marketers and software developers are working hard to pierce the skins of those devices and turn them into selling machines. And cash registers. As someone who works in the business of selling and who proudly claims to be “always on” when it comes to consumer behavior, I am decidedly “off”  when it comes to intrusive sales pitches. I don’t like telemarketers. I cringe at the approach of door-to-door sales people. And long paper coupons on sales receipts revive my inner tree hugger.  

    Using geo-tracking and store Wi-Fi many retailers are able to track our smarties, bounce to the database and enhance (their word not mine) our shopping experience.  Enhance meaning increase the ring or ticket value. Help me find something I really want and need and that’s great. Spa-zam me, not great.

    There are going to be a number of ham-handed uses of this retail technology over the next few years. And it will taint the good practice. If it feels as if our privacy is being compromised, if it feels like an intrusion, it is a poor application. My recommendations to retailers is to let customers opt-in to these new services. The work real hard on the app and the delivery.  Make shoppers want to turn on the app. Make the apps killer and endemic to the store brand and everyone will want to participate.  That’s activation. Peace.    

     

    Dachis, Altimeter and Brand.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    There are a couple of really smart consulting companies I’ve been following for a few years: The Altimeter Group and Dachis Group. The latter gave birth to a concept called “social business design” and the former more recently codified a similar practice they call “social business.”

    Following Dachis Group from a far, it was my view that they should monetize by selling software.  Build it once, charge forever. Consult regarding the need for a new, more efficient way to do business then sell proprietary software that enables it. This approach is one with which Accenture’s has had great success.

    Altimeter, on the other hand, is all about the consults and the hourlies. When you don’t have to push your own product, it appears cleaner to customers. Selling knowledge and providing the groundwork for companies to heal themselves is viable and healthy.

    There is room for both approaches and each company has a long list of blue chip clients. Today in this very digital world there is enough pie to go around.

    Because marketing is at the center of all things business and because brands are the drivers of what is marketed, there is big room at the table for brand planning. (You saw that one coming.)  In fact, social business without brand planning can sometimes be little more than a loose federation of processes, tools and measures.  Organizing everything with a principle that sells more, to more, for more, more often is the last mile of social business.  Peace.

    Strategic Ideas with Flavor.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Too many people, when they think strategy, think boring. Charge more for more. Faster customer care. Become the innovation leader.  Stuff like that. These ideas lack flavor.  If you are lucky enough to have a good creative person at the controls, you may get some good, flavorful work. “Where’s the beef” helped build the Wendy’s brand by celebrating a larger hamburger patty. Not a flavorful strategy, but terrific creative.

    Strategy needn’t be without flavor. In fact, great strategies never are. A flavorful strategy can compensate for average creative work. And, more importantly, can stimulate spectacular work (creative and otherwise).

    So look at your brand strategy and ask yourself: “Is it piquant?” “Does it make you feel something?  Does it give you pride?”  Or Google “whatstheidea+things we remember.” 

    Peace in the Middle East!

    Wage an Idea.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Blackberry is really taking a pasting. They waited and waited for the launch of the new Z10 and when it finally hit the street, initial reviews were pretty good — pundits liked the new email software, for instance. But while buying my new Lumia 928 recently I asked my Verizon dealer (R&K Trading Inc.) if the Z10 was moving and, sadly, he said they sold a bunch at first but half were returned.

    Not what Blackberry needed.

    Today in my paper paper is a Blackberry ad with side-by-side pics of a Z10 and a Q10, the latter being an updated BB with the keyboard taking up half the body. Wage Business is the headline. No copy, not humanity, no proof.

    Blackberry, while putting energy and business protein behind losing the RIM name, should have waged some business of its own and gotten behind a brand plan. Wage Business is a great brand strategy and tagline. “Keep Moving” not so much. One could easily find 3 discrete planks to support Wage Business.

    BB corporate would say that focusing on business would limit their consumer appeal. They would be right. But whither be the brand after despoiling it with a watered down, non-endemic idea.  Remember “love?”

    Business isn’t just conducted by people in suits. Business is the money-end of life. It appeals to all. Wage Business with a brand plan. It will focus the product, the company, and stabilized the stock.  But do it today. Peace.

    Be afraid, be very afraid.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    fear

    Sometimes the toughest brand planning assignments are the ones that offer levels of complexity that initially stagger you.  Understanding the Medicare playbook, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a financial prospectus come to mind.  It’s okay to be scared.  Lack of order is not how the brain works.  What planners try to do is understand and map category learning, so that they can make decisions about what is important. Only then can they begin to manipulate those “important” insights and findings into brand design. Into a brand plan.

    As a tyro in the business, before I understood, I’d often posit.  For instance I might ask a healthcare insurance company a property and casualty insurance company question. They were an insurance company, after all.  McFail! I wasn’t afraid enough to listen.

    When learning about a business as a brand planner, you need to learn…not teach. This is true whether you are talking to the CEO or a consumer.  Only after a suitable amount of learning time from your teacher (CEO or consumer) will they allow you out of learning mode. Only then will they allow you to ask important questions.  At this stage the questions still must be of the “grasshopper” (Mr. Miyagi) variety. This is how rapport builds. Be afraid. You are coaxing here. CEOs and consumer won’t open up unless they are allowed to teach. Thanks for listening.  Peace!

    Pent up demand. And relaxatives.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Under the Dome a new TV drama inspired by a Stephen King book launched last week to the biggest summer show debut numbers ever.  It was a brilliant programming move by WCBS but one learned at the feet of cable TV who have known for a couple of years that summer shows can score some big numbers.  I believe the Under the Dome pilot had in excess of 13 million viewers.

    Media consumption and TV viewership have changed, no doubt.  Marketing has not.  Sellers of product know that if you find a market or segment with “pent up demand,” the consumers are just itching to spend. This is first mover stuff.

    Summer used to be filled with all reruns and so viewership was down. CBS saw this void and filled it.  If we take the need for entertainment in the summer evening as the pent up demand and look beyond a TV solution, what else might we find? Books? Snacking? Wine? Music? Other relaxatives?  There is pend up demand for summer time activities that entertain and relax. Any thoughts?  Peace.

    Strategy and Stuff.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    You know that old saying about teachers:  “Those who can, do.  Those who can’t, teach.” It’s disgraceful. It implies that teaching is all theory and concept. It suggests there is no practice, or modeling or real doing.  Just posting lessons and leaving it to students to understand and retain.  While there is probably some of that going on, most teachers today try to make learning stimulating and experiential.

    Strategy and planning some times get the same wrap.  Lots of talk but not a lot of practical doing.  I joke that I make paper for a living – strategic paper. Paper outlining the organizing principle brands follow through which they create sales and loyalty.  To some, strategy is the opposite of doing. Strategy is not an ad, not a customer acquisition piece, not a sales preso.  

    When a song writer sits dong to write a song, s/he doesn’t have a strategy.  

    Most people in advertising and marketing who make and shuffle stuff around like that part of the business. Making shiny stuff. I love making the shiny stuff work better.

    When a teacher sees a student, years later, who has succeeded — it warms his of her heart. When I look at a brand strategy years later that lives on and thrives, well beyond the forgettable shiny stuff, I feel equal pride.  Peace.

    Congrats @EdelmanFood

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    Steve Rubel is an acquaintance who has done lots to alter the landscape of social media.  He’s got pop.  (Baseball metaphor.)  He once tweeted a post of mine about “Google’s culture of technological obesity” which got hit by Lifehacker and earned me 1,000 blog visits a day for a while. That’s power.

    Steve works high up at Edelman PR and though less visible to the public these days, is no doubt making the company some nice profits.  We all miss him, I’m sure.

    Edelman is doing some leading edge stuff in social media and PR.  I came across a Twitter handle of theirs yesterday:  @edelmanfood.  Whoever is managing the account, and I’m sure it’s a small group of people, are thoughtful category trollers.  This is advanced stuff. Leadership stuff.  They’ve created their own little practice area topic on Twitter – something extensible into other media which in a fast twitch media world is an idea with ballast.

    While category trolling is broad and much better than brand trolling, it does not hit the requirements of “Have a motivation” (Google “Social Media Guard Rails+Slideshare”). That’s next. For now let Edelman troll the category and do it better than most. A Twitter account or a Fotchbook page with a branded motivation, though, offers real pop!  Peace. 

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