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The Art and Science of Branding.

By
Steve Poppe
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pieta

I’ve often heard advertising referred to as a mixture of art and science.  I agree. The thing about art is, well, it’s art.  You assume the artists is doing it because he or she wants to make a living but that may not always be the case.  I’ve worked with artists while brand planning on a web start-up and everyone I spoke to wanted to make money. They didn’t paint or sculpt, however, following a sales strategy.

The art that is part of advertising does have a sales strategy. Get attention, create interest and move product. The art may be pretty, mellifluous, poetic – if it doesn’t sell it isn’t likely to reappear.  

In branding, art and science are also important. The brand strategy (one claim, 3 proof planks) is the “selling structure” —  the science — and the selling tactics are the art.  Brand strategy is a vessel (structure) filled with art. And the art can change. Best practices suggest muscle memory is built with campaign-able ideas, yet the reality is as long as the art supports the strategy, the efforts are brand-positive.  That’s not to say all art is good art. So brand managers are paid to say “out with the bad, in with the good.”

Art and science are innately human traits. Those who get it right in marketing are the winners.

Peace.                                                            

 

 

Thank you Bob Dylan.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

bob-dylan

In the NYT today Dwight Garner described Bob Dylan’s lyrics as “tumbling.” Can you think of a better word to describe them?  Were I to pick one word to convey Dylan’s lyrics it would be that.  Tumbling means down the fall line. Effortless with an occasional jolt. Natural. Prone to the gravitational force.

I was reading Mr. Garner’s article and it reminded me what a poor writer I am. In my business I don’t need to write well, I just need to write well enough to incite marketing and creative. So long as my writing doesn’t get in the way, I can make a nice living writing brand strategy. (Google “brand planners prayer.”)  Bob Dylan uses words and with his own poetic vocabulary to define American music.  He does it because he can and because he loves to.  (I’d like to know how he did in English class.)  

Writing well, having a great voice, being beautiful are not requisites for a rich life. Trying is what matters.  Kudos to Mr. Dylan. Thanks for the lesson.

In these weird, weird times, Bob Dylan makes me proud to be an American.

Peace.

 

 

Mission Statement Versus Brand Strategy.

By
Steve Poppe
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Following is a mission statement from food start-up Smart Mills.

“We exist to positively impact the way food is made, enriching lives and bodies through delicious, convenient foods made from clean nutritious ingredients.” 

Mission statements often contain multiple commas and conjunctions; they tend to cast a wide net. As mission statements go, this one is actually modest. It doesn’t try to do too, too much.

Here is a brand strategy claim developed for a cookie start-up:

“Craft cookies, au naturel.”

Almost everything said about Smart Mills could be said about the cookie start-up, but with way fewer words. A powerful brand strategy is indelible. Why is that? Because it’s focused. It is not six things or four things.  It’s one big idea. An idea that is a customer care-about and a brand good-at. A brand strategy is comprised of one claim and three proof planks.

The human memory can remember one big idea. And it will believe that idea if proven in an efficient, impactful fashion. So by all means marketers write your mission statements. But when it comes time to selling, blow them up and create the most important selling tool you have at your disposal. A brand strategy.

Peace.

 

A couple of points about Twitter.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

People often ask me how I use the different social media properties. My answer: Facebook is for friends, LinkedIn for business network, Instagram for pictures and my artier side and Twitter, well, Twitter it’s just “me.” It reflects my personality. What does that mean? Honestly, and I can’t believe I’m going to say this, it’s about my personal brand.  The total me — reflecting my unadorned personality and complete life interests.  As a brand planner, I can often get to a person’s persona fastest thru Twitter.

Point two.  Twitter is up on the shopping block, with many names bandied about as possible buyers, but one name is missing. There is one social play that remains happily on the sideline. One player who will benefit the most if Twitter gets absorbed into something else – screwed up by another owner who tries to monetize and grow it beyond the current 330M users. And that’s Facebook. If Twitter starts to suck and becomes something it shouldn’t be, Facebook will win by default.

Twitter is important. It’s not for everybody, but it is for everybody. You can’t watch TV or read a paper without some reference to Twitter.  Nations and wars will be lost and won because of Twitter.

Peace.                  

 

A Healthy Brand Planning Question.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

There is a battery of questions I use when doing brand discovery; questions I ask of senior executives at the client company.  One such has to do with product or service roadmap. Today I’m thinking the question should be focused to probe around “consumer health.” Past road map questions may have prompted answers about efficiency or lower cost but as many markets are moving toward healthier life choices it makes sense to ping this way.

“What are you doing with your product or service that will promote healthier consumers or a healthier planet?”

When Tyson Chicken invests in Beyond Meat, it is making a bet on healthy. When Campbell Soup Company bought Bolthouse Farms Juices, it was a bet on healthy.  When fast food companies stop frying French fries in trans fats, it was investing in healthy. These are telling moves and important investments. They undergird brand strategy and must be understood.

A brand with a conscience is a brand that sleeps well at night. And sleep is not an over-rated activity.

Peace.                                                                          

 

Buy, lift and separate.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

salesforce-logo

Salesforce should buy Twitter but keep it as a standalone company. Attempting to integrate Twitter into the Salesforce fabric, though it would offer great excitement and return, would make messy both product services.  Life’s too short not to try something like this, Marc Benioff might be thinking, but he shouldn’t do it with an eye toward an integrated platform. The puzzle pieces just won’t fit. Not organically.

Mr. Benioff should buy the company. And allow it to resurrect itself with fresh cash, time and vision. But that vision isn’t the same that has fueled Salesforce.

If you are managing a brand well, you are managing a business well. Brand management is all about staying within the lines of a business winning organizing principle. Adhere and innovate, but stay between the lines. When you merge two companies like Salesforce and Twitter, you’re evolving and adding new lines to that organizing principle. It like adding new genes to the pool. Especially for companies as large and successful as these two. Buy, lift and separate.

Peanut butter and ham do not a great sandwich make.

Peace.      

 

 

A New Definition of Branding.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I often wonder if the targets for my business truly understand what I do. Those targets, CMOs, directors of marketing and small and mid-size business owners, read “brand consultancy” and get the consultant part, but may not truly understand the depth of the word brand. Brand today is both a noun and a verb.  

Many think brand is a mark or logo. Something that, through design, helps consumers with product identity. The whole branded cattle history thing. For people who view brands this way a brand consultancy is all logo, name, style guide and, perhaps, tagline. When AT&T spun off Lucent in the 90s, the whole process, exquisitely implemented by the way, cost millions. A year later, the company had a new name, logo, building signs, stock symbol and ad campaign. But not a brand strategy. (Peter Kim’s “$14B tech startup” aside.)

The reality is, especially in today service economy, a brand is a living breathing thing. My definition of brand strategy as “an organizing principle for Product, Experience and Messaging.” Most of my targets understand this definition better. In fact, they are more apt to acknowledge needing and organizing principle that they are a brand strategy.  

So moving forward my mission it to educate my targets as to this new definition. It will be a long road but one I expect will redistribute marketing wealth in my direction. Onward.

Peace.

 

 

Brand Referendums.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

There’s a cover story in The New York Times today about political referendums. It suggests referendum results favor the sponsoring political party when that party is in favor.  The opposite is also true. The headline of the article suggests referendums are “messy tools” and the recent Brexit vote was used as an example.

I actually think brand referendums are a nice idea – a good way to gauge customer sat and affinity by allowing a vote on product and service changes. Blue Point Brewery just changed the label of its flagship beer, Toasted Lager.  With Blue Point’s purchase by Anheuser Busch InBev, it seems big brother’s marketing engine is getting more involved. I wonder how that will play out?  A simple button on the home page requesting feedback, wouldn’t have hurt.  Along with a comment box.

The marketing road is lettered with changes to products that have passed muster with modest or no research. Brand referendums (on the home page) offer customers a way to engage, feel listened to, and perhaps assist with innovations. And more importantly, gauge how customers feel about the direction of brand management.

Tink about it, as my Norwegian aunt would have said. 

Peace.

 

 

Auto Fill For Life.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

There was a story today in the NYT about the potential ascendancy of Google’s digital assistant over all others. Over Siri, Cortana and Alexa/Echo. If not Google, who?  Assistant voice recognition is getting there as is voice response. But it’s machine learning that will make or break the digital assistant business. And one can imagine Google has a leg up with all of the data it has on us.

Do you ever find yourself driving around looking for directions and wondering why your nav. assistant doesn’t know you better? I do. Or why you phone can’t make your life easier with repetitive functions? Like an auto fill life? I do. A learned (pronounced learn-ed) assistant is going to be an amazing help to us.  It will save time, energy and planetary resources. The possibilities are truly endless.

As it stands now (according to the NYT), Siri owns the phone, Echo owns the home, and Facebook Messenger rules the streets – when you’re out and about. Google’s digital assistant, which I’m sure will have a much cooler name than Google Assistant aspires to be the lone assistant. (Learn-Ed is actually kind of a nice name. Hmm, you listening Learn-Ed?)

Anyway, should be a fun ride and amazingly profitable.

Peace.   

 

 

Insights and Brand Briefs.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

One of the challenges when writing a brand brief is knowing which insight to use to fuel the claim. (The claim is the idea at the top of the brand strategy, supported by 3 proof planks.) Often in a brief there are 2 or 3 really exciting insights, all of which offer enough power to motivate brand predisposition. But which to pick, that’s the question.

What I love about the brief I use, borrowed from McCann-Erickson’s Peter Kim 2 decades ago, is that it has a serial framework. One section leads to the next. Like puzzle pieces, they don’t always fit, but fit they must. Until they fit, you need to keep working. Until there is a linear story you are only bumping along the cobble stones. Chank a chank.

As I work the brief, key insights find their way into the story. But some must be let go. What’s funny is the outcome of the story – the claim – is often not known until the story plays out. Insights float in the back of the mind as you work toward the end, some more strongly than others, but the big finish is often a bit of a surprise.

There can’t be two endings. Enjoy the ride.

Peace.

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