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What Comes First in Branding?

By
Steve Poppe
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0

There is Brand Design, the creating of logos, packaging and style manuals, there is Brand Experience Design, the creation of product or service journey delivery across existential consumer touch points, and there is what I do at What’s The Idea?, Brand Strategy.

It’s nice in my world because brand strategy is the precursor to all other brand building initiatives. It’s the starting point.

The North Shore-LIJ Health System is in the midst of changing its name and logo. They’ve decided on Northwell Health as a name and a multicolor, multi-pixilated logo. Before Monigle Associates, their design house, started work they needed a brief. A brand strategy brief.

When Dunkin’ Donuts redesigned its stores to improve experience and dial up profitability, Starfish, their partner, needed a brand strategy brief.

When you decouple the brand strategy brief from the logo, package or experience design you get a cleaner, no lobbying approach. Brand strategy is the starting place for all things brand. It should not be part of another process, but a process in and of itself.

The design of the brand strategy is not a means to an end, it’s THE means to an end. Not an extra process, it’s the most important process. If you need some help with your brand strategy before building things, let’s chat.

Steve at whatstheidea.

Peace.

 

 

On Marketing Innovation.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Fred Wilson VC from Union Square Partners and a blogging hero of mine was quoted today on AVC as saying “…it hasn’t been that easy for a seller to be creative on social networks. Posting a link to their shop on facebook, or tweeting or pinning their latest item is fine. But doing that over and over quickly gets boring for everyone.”

Social networks are template based mediums. You know what else is a template based media? Broadcast advertising: TV and radio. And they tend to suffer a similar fate. So how do advertising agents break the broadcast template? I think we try to make it twitch-able. (A twitch being a media move from one device to another in search of clarification.) Shazam is something that can do this. Twitter too. But no one has done a great, breakthrough job with these technologies in broadcast yet. It’s coming.

So what’s the Idea? Send me your thoughts (steve@whatstheidea.com) so we can break out of this broadcast boredom cycle.

Peace.

 

 

Google Glass Next Generation.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

There will be a time in the future when virtual reality glasses will be as common as mobile phones. Perhaps more so. We’ll look back at the failed Google Glass project and whatever first generation of Oculus VR goggles are released and see what we saw when we look back at the AT&T EO and Apple Newton. It won’t be just a virtual reality device, it will offer lots of comms and locational services. These devices will be small, unobtrusive and agile.

How soon will they be here? I’m guessing 2020. Who will devise them? Facebook, Samsung, maybe Sony, and possibly Microsoft. They will probably be free, paid for by advertising. But ads won’t look like they do today, they will more likely be on-demand, Siri-like request and response services.

It’s going to be wild. Count on it.

Peace.

 

 

 

Brand Craft.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

carbonsPlease don’t kill me for this poor metaphor, but China is pumping 1 million more tons of carbon into the atmosphere than previously reported. And Greenland is melting. It’s worth a big fat ulcer. And we’d better do something about it.

The state of the advertising and marketing business is not much better. We are pumping billions of dollars into the advertising atmosphere, filled with not much more than “we’re here ads” and other cultural blather. “We’re here” advertising works when awareness is all that is needed to stim a sale but its poor tradecraft. Blather is not only poor tradecraft, it creates a pool of murky water through which consumers cannot see the good work. It uses and re-uses words like “quality” and “innovation” and “best” to the point where advertising is melting. This is exacerbated by online messaging.

Great brand strategy creates a map of acceptable “good ats” and “care abouts.” It organizes them in such a way that the collective story stands out. A brand strategy is easy to follow. You are either on strategy (one claim, three proof planks) or you are not. When the brand craft is good, the advertising tradecraft is good. Even if part blather. Let’s start practicing brand craft to improve our tradecraft.

Peace.

 

Avoidance Planning.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Readers know I’m an advocate of Twitch Point Planning; a twitch being is a media move from one online device to another. Typically in search of clarification. Under closer inspection, I’m willing to expand the definition of a twitch to include a move from the real world to a device, e.g. “Who was the lead actress in Vampire Diaries, with the funny name?” Twitches can also happen on the same device, a la “How do you spell “hor d’oeuvres?”, a twitch while writing on a laptop to a Google search.  Twitch Point Planning is a comms planning rigor that ask your to understand, map and manipulate a consumer closer to a sale by interrupting twitches with value brand related content.

This post is not about Twitch Point Planning. It’s about Avoidance Planning. A way to reach consumers when they’re avoiding typical media plays. For instance, I couldn’t read the sports section yesterday or today after the Mets loss. I watched the game and there wasn’t anything anyone could say about it to console me. I also stayed away from sports talk radio. And may for another day. My Mets mind has shut down.

A friend, Cory Treffiletti, started an avoidance planning group a number of years ago on Facebook called, “After Pearl Jam Tour Depression.” Cory gets it.

To properly take marketing advantage of avoidance behavior, you need to figure out a secondary or replacement behavior. Most likely this is an experiential marketing undertaking. What’s the opposite of a World Series celebration parade? How to you deal with a lost election? A poor health diagnosis? How does a marketer comfort consumers and show empathy? The answer: avoidance planning.

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

Purple Carrot’s Latest Hire

By
Steve Poppe
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0

purple carrot

Mark Bittman makes my mouth water. As a New York Times critic he excited the food world for many years. It was just announced he’s moving to start-up Purple Carrot as content creator. In this case the content will be recipes and comms. Purple Carrot is a meal delivery and some-assembly-required service.

What I like about Mr. Bittman, along with his recipes and writing, is his current mission. Quoted in today’s NYT his goal is to get “people to eat more plants.” Can’t get more focused than that. Great brand strategy.

He and start-up founder Andrew Levitt are smart marketers and brand builders. Purple carrots sounds intriguing. The “meal kit,” is an awful and un-tasty food classification, but it’s descriptive and appropriate for the time.

I spend a good deal of time in Costco and BJs and must tell you the percentage of overweight people with poor feeding habits is appalling. Obesity may be a class thing and a money thing, but if the price point of these vegan meal kits can be made elastic enough, it may open up new markets for Purple Carrot and do some real good.  I’ve done enough marketing strategy in the obesity space to know that good tasting plant-based fare has a nice economic upside. I believe Mr. Bittman’s hire will be a good one.

Peace.

The Three Adjectives.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Adjectives are a dime a dozen in marketing. Here are three that are easy to toss about: simple, revolutionary and disruptive. But these are the words used to describe Theranos, perhaps the most successful start-up ever launched. Theranos uses a small draw of blood, accessed by a pin prick, to provide a broad range of lab tests – where before multiple draws were needed.

No one, especially a brand person, will argue with the need for simplicity. Modern man likes simple. We also like the fulfillment of hard work, buy in our consumables, simple is golden.  Revolutionary is a consumerists dream as well. While evolution is the way of life, revolution gets noticed. And celebrated. Lastly, disruptive. New products and services that take massive market share and revenue from competitors or other categories are considered disruptive. Reality TV shows were for a while disruptive for scripted dramas and comedies.

It’s hard to be a marketer and hit all three adjectives. Commerce today is often built around commoditization. But success lies in these 3 adjectives. View product development this way. View marketing and communications this way. You will see the payouts sooner than you think.

Peace.                             

 

What’s Next in POS?

By
Steve Poppe
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0

POS stand for point of sale. It used to mean in-store displays. Today it covers a lot more. It covers ecommerce and some online advertising — certainly online ads that put a customer one click from purchase.

Not too long ago the vast majority of advertising reached customers while nowhere near shopping. TV and radio hit consumers with ads that molded opinion and attitude for a future purchase.  Then 800 numbers on TV ads allowed custies to dial-up a sale from the couch, as so did shopping networks like QVC. But the real breakthrough in POS was the web, where people actually go to shop. 

POS advertising online and POS advertising in-store are too similar for my taste. The online version should be richer. In-store you can experience the product through touch and feel — through sampling. Online all you have is video. I’m thinking virtual reality will alter this in the next couple of years and I can’t wait.  Buckle the seatbelts of your self-driving cars.

Thoughts? Peace.

 

 

 

Rootable Proof.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Great journalists can write a story about a person and make you root for them. The short TV vignettes produced for the Olympics about athletes you never heard of is a great example of the craft. When a cauliflower eared, over-muscled Syrian weightlifter can be turned into a “rooted for” softy you have created the right back story. The parts of the back story that make you root for the athlete are the realities of hardship, underdog-ness, and courage. Not platitudes, proofs.    

This is a craft people in the ad biz don’t get. Ads are created using an opposite strategy. Rather than find a rootable quality for a product or service, we trot out its riches. “Best this, first that, only this.…”

At What’s The Idea? the brand strategy framework identifies “a claim and 3 proof planks” for a brand. This organizing principle — developed to build a simple array of memorable values that influence preference – focuses on rational and emotional proofs.

(Rootable proofs are often conveyed in story form. This is where the power of storytelling lies in branding and advertising.)

Peace.

 

 

Dangerous Marketers. The Bad Kind.

By
Steve Poppe
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2

When a latent adult working at McCann-Erickson NY, I was lieutenant in charge of all the AT&T data products. These were the data lines, the network software services and whatever other B2B things that were not particularly sexy — during a very competitive time when phone companies were spending like drunken sailors. My services eventually became the internet so I had a grand time. And managed a great team.

Anyway, I had this idea that if ever the agency president (John Dooner) was asked to go to a meeting in Bridgewater NJ on some of these non-big sexy products (sorry Bartolo) he would need a primer. So the Fact Book was born. The idea was to put all the relevant facts into a binder that could be read in 60 minutes (on the way to the client), giving the reader a foundation of knowledge, e.g., overall market universe, market share, competition, product explanations, YOY sales trends and futures. I stole the idea from Marian Harper, a McCann and IPG CEO, from back in the 60s.

At What’s The Idea?, my current business, a key deliverable is the marketing plan. The first step in its development is a document called the 24 Question. It is much like the Fact Book. Anyone, at any company, in the marketing department should know the answers to the 24 Questions. They are the financial and marketing fundamentals of business. If you don’t know the answers as a marketer, you are a danger to the company.

If you are interested in seeing these questions, email me Steve@WhatsTheIdea.com. And we’ll talk.

Peace.

PS. Go see Steve Jobs.

 

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