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Checking out of marketing.

By
Steve Poppe
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Friday I posted that face-to-face communication, bolstered by listening, understanding and empathy is a strong way to convince someone of another point of view.

The problem with marketing today is that too much emphasis is placed on pushing product benefits while not enough focus is placed on consumer need. A great salesman, like a great physician, takes the time to listen before prescribing. And to truly hear. But ads don’t have the ability to listen, they are only one way vehicles. The best they can do is recount having listened to consumers in the past and package accordingly. A work around. We tend to flatten out the selling process in marketing by jumping to the benefit which minimizes effectiveness. Consumer are complicated.

The web allows us to unbundle this flattened process and that’s a very good thing. Let’s find ways to listen, be empathic and helpful on the web. Then we’ll move the sales ball ahead. Proceed to check out? Peace.

 

Knock, knock, knockin’ with a purpose.

By
Steve Poppe
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I read an interesting piece of research today, originally published in Science Magazine. The findings suggested a face-to-face talk with someone about a topic in which the conversation initiator has a stake is an effective communications tool. (Sounds like a duh, no?) The poll was conducted with a sample of 972 people and the topic was gay marriage. The methodology was neighborhood canvassing and the targeted people were against marriage equality. It turns out 20% of people who were engaged by canvassers changed their minds. What’s even more interesting is that only those canvassed by gays maintained that changed opinion 9 months later.

A couple of observations:

  • Nobody likes to be sold. Most door knockers are selling and it’s a nuisance. The script in this case called for canvassers to speak, listen, ask questions, show respect and dig deeper. The robotic spew was left at home.
  • Canvassers with skin the game are more believable and more convincing. Personal connection to the topic reduces the “sales” factor. (Non-gay canvassers altered opinion, but not over time.)

The study suggests a tactic that might be more effective than most in dealing with long time, deep seeded conflicts such as Christians-Muslims and Blacks-Whites. Why wouldn’t it work for Red Sox-Yankees or Burger King-McDonald’s. Tink about it (as my Norwegian Aunt might say.) Peace.

 

Insight Cabinets in Brand Planning.

By
Steve Poppe
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A wonderful expression was used in a New York Times article today on the expansion of the American Museum of Natural History. It referred to the changing nature of museums and the old role of museum as “cabinets of curiosity,” where things were collected and catalogued. Museum president Ellen V. Futter, nicely captured the new role saying, “Now what we’re interested in is what the connections are among the different things we have. It’s a much more interdisciplinary world.”

Brand planners sometime get caught up in cabinets of curiosity. And we obsess about them. I know I can. We find an insight that just screams “importance.” And uniqueness. And cultural spark.  But to use Ms. Futter’s words, we must not forget the interdisciplinary role the insights play in the buying habits and behavior of consumers.  The insight we unlock may actually be trumped by another factor. And though it may be a mundane factor besmirch our exciting, newly uncovered insight, we must not overlook it. Awesome insights don’t operate in vacuums. So find them, truly see them, and make sure they fit into the full pattern of the buying consumer. Peace.

 

 

Slow the Babbling Brook of Tweets.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

A Twitter account is not unlike a thick magazine. One buys a magazine for the writing, the subject matter, pictures and opinion. As the magazine grows broader in its content, as ads are added and more ancillary content printed the book gets heavier. And more sloppy. And cluttered. To me, that’s what happens when you fill your Twitter feed with too much prattle. Everyone loves the randomness of Twitter and the ability to learn from others, but how is that going to happen when you follow 6 thousand people? The chaff hides the wheat as they say.

Top brands tweet 20 plus times a day to break through the noise. I follow 1,500+ people and a single tweet disappears under the fold in a matter of seconds. For people who follow thousands it’s probably milliseconds. I know there are lists and filters but I don’t use them; if there is someone I want to click up, I click them up.

So I’m selective. I review people’s tweets before I follow. I make sure they are Posters not Pasters. I read what they care about? Is it interesting? Entertaining? Can I learn something? If not, I don’t follow or follow back. And I don’t cull the herd too often, but it’s not a bad idea. Keep the people you follow at a more manageable level and Twitter becomes more powerful. My 2 cents. Peace.

 

Unilever pulling the lever.

By
Steve Poppe
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Last night I watched a really nice TV spot called “new leaders” on the subject of world hunger. Part of Unilever’s “Project Sunlight,” the spot made me feel good and actually tear up. It’s a wonderful cause and the spot is exceptional theater. I’m a sap for good.

just mayo

A couple of years ago Unilever was being dinged for deforestation while harvesting palm oil. It reacted slowly and in a clunky way before taking the negative press seriously. That’s what a protest or two will do for you. Fast forward to today where Unilever is bringing suit against Hampton Creek a U.S. manufacturer of mayonnaise. The product Unilever is targeting is “Just Mayo,” a healthier for you product targeting Unilever’s cash cow mayo staples Hellman’s and Best Foods. Just Mayo is vegan, eggless and non-GMO. If it can pass the taste test, it will be very successful.

As the Mayo wars heats up, Unilever is dialing up the positives around its master brand. This is damage control, free enterprise, electioneering and marketing at its best and worst. It is also expensive. Unilever should never have gotten itself into this position. It should have created Just Mayo before Hampton Creek. That’s marketing too. The Product P of the 4 Ps.

Unilever is working to be a good corporate citizen. A misstep here and there are to be expected. For Unilever, more good will come of this learning moment than bad. Let’s wait it out. Peace.

 

 

 

Moving consumers closer to a sale/

By
Steve Poppe
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0

There’s an old marketing axiom that one must look at a product’s most committed customers to help determine preference for a sale. Researchers suggest looking at the top box in quantitative studies. Consumers who agree “completely” are typically the best customers. When we know what our most committed customers care about, the thinking goes, we can package those things in ways that convince others to become loyal customers. Sadly, this is flawed logic. Not everyone can go gaga over a product. Customers who aren’t obsessed require a different approach.

I’ve talked a lot lately about “learning vs. selling.” For customers not particularly committed to your product, what the planner needs to know is what learning will move them closer to a sale. “If safety is most important to you when buying a car, will titanium reinforced doors make you more likely to buy” kind of stuff.

We need to understand what consumers don’t know about our product or service that will get them to consider or buy – and then we need to enable that learning. Peace.

 

A New Agency OS Suggestion.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Sorry I missed the Firestarter event for brand planner two nights ago in NYC. Doofus. Sounds like it was a cool event. The topic of interest, as reported today in Ed Cotton’s blog was the Agency Operating System. The traditional operating system is broken was the premise. (Sounds like something Marion Harper might have said in Fortune Magazine in the 60s, actually.) Anyway, as technology takes on more important things than social networking and selfies, attempting to fix education, healthcare and climate, we are beginning to see some very exciting new businesses emerge. And these businesses cannot be sold by ads alone. Or content marketing alone – the things agencies are good at. The things agencies monetize.

So the call to action at Firestarters was to look at problems differently. Deconstruct them into their parts. Understand through functional anthropology how problems might be addressed in new ways. Creative ways. The new agency OS, foreshadowed by the growing number of creative collectives out there today, needs new players: technologists, data geeks, engineers, producers and craftsmen. But which agency is going to have an Etsy department? Just as traditional agencies have TV commercial producers, the new OS need agencies need resource producers or curators. What shall be call these people? Ideas?

Peace.

 

 

Brand as Verb.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

polisher

Brand is the new black. Anyone and everyone in marketing talks about brands, brand strategy and brand ______ (fill-in-the-blank). I was reading a proposal for web design yesterday and the word was used copiously. I was recently reviewing creative for a brochure designed by a very “strategic” agency, whose website by word count was overloaded with the words “strategy” and “brand.” (An art and copy shop.)

Many posers today know brand as noun, not as verb.

What allows a product to be a brand (noun) is the ability to brand (verb). The ability to brand (verb) is a process by which one presents a product to the market using an organizing principle that is strategic, codified and tightly managed. The only way to assess if an agency or vendor is meeting those criteria is through a brand brief. (A What’s the Idea? brand brief resolves to 1 claim and 3 planks.) If you are managing a brand, a brief is the tool you use to guide and measure actions. You can’t do that with a style guide or color palette. “Awesome use of the color orange Success Academy.”

So, when you are working with people who toss the word brand around, make sure they are not simply polishers of the noun. Ask them if they are working off a brief.

Peace in NYC.

 

Data and Devices.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

A couple of days ago I posted about big data and how it is a compelling force in education, healthcare and marketing. A friend of mine is a big doggie at an educational technology company called ScholarChip—they sell smart cards. Their key apps are attendance and security at K12 schools and they are making education safer. In the college and university market, there are a number of other companies looking at data, but they’re attempting to improve education quality. The analytics used in these instances are a little more intrusive but fascinating. With enough data over long periods of time, these companies will be able to track and predict student success by smart cards, log-ins and behaviors. Cool.

I’m currently consulting on a healthcare assignment and fresh off another. Data collection of healthy patient outcomes is a key to both engagements. The learning that comes from measuring health, treatment and compliance and the ability to predict healthier patient results is one intention of the Affordable Care Act. And it will transform care in America.

Data and devices are changing our landscape. These are exciting times and we need to jump on board. Peace.

 

Red Blooded Target.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

blood

LBT stands for living breathing target. (You were thinking lesbian, bi-, trans weren’t you?) This is a classification I use in my brand and creative briefs. It’s not particularly brilliant or anything, but it is one element of my secret sauce. Most briefs contain a target, a key insight, a prevailing attitude and a reason to believe on their way to the big idea. Mine do too. But often, in this “I want a short brief” creative atmosphere, these inputs are combined. Me? I like a living breathing target. Not a demographic descriptor, not a customer journey, not an archetype – a target that has blood pumping through his/her veins. One that feels and does. A target with a conscience. I don’t write a book, but do find by going all anthropologist on its ass it gives me a deeper think about purchase context. A deeper think, rich in importance.

So when meeting people, interviewing consumers and doing fieldwork, look past what they say and what they do, look for emotion, mannerisms and feeling. These are the things you can parley into a red blooded target.

Peace-ly.

 

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