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Mutations and Evolution.

By
Steve Poppe
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I’m a closet anthropologist and someone who likes to think about evolution. A professor at my alma mater Rollins College explained taught me one of the forces of evolution is gene mutation. Natural selection being another important force. Human evolution takes hundreds of thousands of years and even though my brand strategies are designed to be future-proof, they won’t stand up to that timeframe. Hee hee. So, we should always entertain the notion that brand strategies can evolve. To that end we must always keep an eye out for mutations. 

Our job as brand planners is to watch out for the signs. One way to do this is to constantly update and refresh the proof plank.  Keep a history or archive of your proof planks over time and then look back to see how they have changed. 

If the market changes in a way that one of your planks seems less of a care-about or good-at – or if that particular plank is lagging in activity — consider a new plank. Remember evolution is slow. And that can work in your favor. Just don’t assume everything stays the same forever.  

If you feel a new stronger brand plank coming on, test it. Do not add a new plank to the mix. It will only confuse your target.

Peace.

 

 

Be Ambitious With Your Brand Objectives.

By
Steve Poppe
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At the end of my brand strategy presentations, I like to make sure the claim is well received.  I offer up slides listing all the pros and all the cons.  At present, I don’t ask C-level management and approvers how they feel the claim will perform against key product objectives. That needs to change.

Of course, understanding the KPI is critical to this step.

Much work in brand strategy work focuses on one overarching problem. I like to walk and chew gum.  What’s The Idea? brand strategies are intended to accomplish numerous things. All tied to top company objectives. Not just one.

A healthy discussion of how key objectives are met by the brand claim and brand planks proves the worth of the strategy.  Presentations meant to simply earn a go/no go decision are weak. Once the strategy is approved the hook has to be set. It has to show its business-winning nature.

I once worked on a huge healthcare brand and presented 15 plus objectives I believed the strategy could accomplish.  The client was nervous and made me pull back.  He didn’t want to his boss to think we were overly ambitious.  And he didn’t want to fail. Oh my!!

Peace.

 

 

Covid and Fieldwork.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I’m tired of pet peeves — how about a post on stuff I enjoy. I’m reading a book call Go Luck Yourself, by Andy Nairn. It’s a good read. If you like advertising and most brand strategy today is about advertising, it offers ups some neat stories about getting to good, effective work.  Advertising is nothing if it does not impact sales. And Mr. Nairn’s point is you can make luck and take advantage of luck, if you pay attention. It’s a fun read.

During Covid, I remained behind the keyboard and did much of my work remotely. That’s beginning to come to an end. I’m back on the beer and coffee circuit and it’s energizing. I met Frederic Terral, a brand planning like-mind and polymath, this week in Asheville and it pumped me up. Tangentially, I went to an archeology presentation last night on what lies Under Jerusalem and it, too, energized. I find insights and inspiration for brand strategy everywhere…I’m like fly paper for that shit. And listening to the speaker and author Andrew Lawler and a thoughtful Palestinian women commenting behind me, gave me jolts of inspiration. How will textured discussions about buildings, rocks, history, politics, religion and compassion inform what I do on my next assignment?  I can’t wait to find out.

It’s good to be back an in the field.

Peace.

 

 

Boiler Plate.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

The older I get the more I post about pet peeves.  Hope I’m not getting cranky. Saw this piece of boiler plate used by a company that shall remain nameless. It’s a great example of burying the lead and lack of focus.  If you are Coca-Cola or Google you needn’t remind people of your Is-Does — what a brand Is and what a brand Does. But if you’re new or newish it’s pretty important.

Here’s the boiler plate:

Founded in 1998, So and So Company is a purpose-driven company that strives to empower the whole family, including pets, to live happier, healthier lives.

They believe that the products you put in your body, on your body and use in your home matter.  Popular product lines include premium pet food and supplements as well as clean health and beauty products for the consumer.

Okay, okay…if you get past the copy about being purpose-drive, you do get what they sell. Albeit, it’s a bit of an all-over-the-place portfolio.  Pet and people?  Products for in your body, on your body and in your home?  That covers some consumer ground. What tethers the products together is the all-natural claim, I guess. It doesn’t even say all-natural, I’m just assuming.

This company may be successful. In fact, they are growing.  But positioning, as Al Ries and Jack Trout proudly proclaimed, is everything. 

This boiler plate makes me cringe. In my brand evaluation tool “Brand Strategy Tarot Cards,” boiler plate is one of the first cards turned over.

Get it right so your consumers don’t have to work too hard.

Peace.

 

The Biggest Pity.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Nothing pisses off a creative person more than being told a client doesn’t “like their work.”  Nina DiSesa a big-time creative director or yore explained it to me this way “Ads are like our babies.” They are nurtured and coddled over time and can’t just be easily dismissed.

I’ve often spoken of the “like-ometer”, a fictional device clients use in approving ads. The notion of subjectivity in advertising or any creative pursuit, is real. And in the advertising business it’s super real.

That’s why top creatives like a good brand strategy. They are devising with a purpose in mind. They have a tight objective.  This helps them in development but also in getting approvals. There’s a basis for arguing for their work. It’s called a brand strategy.

When a person judging an ad doesn’t like a “color” or “negativity” or “the great outdoors,” the brand strategy can be employed. And the like-ometer shut down. 

We can’t get to better work without a strategy — the launch pad for all marketing and communications. Most professional ads are developed using a brief.  Few are developed using a brand brief.

That is the biggest pity of the craft.

Peace.

 

Cheerleading

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I must admit to being a cheerlead for my brands. That’s not to say all brands are worthy, some will actually be clunkers. When that’s the case all you can do as a cheerleader is convey to management the changes that need to be made in order to make them good brands.  Those changes can be in the form of product or product experience. If the brand is underdelivering what consumers “care-about” or what it’s “good-at,” then you can always share with management benchmarks of better competitive products. Cheerleading for quality.  Hopefully management will see your category interest and positiveness not as a slight but as caring and industry insight.

But let’s assume your product is good. Being a cheerleader and living in the land of milk and honey is a good thing when establishing positioning and brand strategy. Positives beget positives. They give people enjoyment. When you are a cheerleader and constantly praise and mine brand values, if something negative does come about management is more apt to seek out your perspective.

Brand planning is a positive pursuit. High school cheerleaders are taught to smile. Even when the score is lopsided. Look for the good in your brand and celebrate it.

It makes everyone’s job easier.

Peace.      

 

 

Naming Brands Is Hard.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Sorry to go all pet peeve on you again but while driving on the interstate the other day I passed a large white truck with the name IPX Logistics on the side.  I scratched my head and wondered what they were delivering. Logistics? Hee hee. Trucking companies now often use the word logistics in their branding — especially for smaller companies.  It’s a mistake. As a fan and founder of the Is-Does Club, I like explaining what a brand Is and Does in the name. 

Logistics are an important part of transport no doubt. Proper planning can save time and money.  However, that only helps if people can find you and know what your company does for a living. If looking to transport stuff a long distance I’m not Googling “Logistics near me.”  I’d almost rather use your surname in your brand. At least it shows a sense of fealty and personalization.

Brands aren’t something you build randomly. Obviously, it starts with a good product but then one must convey that goodness, which starts with a communicative name. I worked at a social media company called Zude whose co-founder liked to use the word Dude a lot. Fail.

Naming your company is important. First to you. More importantly it must work for your customer. Take it seriously.

Peace.

 

 

Selling and Buying Languages.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 

 

 

 

Back in the early 90s I was hired as a B2B account manager at McCann-Erickson, NY to work on the trade advertising for AT&T. I would drive from NYC to Bridgewater, NJ two or three days a week meeting with product marketing, product management and advertising managers on an array of technical services housed on the AT&T data network. Our targets were MIS and TCMs,  short for Managers of Information Services and Telecommunication Managers.  All working at Fortune 2,000 companies.

My job was to make technical ads but because I worked at McCann they had to look pretty and offer up creative flourishes.  It was my job to gather information on the plumbing (data pipes) and intelligence (software and switches) and turn that into a brief for the creative teams.  In order to do my job though, I had to learn the technical stuff. At the time, AT&T product management was filled with engineers and engineers loved acronyms. There was no one to throw me a life line in these meetings — the account executive nod was not an option.  So, I began asking the engineers questions. First, what was the acronym, and second what did it do? I’m not sure I still have the acronym glossary on my hard drive but it did get to 20 or 30 pages. I kid you not.

Anyone can make ads. Not everyone can make good ads. Getting to strategy requires speaking the language of the makers. And speaking the language of the buyers. And it also means speaking the language of the ad makers. As I’ve said a zillion times, words are important. Do what you have to do to learn the buying and selling languages.

Peace.

 

 

Cultural Literacy.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Brand planners look in many places when working brand strategies.  A long time ago I did an exploratory with Paul Matheson head of BBH planning in NYC when they were just getting a foothold in the states. He asked me some of the areas I studied as a planner. It was a long time ago and I don’t recall my exact answer but his response to me was “Most planners mention two things, you mentioned 6 of the 7 we typically study.” I blushed. 

One thing I mentioned was culture.  Not business culture, but consumer and population culture. Anthropology stuff.

Today, as we in the U.S. await Jerome Powell’s speech on the state of the economy, it might be a good time to assess the economic culture facing all brands.  Dollar Stores are reporting more monied consumer shopping with them, and one only has to look at consumers filling their cars with gas to know many Americans are not happy.  That said, I live in a small city, proud of its robust tourist economy, and one can see by the traffic in town that not everyone is concerned about the price of a meal. The broadcast news media can’t go 8 minutes without talking about inflation yet they quickly report unemployment is at an all-time low. It’s like watching a game of ping pong. 

So here’s the cultural insight. Americans are money obsessed. And we don’t want to be.  All banks and lenders understand this obsession and play to it. So what do about this obsession?  We need to educate.  We need better financial literacy.  Leaders educate. JPMorgan Chase is a leader. If they spent 1/3 of their ad budget for 5 years educating Americans about finances and money and savings, targeting Americans of all strata, they could reduce our obsession. And reap the rewards.

Peace.      

 

Startups.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Startup is the germination stage of all business. Most of us joining companies that are fixed and have histories. They have onboarding and employee packets and budgets and sales trends. Not startups. I worked for a startup and it was crazy. Crazy cool. We didn’t have a product, though. We had some code. I was hired as the director of marketing. “Tink about that,” as my Norwegian aunt Inga would have said. A director of marketing without the Product – the key P of the 4 Ps. To say the target was moving would be an understatement. That said the business visionary, Jim McNiel, did wear some serious visionary glasses. Jim was able to raise $11M on a vision, a database, web objects and a PC demo.

The problem with that startup was the disconnect between the vision and the reality, complicated by a detachment from consumer experience. 

The biggest problem was the product.  I learned a huge lesson in the concept of the Is-Does. What a product IS and what a product DOES. Fergus O’Daly once said to me “Nothing happens (in marketing) until someone sells something.” And with startups, there’s often nothing to sell. Not until there’s a prototype.

My advice to startups is have a product. Not just an idea. That doesn’t mean the product can’t change toward its betterment, but you can’t start until you execute. Until you make something. Something you can touch. Use. Live with. Ideas are great — tangibles make the world go round.

Peace.

 

 

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