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Last Touch.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I’ve been learning a lot lately about marketing technology.  It’s fascinating and scary. I recently had a lesson on the digital metric “last touch” before a sale. The lead attributed to the platform where a “conversion” (sale) was made. The cool thing about this metric is it acknowledges there is a continuum of touches leading up to a sale.

This is great for ecommerce plays but gets a little hinky for retail. A decade or so ago, I came up with a customer journey-esque rigor I called Twitch Point Planning.  A Twitch being a media move from one platform or device to another. An example would be a Twitch from an Inc. Magazine story on the tech scene in Asheville, to a Google search for “Asheville Technology Companies.” This Twitch could happen all on an iPhone or if could take place while listening to NPR in the car, followed by a Twitch to a mobile phone search. Twitches are serial touches. And hopefully trackable.

The goal of Twitch Point Planning is to move a customer closer to a sale.  In other words, we are not just focusing on the last touch, but on all touches in the queue. We are good with last touch but not so much the serial bread crumb trail. Modeling the rest of the funnel is what martech (marketing technology) is all about.

The fact that we are talking about it is exciting. The fact that some companies are investing 90% of their marketing budgets on the last touch (Google/Facebook), though, is startlingly shortsighted.

Peace.

 

 

The Brand Strategy Blur.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

When I try to explain to businesspeople what brand strategy is, I end up using words like “framework” and “organizing principle.” But these words are rather formulaic and scientific.  I mean, what business doesn’t have a framework or organizing principle? So when the polite nods are done I tend to jump to the end-benefit. Recently, while explaining what I do to a graphic designer I tried to tailor it to his frame of reference saying “A brand strategy is the words a graphic designer needed to know what to design.”  For a copywriter “a brand strategy explains what the goal and content areas are of the writing.”  Again, a little structural, not so much benefit-oriented. So, I cleaned it up by saying “a brand strategy gives you direction, saves you time, and reduces wasted creative hours.” All of which save money.

The problem with that benefit is since of the advent of the railroad, the automobile and machines, saving time and money has been an oft-cited end-benefit. Having grown up in the IT (information technology) age, working on many tech brands, I can tell you efficiency, and money saving have been the end-benefit of 80% of ad strategies. Some implicit, most explicit.

How, then, do I talk about the benefits of brand strategy in a breakthrough way? I’ve been pondering doing so with a person-to-person or person-to-group workshop.  One in which I demonstrate the framework, interactively rather than theorize it.

Tune in tomorrow for more.

Peace.

 

 

Flah, flah, flah…

By
Steve Poppe
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0

My brand discovery, from a functional point standpoint, is a lot like others: stakeholder interviews, interviews of customers, qualitative research, experience research, a review of available quantitative data. Perhaps some primary research and scouring of social media.  I may toss a few curve balls into the mix and, of course, questions vary from brand planner to brand planner, but that’s the tool kit.

What sets one planner apart from the next is what they do with the discovery. How they wade through and mine key data and insights. Some use a brief. I use a brief. It allows me to tell a story and forces me to tell that story by prioritizing the learning.

All that said, one differentiator that sets What’s The Idea? off from others brand strategy consultancies is its reliance on proof. Or evidence of value. The kernels of proof that demonstrate value. For me that’s the science. If I was to tell you I’m strong, you might not believe me until I proved I can pick up 200 lbs. If I claimed to be fast, you might want to see me run and time me in the 40 yard dash.  

Having grown up in the advertising business I understand how often we bandy about superlative claims with little or no proof.  Copy or salesy words fall of deaf ears today. Consumers are inured to claims without proof. It’s flah, flah, flah.

Find your claim, prove it, then prove it again and again. Don’t waste a breath on copy without proof.

Doing so is costly.

Peace.

 

 

Tabula Rasa In Brand Planning.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I have a hypothesis that marketing directors or CMOs who work for brands for a long time and move to work on new brands are at a disadvantage.  Their worldviews or market views are colored by the strategies and value cultures of their previous brand. They can make assumptions born of previous brandscapes.  Every brand has its own unique fingerprint. Sure, every brand has hands, fingers, knuckles and nails, but each fingerprint is a unique selling premise. And when a new sheriff is in town, and her/his market view is colored by brands past, it camouflages the reality.

If this hypothesis is correct, how does a new market leader go all tabula rasa on their new assignment?  Drum roll. With a brand strategy engagement.

If a market director without true power goes takes a new assignment and asks the CEO for funds to conduct a brand strategy deep-dive and the response is, “That’s why we hired you,” it’s a bad sign.  Or if the CEO says, “I know everything about the brand, don’t waste the money,” another bad sign.

As any good psychotherapist will tell you, no one ever got sicker because they looked inward and had better understanding of themselves.

New brand leaders can go off the rails when they make assumptions about customer care-abouts and brand good-ats based upon previous knowledge and products. 

Peace.

 

BS and AS

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Brand planners are reinventors. Faris Yakob, a leader of the pack, rightly says “all ideas are recombinant.” There’s nothing new. Only new packaging. I like to think we are reinventors. Invention being the mother of necessity and all. He just said it better.

Brand planning is like peeling an onion. Freakin’ layers. And more layers. But at some point you need to put a stake in the ground and deliver a strategy. At What’s The Idea? I deliver a brief and a more operative Claim and Proof array (a single sheeter). The array is a living breathing list of proofs, organized under three key values (planks). The time prior to the strategy being delivered is BS. Before Strategy. Anything after, the aftermarket discovery, is AS. After Strategy.

The beauty of my framework (claim and proof) is that all people involved are always on the prowl for more ways to prove the claim. With every proof unearthed we make another deposit in the brand bank. We are also giving the ad agency and agency-ettes fodder for new and exciting work.

Brand strategies are like children to me. Whenever I see a potential new proof point for one of my brands I light up. And pass it on. Brand strategies are 20% BS and 80% AS. And then you die.  Hee hee.

Peace.

 

PTLLM

By
Steve Poppe
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0

People that look like me.

Are you tired of staged photography in your ads? Are you happy with all the gratuitous diversity and inclusion casting in TV commercials?  It is wonderful seeing gay couples in ads, but why always on a couch?  How about casting ads with we the people? People not trained to smile for the camera? There is some progress, we are beginning to see some larger people in TV commercials, but less that 5 percent by my count. I also recently saw a woman with freckles in The New York Times Magazine section.

Are you one of those people who watch a hockey or football game and says to the screen or your honey “Sure are a lot of while people there?” I do.  I’ve even started a meme on social media where I comment “White much?” when diversity is totally and ridiculously white.

Here’ my point. Casting has a new imperative. More real people. No one wheel chair a quarter. Don’t check both boxes by using a mixed race couple with two dads. Real people. Zits and all.

All those marketers talking about authenticity need to shut up and cast like they mean it.

Peace!

Words To Live Mas By?

By
Steve Poppe
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0

The word “brave” has been used a lot in the advertising and strategy world of late. Friend Dave Angelo of David & Goliath has centered his business around brave.  A synonym for brave is daring.  Daring takes brave up a notch introducing a smidgen of danger to the equation.

When Taco Bell hired Lil NasX as “chief impact officer,” that was brave. The question was, would they be daring enough to do cool stuff with it? Well, the answer is yes. Taco Bell’s 5 City Drag Brunch tour elevates Taco Bell above all fast food restaurants. The brand has always preached a “live mas” mentality but beyond mixing some crunchy salty snacks into its fare hasn’t always delivered. Drag Brunch does that. So as a next act, how about being daring with other demo-, ethno-, psychographic groups? Do LBGTQ’s get to have all the fun?

I’ve written about how my brand strategies often make clients just a little bit discomfited. Usually, it centers around one word in the claim. My response is it’s not about the word, it’s about the strategy. “If I use a synonym, will you be okay?” Almost always the response is “yes.”

Brave? Daring? The best strategies live a little mas themselves.

Peace.

 

Trust.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I hear a lot of service brands talk about trust. There’s nothing wrong with being a trusted brand. Hell, it’s the same in the brand strategy world. Clients need to trust. Especially when marketers are not buying something existential, like a logo or name. They’re buying “an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.” But I digress.

When trust becomes a problem in a category, say car dealerships or low-cost lawyers, marketers sometimes default to using the “T” word in their advertising. It may sound like marko-babble but it’s reality: You can’t sell trust, you earn trust. Using the word trust in an ad is flawed craft. Proving you can be trusted is the only way to approach it. Through deeds. And actions.

Trust Pilot has built a business on codifying trust. Yelp, to an extent, has done the same collecting customer comments.

Whenever I read an ad that contains the word trust I lose interest. It’s worse than canned laughter on TV. Don’t tell me how to feel, make me feel.

Peace.

 

New Age Agency Searches.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 

I have been going through an agency search with one of my clients. It has been quite a learning curve.  It has been a while since I pitched a piece of business as an agency.  I mean a while in like dog years. When digital advertising is part of the solution set, performance marketing and measurement is almost as important as the big idea/big show of the pitch.

Algo over personality.

Being a strategist, it’s imperative that I stay up to date with culture. And when some companies today are using 80-90% of their media budgets on search, that’s a culture change. When brand awareness can be judged in a geography by counting Google search queries of a brand name (relative to other brands), that’s a sea change.

But clicks alone are not what the marketing and advertising business is about. I deal in brand strategy. The organizing principle for product, experience and messaging. I am not the maker of generic dashboards.

A better click rate for digital ads that are off-strategy aren’t better clicks. They are more clicks. So better isn’t always better. Not if it isn’t hewing to the values that predispose and post-dispose customers to purchase your product, aka brand values.  

Selling clicks isn’t selling product.

Peace!  

 

 

Love.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

It’s not what makes a Subaru a Subaru.  But it is what makes for good brand strategy discovery. When you delve into what people hold most dear about brands and behaviors you’re in special, activating territory.  I’m not talking about most of the time people use the word love in a sentence, I’m talking about real love. Arm tingling love. Love you can actually feel when talking to consumers.  Those are the discussions you want to have.

And, honestly, you can’t just ask “What do you love about your car?” Or “What frozen pizza do you love for dinner?” You have to get to the real love discussion organically. Steer the convo in a that direction. Probe for great times.  Great experiences. Use your Galvanic Skin Response tool (just kidding) to feel the (interviewee’s) love. Then fuel it. Add more kindling.  

This is fertile territory for brand discovery. For human discovery. For feelings discovery.

Peace.

 

 

 

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