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Judging a Pop Marketing Fantasy.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Many moons ago there was a fairly famous advertising campaign that asked the question “What in the world isn’t chemical?” The question sticks with me and as a marketing consultant, and I often ask myself “What in the business world isn’t marketing?” 

In many companies, marketing is a silo. “Marketing is sales support,” some say. Well it’s that. To others, marketing is “material.” Things to distribute to customers, e.g., collateral, samples. That too. And these days marketing is heavy online – the web, social media, search and data collection. Yes, yes, yes and yes.

Best Buy is tanking.  Until May of this year, its CMO Barry Judge, was famous for his oft-quoted stance “customers own the brand.”  A big early proponent of social media, he advocated ceding control of the brand to customers.   And he was not alone in this belief; in fact, he created a lot of pop marketing fantasies. Though while spreading this nonsense, the rest of his marketing kingdom seemed unattended. 

Marketing is everything. Distribution (Amazon), pricing (Amazon, Wal-Mart), promotion (Target), and product (retail CRM, store experience, data).  I would never suggest listening to customers is a bad thing. It’s not. It’s called research. But customers do not own the brand. Marketing does. Not sales, not finance, not the product managers and certainly not customers.

Mr. Judge has learned an amazing lesson. As the center of gravity for the social media in marketing movement, I suspect no one has learned more about its effects on all the Ps (of marketing).  Now he needs to take that learning and share it with the rest of us.  I smell a book.  This is America and we are all about turn around stories. I’ll buy one. On Amazon. Peace!     

PS. Mr Judge, if you’d like to disabuse me of these observations, please weigh in.

Indispensable Facebook.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Facebook is going to be fine.  So long as the monetization and product people stay out of the way and don’t spam the product up too much.

My friend Frenchie and I like to hike on the Appalachian Trail.  Or at least we used to did (Steve-ism). At the end of every hike we’d give an award for the stupidest thing we carried.  The stupid algorithm was impacted by the thing’s size, bulk, weight and the degree to which we used it.  The reason I know Facebook will live on is because kids and, to a less extent, adults still like to check their statuses a lot.  Go to a concert with a teen or twenty somth and when the music slows or they get bored they mobile up to Facebook.  Take that behavior and extend it to college classes, business meetings, Mets game, etc. and you get the idea the Facebook is an anecdote for a bored world. It’s communications crack.  

A la the hiking story, imagine paying $85.00 for a ticket to a concert and spending a quarter of your time at the event on Facebook. It’s indicative of the platform’s power. Facebook, for many is an indispensable part of their life. It’s getting used all the time in that metaphoric backpack. Don’t worry about the stock. Mr. Zuckerberg — worry about the ham-handed business people who are likely to gunk up your product. Peace.

Don’t F with nature.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I apologize for the potty word, not the invective.  At Rollins College I studied anthropology and a piece of learning that has carried forward quite well in my career is the idea of “functionalism.” It suggests that every cultural phenomenon is the result of some function in the community. This theory along with the Darwin’s natural selection (which suggests positive physical and morphological traits are selected for for future generations), comprise the two key rules I use when brand planning – trying to find an idea and organizing principle under which to conduct brand commerce.

If you are going to grow crops as a farmer, it’s important to know what type of soil you have. What the minerals are. What annual rainfall is? How much sun the field gets. Predation too. In other words, you understand the natural order? It’s a key pursuit in brand planning too.

The natural order in brand planning is not found by asking “How do I make more money?” then working backwards.  Yet that’s how many commercial enterprises roll. They start with the money and deconstruct. The converse is often true when it comes to start-ups. They construct. And as Facebook and Twitter will tell you, not always with monetization as a starting point.  The most successful start-ups follow nature then build. The least successful start-ups lose sight of nature and are governed by instant cash. Companies that lose sight of nature, spend time genetically engineering results and upset the natural order.

If you know what’s natural in your category, you can better predict what will be natural for consumers. Peace!

Brand Plan First.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Last year, I did some consulting for a really smart athletic wear company. The CEO grew up in a niche, understood the market opening and built a company to fill that opening. Focus is a critical component of marketing and this CEO had it. Brand planners and brand experience consultants are always on the lookout for focus.  

Marketers sometimes fall into a trap to expand that focus beyond what they know (and love) which can be the beginning of the end.  Line extensions – endemic line extensions, that is – are okay, but things like sales growth numbers and market growth data can intoxicate a leader.

During this consulting gig the company owner brought me in to help create an “insanely great” retail shopping experience.  Since the owner already had the focus down, this “ask” was a brilliant next step. As brand experts Megan Kent and David Kessler would tell you, building a strong brand is not about just about the creative, it’s about the total experience.  And that’s execution.  That’s deeds not messages.  

One is most likely to build an insanely great retail brand experience if s/he follows the brand idea. Go generic, e.g., customer care above and beyond, and you have no muscle memory.  Or you are compared to Nordstrom.

Of course, production and pricing must also come in to play but they, too, are decisions informed by the brand plan.  Peace.

Brooklyn Nets, the brand.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 

I actually just typed NJ Nets into the headline, that’s how powerful is that muscle memory. From a global standpoint — on the planet today — Brooklyn is a bigger brand than New Jersey.  Jay-Z is a bigger brand than Shawn Carter. Barclay’s Bank and Barclay’s Center are bigger than Bruce Ratner and Mikhail Prokhorov. Messrs. Ratner and Prokhorov, though well-known in certain global circles, are building something truly amazing from the ground up that will transcend Deron Williams, Joe Smith and Dwight Howard.

By allowing Mr. Carter, aka Jay-Z, who happens to own one fifteenth of one percent of the Nets to be brand manager and face of the franchise, Mr. Ratner and Mr. Prokhorov have insured not only success but brand cachet. This isn’t some Robert Moses shizz anymore, knocking down brownstones, this is music. And sports. And rebirth.  This is an overdog story turned into an underdog story. Thanks to Jay-Z, the attachment rate of coolness to the Brooklyn Nets brand is como se rich.

It is all good right now.  (The NY Knicks could steal a page.) Jay-Z is smiling and respected. His empire fits nicely into all of this. But the moment disrespect rears its ugly little head – as power and influence begins to change – there may be trouble.  Let’s not go there. All the players have done too much right. Celebrate. Brooklyn. Where my people are from. Peace!

Doing Good’s Work.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Doing good’s work is the brand idea I wrote not too long ago for a not-for-profit called Bailey’s Café, in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn.  A noble, noble women by the name of Stefanie Siegel allowed me to participate and attempt to organize her brand. Check out the site. Jay Leno, is a fan.

For about 7 months, I’ve been working at a for-profit in the education space.  The goal of that company and brand, not dissimilar from the goals of all educational companies, is to improve student achievement. Again, noble, noble work.

For 5 years I did strategic planning and marketing in healthcare, the objective of which was to convey a systematized approach to improving patient outcomes in the communities it served. Noble.   Today I read about how HCA hospital corporation’s profitability is spawning purchases of a number of other hospitals across the country by private equity firms, hoping to cash in on certain margins that can be squeezedand others that can be expanded.  

Somewhere between selflessness and profit is where America ethos lies. Brands that see this, be they for-profit or not, are the brands that win.  They are also the brands I would like to plan for. Even Doctors Without Borders needs someone with a sharp pencil watching over them. Let’s all try to do good’s work. Peace!

Be original.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Originals are what non-originals are compared too.  If an original is good enough to be parroted, it must have had impact.  Originality stimulates.  It’s lightning in a bottle.  But while marketing companies are all about replicating consistency in product delivery, marketing departments must strive for originality in communications and packaging. Sadly, they often don’t. When “epic” becomes the word for a certain demographic, it’s too late to use it in ads. Stride gum, for instance, “epic” in its tagline and as the maypole idea for new commercials.

Parrots are a novelty, but you can’t keep them in your living room.  Batman 2 will always be compared to Batman 1. The remake of True Grit will always lie in the shadow of The John Wayne version. And in advertising and marketing, being first and original is what creative people live for. Approvers aren’t comfortable with originality and that’s a shame.

Original beauty. Original music. Original design are what capture attention. So go forth (Levi’s) and capture. Peace.   

Price Mobility.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Variable pricing is a brand’s worst friend.  Pricing, one of the 4 Ps of marketing, is something that shouldn’t be messed with.  Typically, brands are categorized by consumers as value, competitive or pricey. Brands can drop their prices for things like trial and loyalty – but a price strategy that consumers can’t grok over time is not helpful.  Catalina and a few other marketing companies are helping brands and retailers use variable pricing on hand-help devices in stores – and it’s a shiny new thing. If you tend to like healthy foods, your store visit might push a special price to you in the cereal aisle. That price might be $1.00 less than your neighbor in the same aisle.  Part loyalty, part promotion, the insight driving this tactic is really the 80-20 rule.  80% of a product is purchased by 20% of the consumers.  So finding more repeaters is a smart goal. Just not sure this is the way to do it.

If variable pricing takes off and product costs changes weekly, it will have a negative impact on brand loyalty. It will create complexity where none is needed. There are much better things to do with mobile devices me thinks. Peace. 

Strategy is not a curveball.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Strategy is not a curveball.  It’s not hard to hit. It’s a fastball.  Strategy should come in straight, have a predictable trajectory and as long as you can put the bat out there and swing level, you make contact.

Here’s where things can go wrong.

  1. 1.    If the strategy, as an organizing principle, is not straight forward. If it’s malleable enough for the person who sets it to approve work product that isn’t over the plate. Strategy is not subjective.  Setting curveball strategy is mismanagement.  Strategy can change, mind you, but not on the fly.
  2. 2.    If the strategy is straight forward, well-explained and outlined, but not adhered to by team members, it’s a fail.  Strategy used as a guide, or directionally – open to personal interpretation — is useless. Carrying out the metaphor, the pitch is a fastball, but the hitter is just mad swinging all over the place.

The “s” word (strategy) is as over-used and misused as the “b” word (brand). But it is the most fundamental word in business. Peace.    

 

NY Mets and Customer Service.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I was at a Met Game last night and fairly normal looking couple, perhaps in their 50-60s, were sitting in front of me. Our aisle seats were 9 rows from the field, 50 feet from 1st base. Midway through the game a suited young man with a badge around his neck came up to the gentlemen, took a knee and chatted him up. The youngish man smacked of customer service, but also seemed a friend.  I couldn’t hear what they were saying but the customer care person did not at all seem solicitous. On the back of patron’s ball cap was an understated logo for Chevrolet, so I assumed he was a return customer.

Later, I saw a nice looking women, similarly badged, walking up the aisle in a dark skirt suit – presumably another customer service person.

The Mets/Citifield experience is really quite good. Especially for the corporate customers. High-end ticket owners are spending money and they are taken care of. Not smothered – but recognized and assisted. The wins and losses are not always controllable; the experience should be.  (Now, if they could just get that waiter to stop asking everyone if he could take their order every 2 minutes. )

The Mets and Wilpons are building a customer relationship experience that is laudable.  No scrimping there. Peace!

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