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i vs. Smart.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

There are two brands in the mobile phone business iPhones and smartphones. In the U.S. and U.K. the “i” is winning.  In the ROW (rest of world) the smarts have it. Smartphone is a generic term and more often than not includes phones with Google’s Android operating system. That said, most people just call them smartphones not Android phones. 

As Microsoft starts to improve its standing in the U.S. with its own Windows phone operating system (7 or 8?) it, too, will probably be referred to as a smartphone.  Remind you of Mac vs. PC? 

What I enjoy about branding – way more than using paid media to display my ideas in market – is to listen to the market, hear how it speaks and thinks, and use the market’s own language to  gain conversation.  iPhone is paid, smartphone is organic. Mac is paid. PC is organic.

Xerox is paid and organic.  

Apple is a lovely brand.  It has taught the world how to design and market. The world is catching up. It needs a new I, me thinks.  Peace!

 

 

Celebrate, rinse, repeat.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I often use the word “celebrate” when talking about branding. It’s a great word. Once you have your brand idea and planks together, spending money and calories celebrating your product, service and/or customer is the best way forward. A great many ads and sales schemes focus on tearing down competitors.  Consumers don’t appreciation that. They appreciate and gravitate toward the positive.  “If you don’t have something nice to say…” 

When it comes to advertising, too often we build ads that people like.  By celebrating the above, we are building up products people like. There’s a difference.  One can imply a negative, so long as it’s done by superimposing a positive.  One of my favorite ad sayings is “make them feel something, then do something.” Feeling good is good. Peace!

Brand Planning and the Natural Order.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

For the first time in over a century the Elwha River in Washington state is running free.  Dammed up for reasons that made sense a long time ago, the gub-ment has decided to tear down those mud walls. And the salmon and others, with mud in their eyes, are starting to reclaim the river that made them flourish. So we found a work around for the original function of the dams and are making ecological and planetary progress by letting the natural order reestablish itself.  In a few years, when we screw up, we’ll simply “stick a few stem cells on it” and all will be right – that’s not a good future.   

Why talk about the Elwha? Because good brand planning is a bit like understanding the natural order.  If a planner truly gets the organic flow of a product and service, then s/he havs a great foundation.  Many planners, marketers, ad agency campaign makers don’t get that flow, they just get the flow of money. They manage the flow of money and mortgage the brand. This approach builds dams. And culverts.  I believed Steve Jobs when he said he wants to market things consumers will need. You can buy the market, but that’s despotism and doesn’t create good brand will. Create product consumers will need, by understating the flow.

Brand planners need to get the natural order of their category and product before they attempt to benefit. Peace!

 

Target Ad a Bulls Eye.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

There is a Target spot running on the Olympics showing high school seniors opening up their college acceptance letters. It is riveting. Had I to do it all over again, I would have studied harder so as to live that letter opening moment.

I don’t remember the casting or any individual kid in the spot; I do remember the excitement and raw jubilation in each performance.  Back to school ads hit August first or thereabout and typically are a bummer.  Muscle memory for back to school is the antithesis of that for the words “snow day.”   

One of the best back to school ads I have seen was from Staples, I believe, and showed the over the top excitement of a mother packing her shopping cart with supplies, dancing and grinning through the store knowing the little treasures were going back to school. Funny yes.  Engaging yes. It did not hold a candle to the Target spot; a spot so pregnant with possibility, aspiration and energy it almost made me smile out loud (SOL). The target spot was about a celebration that should tie parents and kids to the Target brand. Even subliminally.

This is an ad, yet it has the power and depth to be a brand idea. Great work Target. You learned a lot from Wieden+Kennedy. Good on you. Peace!

I heart slogans.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

The Catskills, a mountain range in NY State, has a promotional group seeking to improve its image among a new generation of tourists.  To that end they are holding a contest to find a new slogan. A really accomplished NYC branding expert was quoted today in the NYT as saying the leading vote getters are not really differentiated.  They are “so generic, that they could be applied about almost anywhere.” And he’s right. But two of the most famous of tourism slogans extant are “I love NY” and Virginia is for Lovers.”   Not a lot of endemic value there.

The brand expert correctly said “To change the perception of a region today requires more than a slogan; they don’t really change perception the way they used to.”  That point is way accurate.  The reason being slogans don’t last very long these days.  I’m making this up but I’d say slogan lifetimes average 26 months. And whose fault is that?  Ad agencies. 

I won a big piece of advertising business while with an agency once by telling the review committee why their line was so great.

Done well, great slogans are guiding principles.  And strategies. They are not just limericks. Peace. 

More on the craft economy.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

One current marketing trend in America, partially caused by the recession, is the craft economy.  People learning to cook at home, fix their broken stuff, use better quality, better value products – a la craft beer. But beyond the recession, as America’s leisure time has become a bit more focused on technology (TV, video games, social networking) I see some blow back from those who want more…and they are turning to the craft economy. Both as buyers and sellers. 

This morning I drove past a McDonagh’s Milk delivery truck and realized this small local dairy is schlepping milk around in glass quart bottles.  It made me want to drink fresh milk. There were no ads on the very spare truck, yet I felt something and did something (like write about it.)  If the craft economy can by its very nature drive demand, it needn’t rely on advertising – and that is why I know the craft economy is for real. Our town just started a local farmer’s market, and it’s filled with craft economy buyers and sellers. Communing about craft.

So where do people go on the web to find craft people and products? And who will curate that web content?  Who will determine what is craft and what is mass-produced, junk economy material?  I suspect some entrepreneur will latch on and use Yelp-like rating to do it.  But that’s not particularly crafty.  Let’s see who wins. Because it’s coming. Peace!

AOL’s Data Fun House.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

In AOL Chairman Tim Armstrong’s earnings call yesterday, he spoke of “One insertion order, all screens” which is an awfully bold idea.  Continuity focused media planners aside, creating an ad and promotion that is arrayed across a number of media screen and types (not all media is screen-based) offers a media lab that will be tres helpful to marketers.

When advertising doesn’t work, who do we blame?  “When the phone don’t ring,” the country song goes, “it’ll be me.”  But with a number of ads in different media situations performing and measured by big data analytics, marketers have something tangible to work with. They won’t just be looking at the voids.

Let me vamp here. Say you go to AOL and buy 2 million impressions – all at a blended CPM rate.  Some or on Huff Post, others on local editions of Patch, more on a video channel or mobile site.  Perhaps a TV component or podcast.  Measuring and managing that activity, by media, offer, and message will be cool dashboard stuff.  Then overlay some demographic data on the performance and you have veritable marketing fun house. Of course there will be some mess, but big gains usually start messy. Como se the Affordable Healthcare Act? Peace.

Sales, Operations and Strategy.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Here’s my take on these three important engines of commerce. 

Sales is responsible for making money hit the bank account. When sales are good everyone in C-suite is happy. Sales people like patterns; if something works they will use it. Sales people like air cover so that prospects know who they are and what they do, even before they arrive. Sales people like leads, but they have to be great leads. And they like good support in the areas of communications, delivery and aftercare.

Operations is responsible for logistics. When products and services are procured, delivered and serviced in a frictionless environment, the C-suite is happy.  Operations is not just loading dock stuff, it’s about interdepartmental efficiency.  When operations are fluid and systematized, problems are dealt with quickly, minimizing hiccups and reducing negative impact on profits.

Strategy done well, is the traffic cop that makes sales and operation more fruitful.  Strategy is not mission, however. Every major league baseball team has a mission. Win games. Score more runs than the other team.  Every company has a mission. Make more money than you spend.  Make more money than the competition.  In Army parlance, the mission might be “take Hamburger Hill.”  The strategy on the other hand is how to take that hill.  

All strategy and no sales makes Jack a poor boy. All three areas need to perform together in order to create sustainable success. Now you don’t have to go out and buy Jack Welch’s books.  Go forth, Peace!

All my .edu exes live online.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

MOOCs are the haps these days.  The acronym stands for Massive Open Online Courses.  Coursera, started by two Stanford University scientists, is one such MOOC and it’s a for profit enterprise.  MITx began this whole movement by offering a couple of free online courses then deciding to brand itself MITx —  a good idea. But this past it partnered with Harvard and rebranded the venture edX.  Today Cal Berkley joined edX which is a not for profit.

This is an nascent and exciting category but one has to wonder if these aggregated Xs will soon become exes. The university brands by themselves are so powerful that an online holding company with a master brand atop seems a short term solution. Let’s wait and see. Peace.

VCs and Branding

By
Steve Poppe
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0

There’s an interesting article in the Times today regarding the branding of Venture Capital firms.  The word “brand” is mentioned 4 times (Tools, File, Find on page) but nowhere is there any sense of what these VC firms actually stand for – what their point of difference is. The article really means “awareness” and “PR” not branding.  Marc Andreesen and PR hawk Margit Wennmachers all know the value of awareness, stories and creating positive prevailing wind in the blogosphere, but no one (reporter Nicole Perlroth included) understands how to build a brand…how to organize the selling story that is branding. They misuse the word.

And that might be a good thing, because though it’s important to have a well-known and respected VC behind you. Entrepreneurs – and this, the article does say – want to make sure their company and brand are visible during start-up. Start-ups are the ones that need the brand building, the organizing principle. More so than VC firms. Everybody needs strong brand, a strong Is-Does and a meaningful organizing principle, but VC firms that hire PR people and think that’s branding need to dig a bit deeper. Peace.

 

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