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Imposter Syndrome.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

By definition strategy precedes action. I am not sure General Patton or Sun Tsu really knew their strategies would work. Were they imposters? The best we can do as brand planners is gather facts, array insights, organize and prioritize them then make decisions.

Do I get butterflies before presenting a master brand strategy? Even after days of self-congratulations for “nailing it?” Sure I do. Doubt can creep in. Worrying about your craft makes you a good planner. Question yourself, it’s healthy. But don’t let it overwhelm you. No one can see the future. But we can be prepared for the future. We can project what we learned and surmised and expect of the future. Then we stick a pin in it and commit.

All my brand presentations include a pros and cons section surrounding the main claim. Let your client know you’ve thought of all sides. And know your client’s business. Know how money is made so your pros aren’t touchy feelie, they are business-building.

I’m not a fan of terms like imposter syndrome. But I am a fan of the word doubt. And doubt is universal.  Foundations are what we build on.

“Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow you house in…” if your foundation is weak.

Peace.

 

Strategy and Action.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Strategists sometimes get a bad rap for overthink. And overwrite. My brand briefs created to deliver master brand strategy are often 3 pages. That’s a lot of words. Brand briefs are not meant to provide by-the-pound insights and lovely writing. Nor are they to provide a circuitous narrative that makes a brand manager feel optimistic. They are designed to provide a serial story that builds a logic trail toward a business-winning claim about a product or service. That singular claim – yes, I said singular – is built upon customer care-abouts and brand good-ats.  That’s the strategy component… or the information and data boil-down for which I get paid the big bucks.

But strategy without action is simply ink. The best laid plans don’t work unless they’re acted upon and to be acted upon they must be advocated from on high, shared throughout the company, and operationalized. You can’t convince consumers unless you convince your workforce. Many practitioners believe brand strategy to be the sole domain of the marketing department. These companies are most likely to fail with marketing – even with $50 million budgets.  Brand strategy must be encultured throughout a company.

You can’t write an effective marketing plan without a brand strategy. And you can’t write an effective brand strategy without an effective marketing plan. And make no mistake a marketing plan is an action plan. Fully funded. Not piece meal funded. Measured and corrected.

Strategy and action.

Peace.                 

 

 

Strategy and Training.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I’m a fanboy of Julian Cole of Strategy Finishing School and also Mark Pollard of Sweathead. Julian came out of comms planning and has slid into brand planning. Mark has long been a brand planner. Both are sharers. That is, they post a good deal of social media – free media – in an effort to raise visibility. And both are at places in their careers where they are trying to monetize their wares. Like musicians who make most of their money now touring, Julian and Mark (sometimes together) are charging fees for webinars and in-person training sessions.

Faris Yakob, a longtime acquaintance, is also in the marketing and branding space. He, too, works for himself and with wife Rosie monetize a business called Genius Steal through paid events, speeches and training.  But he also consults. Faris is a sharer and networker and has been for a long time.

Giving away intellectual property in social media is a time-tested business builder. And it’s been going on for decades in the regular press and trade press.  Say something really smart to the reading/consuming public and they may reach out for advice. Paid advice. Start by giving it away, then sell it.

My approach is different. I’ve stayed away from monetizing through paid speeches and training.  I continue to give away my IP. My revenue goal is 100% consulting. I prime the pump with content and do biz/dev to generate leads and engagements.

One of my clients, Trail Of Bits, has built a crazy successful business giving away IP in the cyber security space.  They share code and tools for free on GitHub. They don’t train, they consult.  And they thrive.

I’m not knocking trainers and speaker. And as a longtime blogger, I’m all about teaching and learning. But for me the excitement is in the trenches. The excitement is in the strategies themselves.

Peace!

  

 

Anti-racism Campaign Idea.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I’ve been working recently with a woman whose reason-for-being is DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) education. It’s been wonderfully edifying and refreshing. When one wonders what to do to reduce racism in America the answers aren’t easy. Sure, I can look at a picture of 50 white people in a corporate setting and exclaim “White Much?” but that’s me attempting change through humor and doesn’t do much.

Coming out of the advertising business in NY and being married to a woman who worked at the Advertising Council, I believe advertising can be a tool for change when done well. So here is an idea for an anti-racist campaign I’d love to see produced.    

There’s a famous historical quote attributed to Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”  And good men and women are, weekly, in contact with passive and aggressive statements of racism. I was buying a belt at a leather store last week where an older white women pulled her eyes sideways implying we should keep jobs in America.  (I smiled but left immediately. And I felt dirty for not saying anything.)

Playing off of the “Just say no” anti-drug campaign, launched decades ago by first lady Nancy Reagan, I’d like to suggest a “Just Say Whoa” initiative.  Whenever you hear someone cross the line in conversation, just exclaim “Whoa.”  Teach it in schools. Teach it in office settings. Post it in government buildings. Run it on sports programming. Just Say Whoa. You needn’t say more. Or you can. Up to you.

If you hear something say something.

Peace.

 

 

 

Why Proof in Branding?

By
Steve Poppe
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0

When I explain my brand strategy framework I boil it down to claim and proof.  One brand claim, supported by three proof planks. Claim has many synonyms in the marketing and ad world. People use words like “promise,” “key thought,” “position” and scads more.  I use claim because it fits nicely with proof.  The best branding – and advertising, for that matter – makes a claim of product superiority or differentiation then pooves it. Claim and proof fit like a glove.

After researching brands during the so-called discovery process, and when ready to actually developing a brand strategy, I am looking for real, tangible evidence of superiority and differentiation. Not marko-babble. Not copywritten superlatives. Real actions, outcomes and existential proof.  For instance, I don’t look for the word fresh, I look for the words locally grown. I’m not interested in quality furniture, I’m interested in hand-made by second-generation craftsman.

To be frank, claims are a dime a dozen. They are a drop in a tsunami of claims made every day in the advertising world.  Claims are just words, just copy. Without the proof that connects them to the consumers’ brain there’s no resonance. Proof makes a claim make sense.

Brand strategy needs to be steeped in proof. Ad agencies are responsible for bringing proof to life. Bad advertising brings the claim to life.

Peace.

 

 

Taglines and The Fruit Cocktail Effect.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Quality, commitment, character are qualities for which any company would be proud to be known.  Ironically, those three words as a tagline are a problem. I’ve ranted before about three unconnected word taglines and this morning listening to a radio spot was once again reminded.  

MB Haines, an Asheville area heating, air conditioning and refrigeration contractor, has been serving area for over 100 years. Not a bad feat seeing as in 1925 only half of all homes in the U.S. had electricity.  They must be doing a lot right.  That said, if you were to ask all the businesses in the country if quality, commitment and character are business fundamentals, all would say yes.

The problem is not that these are their values, the problem is they don’t work as a tagline. At What’s The Idea?, we advise clients to brand around one claim and three proof planks. MB Haines has the proof planks right, just not the claim. A claim — an overarching statement that covers the three values — is what’s lacking.  I’m not going to go on about information overload, but believe me it’s hard enough to own one brand position. Three is way, way too many.

And frankly, lofty words like quality, commitment and character are so over-used in advertising that they have almost become commodities.  

MB Haines, however, does a good job proving its three values. For instance, “100 years in business” shows commitment. An employee-owned company shows commitment. If I dug deeper I could find lots of examples of quality and character. This company is not built upon a tag cloud of copy and keywords. There’s here here.    

Brand strategy locates a brand in one spot. A spot that meets customer care-abouts and brand good-ats. A tagline is best when it highlights that one spot.

Brand strategy is hard work — often succumbing to the “Fruit Cocktail Effect.”  (Google it using quote marks.) It needn’t with a little brand planning.

Peace.

 

 

Bullies and Bears.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Bullies do not understand sanctions.  They understand punishment. That’s a problem.

As the loss of life begins today with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many are looking for ways out of the conflagration. I don’t remember the invasion of Georgia. And the Crimean invasion, though only a few years ago, was not a huge global/national news event. This invasion, though, has been orchestrated for maximum visibility by Putin from the beginning.

America is trying not to be a bully.  But it’s hard watching Ukrainian dads going off to war putting their crying kids on buses. Publicizing the human toll via social media – bringing the drama home, is something Putin relishes. It causes chaos. And it destabilizes an already divisive political environment here in the U.S.  

The non-Russian world is talking sanctions. The non-Russian world is not good at punishment.  Not until things are over.

I am no hawk. The U.S. is not the world’s policeman. But the U.S. is the world’s beacon of freedom. And that means we are free to punish predators. We can build consensus or we can build consensus while brandishing a stick.  Putin is betting on our consensus-building. He is evil. He is unhinged. But strategically he is sound and he’s playing us. Remember the Syrian redline?

Putin has a focused offensive strategy. It gets stronger by the minute. The U.S. and Allies strategy is deterrence and therefore tied to others’ actions. We are unfocused. Until we focus we will continue to backpedal.  I’m not saying send in troops. Or strafe Moscow.  But as we say in Asheville “bears will continue to feed until deterred.” We need some savvy offense.  

Peace… and I mean it today in a very different way.

Brand Strategy IS Business Strategy.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

A recent Ad Age article on Jonny Bauer, global head of brand strategy and transformation at Blackstone a huge private equity firm, was quoted as saying:

 “We don’t think of a brand as your identity or your name,” Instead, a brand is really the product of strategy and purpose “to define the existence of why this company exists.”

While I agree with the first part of the statement, I take issue with latter part, it “defines the existence of why the company exists.”

Mr. Bauer and Blackstone see branding much the way I do, as business strategy. When he is allowed in the C-suite of companies, not just relegated to CMOs, he is learning about all the business factors contributing to success: debt, legal, assets, culture, supply chain and purchase context.  When designing brand strategy, all these things must be accounted for. The brand claim needs to speak to most everything. As must the proof planks (the science groupings supporting the claim.)  This ain’t no disco. This ain’t no fooling around.

A lot of people may agree they want “happiness” when they buy a Coke, but they really want “refreshment.” 

All this talk about brand purpose and brand intention is silly. Those are outcomes of good commercial branding.  If you want to be intentional, go the non-profit route.

Blackstone and Mr. Bauer get the fact that good branding is the best way to get good marketing. And good marketing (all four Ps) begets good sales. And it starts with strategy. Brand strategy. Tied to business strategy. I deal in customer care-abouts and brand good ats.  Not intentions.

Peace.

 

 

 

 

Taglines Gone Wild.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

The tagline is a very misunderstood communications and branding device.  A tagline should be the de facto brand claim.  Beside the product itself, it is the single most important thing consumers should remember about your offering.  While a brand strategy is actually one claim and three proof planks, the claim element is the one indelible thought or value that motivates preference, consumption and repeat consumption.  I would say loyalty, but one can be loyal and not consume.

Many marketers go wrong when they confuse branding with advertising. This happens when the advertising campaign line or tagline drives branding. KFC’s “Finger Lickin’ Good” is a great example an advertising tagline that brilliantly reflects the brand claim. “That’s My Mission,” the tagline for Mission Health, is way too ad driven — and not even close to a meaningful, powerful brand claim.

Unless your tagline can reflect a coherent, endemic brand value, you are wasting branding dollars. And ad dollars.

Brand strategy first then advertising. Not the other way around.

Peace.

 

 

Implicit versus Explicit Brand Claims.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I came across this testimonial statement on LinkedIn by cyber security firm Delinea. It was posted by Interbrand, their branding company. The work followed the merger of two companies into one.

The Interbrand team worked collaboratively with us to crystalize our unique points of differentiation and capture our essence. With their guidance, we built Delinea into a stand-out brand in our industry, with a clear ambition and a purpose that guides our decision making.”  Art Gillilan, CEO, Delinea

Two quick observations:

  1. I’m not sure I agree brand strategy should encompass “a clear ambition.” When it does it often uses language like “industry leader.” “purpose,” or “intention.” That’s me focused not you focused. Company-centric not consumer-centric. The best brand claims focus on the buyer.
  2. I love that the brand strategy guides company decision-making. Brand strategy must do that. It saves money. Multiplies the value. And creates culture.

The proof of a good brand strategy however is in the pudding, and this is how the website describes Delinea. I call it the Is-Does.

Delinea is a Privileged Access Management Leader Providing Seamless Security for Modern, Hybrid Enterprises.

The only word of value in this statement (to business buyers and security engineers) is seamless. And while the Delinea name suggests seamless (a good thing), I’m not sure as a benefit it hits the mark powerfully enough. Seamless, as a brand claim, implies a benefit. They could have been a quite a bit more explicit in their positioning.

Peace.

 

 

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