About Soul. About.com

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June 27, 2011

About.com ran an ad in The New York Times (its parent company) today in honor of its 15th anniversary. The ad also celebrates About’s 36 million monthly U.S. visitors.

Not sure if they are launching a new tagline, but locked up with the logo at the bottom of the ad are the words “Need. Know. Accomplish.” They visited the triumvirate tagline store, apparently.

Apparently, 15 years – which is nothing to sneeze at – is an About differentiator. I say that because “need know accomplish” is the Bing strategy. And we know that Google owns the “need know accomplish” space.

I want About to win because I love The New York Times. About needs some of that NYT sophistication and savvy to rub off on it. It needs to be more human, less algo, more alive. And, frankly, it’s built an okay site reflecting that. The user experience faces the right direction. Problem is, the brand is weak. The promise blah. The there is there, but the message is without ballast. The New York Times has never really had to brand plan for the paper-paper or the digital version. It has just needed to promote and sell, because brand “the package” has always been so strong. About.com, on the other hand, needs a home in consumers’ minds. Right now it’s a word. A site. It’s has a pumping heart. Let’s hope in 5 years it has a soul too. I wish it well. Peace.

Go Forth and Twitch.

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Steve Poppe

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June 24, 2011

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Fast Twitch Media is exactly what it sounds like: media that is reactive, quick and available in bite-size chunks. The problem with Fast Twitch Media (and the opportunity) is with the twitch. A twitch often results in a transfer from one media moment or type to another. When I’m reading an article on All Things D about Shazam, and click on the link in the middle of the article it takes me to a demo on YouTube, drawing me away from the article itself. A twitch. As the publisher of All Things D, I may have lost the reader because the YouTube demo might twitch me elsewhere.

A key goal in marketing and advertising is reducing the space between consumer and a transaction. Temporally, spatially, emotionally. Not soft metric stuff, hard metric stuff. Take the air out of the space between the consumer and the purchase and you win.

What’s exciting about today is that there are many ways to do this, thanks to mobile and the web. What’s scary about today is that there are many ways to do this, thanks to mobile and the web. Enter Twitch Point Planning — the ability to map and manipulate fast twitch media and behavior to your product’s advantage. Many are already doing it, but not by design.

Shazam, the app that lets your phone listen to an unknown song and identify it for you, is very cool. And useful. The ability then for Shazam to sell you that song in a click or two is an example of reducing the space between consumer and transaction. A Twitch Point gone right.

Go forth and Twitch my people. Peace.

PS. Thanks to Chris Kramer and Netx for the Shazam article.

Creative Technologist or Analgesic?

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Steve Poppe

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June 23, 2011

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There has been recent debate on marketing blogs about the role of the “creative technologist.” As if technologists were not creative in their own right. Edward Broches of Mullen and Scott Prindle of Crispin are active discoursers. A big marketer and agency challenge today is finding and creating a central point around which the creative department, media department, strategy dept. and technologists can array. As a brand planner, I vote strategy. Messrs. Brooches and Prindle, it seems, choose a coder comfortable in the sunlight and art galleries.

But upon further thought, I’m going in a different direction. I am rolling with a creative analytics person. Talk about head down types. Any new agency worth its fee has analytics people in pods around the shop. They are overworked, natively digital and not particularly creative – though they may snowboard. What they aren’t, are invited to the creative briefing meetings. And if they are, tend to be the quite dude in the corner.

These Analgesics (analysts who can find the pain) are seers of patterns. They may not be able to come up with a selling idea, TV spot or first user experience, but they can and should be in the room and allowed to contribute. Perhaps not the central figure, but in the room. Analgesics munch numbers like nobody’s business, plus they are real consumers. Bring them to the table. Let them talk without being derided.

Analyzing success metrics, seeing patterns and predicting patterns will be the new black in creative development. Peaceful!

Want Better Mobile Apps? Fun Up Your Calc.

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Steve Poppe

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June 22, 2011

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Tired of hearing my self-deprecating “I’m a simple man” spiel? Hey, it’s a living. The latest simplified observation in the land of black and white has to do with mobile applications and Web apps. I’ve been selling selling for enough years to know some of the web’s first apps were online calculators. “How much will your company save if you use our product? Click the calculator?” Well, fifteen or so years later the premise still holds. Calcu-lay-sh is one of the two primary apps in mobile. The other is plain, stupid fun.

The big question is “Which app-set is bigger?” Calculation apps or fun apps? (Search and geolocation are both caculations.) So what do you think marketers? 50/50? 70/30? With the answer hanging in the air, I’ll suggest there just might be a gray area to consider – and that’s the fun calculation. Shazam is one such — an app that listens to music and tells you the name of the song.

Smart digital markets know that combining calc and fun is a way to reduce the barrier between a consumer and a product. But be careful here, there is a difference between fun and consumption. Knowing where the taco truck is not necessarily fun, not after the first time. Fun up your calculation, make it add value to the brand and you’ll have yourself a winner. Simple. Peace.

Wal-Mart’s Newest TV Spot.

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Steve Poppe

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June 21, 2011

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Stop the presses! I saw a Wal-Mart commercial last night that had some personality. It made me, dare I say, laugh out loud. A mom was putting on some facial cream in front of a mirror with her children splayed at her feet. “What are you doing mommy?” “Trying to look a little younger, kids” was the warm response.” They type of truthful, self-effacing response you rarely see on TV. As kids do, they sponge up the info and do something with it — applying the same lotion to grandpa’s sleeping face in the den. In big gobs. Doing a really good job. “Grandpa is going to be so happy when he wakes up!” giggle the children.

Wal-Mart needs a makeover. The class action case against it. The big box coldness. The smell of bad pizza wafting through the check-out lines. Not that all these things will drive shoppers away; shoppers need Wal-Mart. But the company just lacks a special connection with its audience…something that advertising can foster. This ad is a step in the right direction.

If Wal-Mart could be a bit more like Costco, it would do even better. The YouTube videos of Wal-Mart shoppers folding out of their clothes do not help. Those videos probably have more views than the TV ads.

Wal-Mart is the world’s biggest anything. And growing. You’d think they could grab hold of a powerful brand idea and build their image. This spot may just be the start – the idea to have an idea. Peace!

PS. Anyone know who did the work?

Fossil Fuel Preserving Heroes?

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Steve Poppe

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June 20, 2011

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Here’s a marketing challenge: How do we get the smartest of the smart thinking about renewable energy sources? Michelle Obama has us focused on childhood obesity and is doing a good job. The rest of the government is focused on war and debt and the crisis of financial confidence. For good measure you can throw in a little healthcare. Sellers of consumer and business goods are “all up” in the digital world trying to leverage Facebook, Twitter and mobile geo services. Kids are still loving sex, fun and music.

So who is looking out for the planet? Who is focusing on the fact that we’re literally draining and burning the core of the earth — denuding it of fossil
fuels. Where’s the water coming from in 5 thousand years?

Pop Quiz. Name one person in the U.S. that cares the most about the planet? Al Gore is probably the answer. Sad. Much sad. (God bless him, by the way, but he needs some help.)

Here’s what we need: A VC firm with eyes on the planet prize. Might it be Fred Wilson? John Doerr? Paul Oliver? Who? Until that hero emerges, and until the pages of the Wall Street Journal, FT and New York Times start writing about him/her with the alacrity that they use to cover digital tech, we’re screwed. As Thomas Friedman says oil is a destabilizer. Who is going to step up? Who dat? Peace!

A Call to Twitch.

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Steve Poppe

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June 17, 2011

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Fast Twitch Media and twitch point planning, and from the quality of the responses it seems I’m on to something. Faris Yakob of KBS+P is in the fast twitch neighborhood when he refers to our low latency culture, and others who talk about integrating transmedia solutions are similarly on the trail. It’s a nascent practice but quite exciting. One key to effectively getting people to twitch from one media type to another, with the goal of taking them closer to a transaction, is to create intrigue. Especially in a low-interest category. If we are talking Gillette razors, you don’t need to twitch me to a treasure map or man-scape video game, but you do need to get me to think, feel and do – within the context of a brand idea. Go Daddy got this years ago, albeit shamelessly and sans selling idea.

As the mobile online experience improves, and it’s not there yet, a twitch to a website is only a pants pocket away. A twitch to a hastag. A QR code to a video. A geo-check –all within arm’s reach. Print ads are already becoming short form billboards using a call to twitch. Check out the new Kobo e-reader ad in The New York Times paper/paper today.

The RGAs , Crispin Porter’s and 72 and Sunny’s are thinking twitch point planning — they just don’t call it so. And they are trying to decide who is responsible for it. Media people, creative, geekuses? The answer is yes. Peace!

QR Codes and Packaging.

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Steve Poppe

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June 16, 2011

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So you’are standing at the store, say in the frozen cookie dough aisle, trying to decide between Sweet Loren’s and Fat Boy’s. One has butter, one has no dairy. The pictures of the cookies look great on both boxes but one package feels a bit more “healthy.” You are debating wheher to buy healthy but can’t make up your mind. What do you do? You break out your smarty and take a picture of the QR codes on the package and twitch over to a website for an in-depth look at the product? Sure, why not.

QR Zombies

I’ll tell you why not, retailers would spit the bit. Good stores are crowded enough, can you imagine what they’d be like with zombie-like consumers consulting their phones in the aisles watching 110 second product videos? Talk about shelf-talkers! This is not what retailers want, trust me.

Packaging needs to sell. It need to close the deal. Great designers know people will only read so much on a package. It’s an art. Designers will include less copy and more picture if there is a QR code on the pack – and it will cause a retail revolt. On resets will QR code containing products be put on lower shelves, get fewer endcaps, loose facing strength? I love QR codes. They are awesome. That said, POS (point of sale) is where you buy not where you do homework. Peace!

Innovation is not a label.

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Steve Poppe

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June 15, 2011

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J.C. Penny has hired Ron Johnson, Apple’s head of retail, as its new CEO. The goal is to capture some or Apple’s retail magic in s bottle and pour it on the top floor of J.C. Penny stores and hope it dribbles down the escalators to the main floor. Past the jewelry counters, bread mixers, faux leather jackets and J.C. Penny house brand jeans. Don’t get me wrong, I am an optimist by nature. Brand planning is all about positivity and change. Even heavy Domino’s Pizza type lifting, but this one feels like it will need Microsoft money to accomplish.

Michael Dell who also practiced his marketing ju-ju in Plano, TX, but has had a hard time of late, would agree. A J.C. Penny retail makeover is quite a challenge. The articles about Mr. Johnson’s hire talk about innovation…but innovation is not a word that can be slapped on a product label. Apple’s innovation began in R&D, in the labs, in the culture and resulted in some fine-ass products. Penny’s innovation can’t come from pricing, or salespeople, or the merchandise sets – it has to come from something much deeper. I suspect Mr. Johnson, as excited and smart as he is, may be the wrong tool for this job. I hope he proves me wrong, because it would be exciting to watch.

A while ago I suggested Sears reposition and become El Sears, catering to the Spanish and Latin communities. (They didn’t listen. Give them 7 years.) J.C. Penny needs to focus on innovation it has a stomach for…and its consumers have a stomach for. This move may actually be “the idea to have an idea,” but not the idea itself. RIP Dick Kerr. Peace!

Stop poopin’ out the marketing!

By

Steve Poppe

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June 14, 2011

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There are a lot of smart people out their explaining how to make your marketing better. How to make more sales, more clicks, more inquiries? Thanks to the web and the algorithm whole new cottage industries have grown up around the more-more. The speaking circuit, conferences and webinars are growing like a dookie thanks to the new tools. But they are only tools.

My shtick is all about finding your brand idea and organizing it with the right planks so that when you pick your tools the job is easier. “Here’s a canvas, now paint a picture.” Or, “Here’s a canvas, now paint a fall landscape.”

There are some wonderful tenets of marketing that are not very often preached or practiced but, when followed, have a powerful impact on efficacy. (And we overlook them because we’re trying to find the message in the dark, sans brand plan.) Here are a couple of those tenets:

Surprise and Delight. Humans love to be surprised. And they love to be delighted. But often, marketers are so tired and beat down they just default to selling — even if nobody’s buying. Whenever you create something for a customer or prospect ask yourself “Is this surprising?” Or is it the same old, new color. Ask “Will this put a smile on someone’s face”? And probe its toothsomeness.

Be Artful. I read today about Ben Wilson, a U.K. artist who paints pictures on discarded blobs of gum. He brings his brushes and color palette and bellies up to the sidewalk and creates art. As Keith Haring did before him, Mr. Wilson creates wonderment and art for the people. The man and his work are beloved. If you want your marketing to outwork your competitors, it must possess artfulness. Find a strategy, then worry about the really important stuff. Do it in didge, traditional, PR or whatever. Stop poopin’ it out. Peace.