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Wendy’s. Kaplan Thaler. Unreal.

By
Steve Poppe
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Branding is about owning a discrete idea in the minds of consumers.  Find the right idea — something you are good at and upon which you can deliver – then spend your money proving it.  

A couple of years ago, Wendy’s, a top 3 fast food burger chain, gave its account to Kaplan Thaler Group. Kaplan Thaler does good ads, great music and creates muscle memory for its clients.  It won the Wendy’s business with a neat jingle and neat idea “You know when it’s real.”   The idea revolves around a commitment to use more natural ingredients.  No one doesn’t want more natural ingredients.  So it is a great idea in a category with pent up “bad nutrition” ideals.

We can debate whether the last two year of advertising have delivered on the natural ingredients promise, but there is a $25 million campaign launching for Wendy’s new French fries that has gone off trail. The product uses natural-cut unpeeled Russet Burbank potatoes and sea salt. Presumably they are using a healthier quality of fry oil.  The advertising idea – and here is where the disconnect comes in — is about “taste and sharing.”  People like the taste so much they don’t want to share.  You know when it’s real?  When this work is copy-tested people will play back “the fries are so good you won’t want to share.”  FAIL.  (I’m sure the copy talks about real ingredients, but the idea is about taste and sharing.) This doesn’t put a deposit in the brand idea bank, it makes a withdrawal.  

Money into the market will make sale blip up. It will be viewed as modest near-term success.  But by now, Kaplan should know how brand strategy works: Get them to sing the strategy, then burrow it into their heads.  Props to Wendy’s product people for the product idea. As for the marketing people shame, shame.  Peace!

The Silo Chasm

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 

How does a brand idea cross the silo chasm?  It’s doesn’t always. 

Matching luggage is creative term for creative that travels nicely from media to media.  Let’s say you have a selling idea for a TV commercial – but it’s visual.  How does that idea transfer to radio? (“Hi, I’m a talking horse from Yonkers Raceway.” Ouch. )  Similarly, what if you have an experiential idea, perfect for promotion or digital but it lies like a lox in print? Campaign ideas don’t always travel. So what do you do? 

And today, with marketing silos expanding not contracting, it is even harder to corral a campaign idea and bring it to life – especially for big clients with multiple agencies, all of which want to come up with the “big” idea.  

So here are some rules to live by. Campaigns come and go…a powerful branding idea is indelible. Coke must “refresh” no matter the campaign.  Corona must convey a hot, vacation-like retreat. Norelco electric razors must convey a smooth shave. Rule 2:  Don’t kill yourself trying to force fit a campaign idea to a media. Media is not a strategy.  A hammer does not turn a screw.  Do your best to allow an idea to travel, but don’t force it.  It only will diminish the original idea.  Matching luggage may be nice for Paris Hilton, but she doesn’t have to carry that much shizz with her — she got peoples.

Peter Kim (the deceased one) once told an AT&T client spending hundreds of millions on TV “Campaigns are overated.” Peace.

Coupons pollute the social stream.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 

In the future, Groupon will be a powerhouse. (Right now it’s a power hose.)  

My first email from Groupon arrived yesterday promoting Bubba’s Burrito Bar in not too far away Islip, NY.  Bubba’s offered me $7 off a purchase of $15.  I clicked through but the link was broken.  Stoked, because I’d been to Bubba’s and liked it very much, I wrote them a note about the link faux pas certainly will visit them soon, coupon or not.

Today, Groupon emailed me a promotion for America Apparel.  Not exactly, where I shop. It’s email number two and already I see an email unsub in my future. So why with this targeting problem do I still expect Groupon to be a winner? 

Focus.

Groupon has some things to work out but the idea to encourage “group” promotions and group referral by geography is smart…and gaining traction.  Plus this is the right economy to be in the coupon business.  I gripe often that marketers are tainting social media by tossing coupons around Facebook and Twitter, etc. It’s too much. Groupon has the potential to be a cure for this boorish behavior. Coupons need to be sequestered but easily found — they do not need to be all over my social media stream. Period.

If Groupon focuses solely on coupons and coupon users, they will evolve; especially if they pioneer the application of the social graph (relationship mapping of social friends) with coupon use and geo-targeting. Groupon will win this category because of focus.  And because couponing does not belong in the waters of the social stream. Peace!

Facial Recognition is Buggin’.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 

I watch a bit of TV and one of the technologies that pops up from time to time is facial recognition.  A digital recorder scans the face of an unsuspecting villain comparing facial features to a database  generating a “hit” which ties the person to an abundance of data.    

Does the technology sound expensive?  Sure. Is it?  Probably not.   

As mobile and GPS technologies become more common and applied commercially – always in an opt-in fashion, of course – do you think facial recognition apps are far behind?  Let’s say they start out as a security thing, confirming that your credit or debit card is really yours.  Not so bad. But how about if you walk into a store and are recognized as a big spender by the software, and an special customer care alert goes out to the sales dept?  Smart from the store’s viewpoint.  If a NYer who spends $10,000 a year at Macy’s visits a branch in Chicago, wouldn’t the store want a heads up before check out?

It sounds intrusive, yes. But let’s face it.  We’re bugging ourselves in lots of ways. EasyPass records where our cars have driven. ATM’s track us. Credit card transactions track us. Traffic cams record our car license plates. Soon our smart phones will know more about us than we do.  (Mr. Poppe, you are listing to port.)

I for one, think facial recognition will provide neat commercial possibilities. Time will tell. Peace!

Buick’s Progress. A tale.

By
Steve Poppe
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I drove a Buick Skylark as a kid and loved it.  Though green wasn’t my favorite color, the car offered a little macho and some pep.  My friend’s dad owned the Buick dealership from whence it came and when he grew up he, too, owned a Buick Dealership.  I went to work at McCann-Erickson in the 90s and we had the Buick account. Market research began to slip out that Buick had become the brand of Q-Tips — little white heads that stuck up from behind the steering wheel. That was the 90s.  As much as the client and agency derided the target and tried to go younger, they never really changed the car models.

The decade of the 2000s rolled in and again management talked about aiming younger.  Tiger Woods was the spokesperson – young phenom that he was.  Some youthful accoutrements were put on the cars, some grilles were youthenized, a new younger nameplate introduced (Lucerne, hee hee), yet the old people car tag did not abate.

Fast forward to today – the 2000 teens.  “People still equate us with big, floaty, boxy cars that are driven by people in their 70s and 80s,” said Craig Bierley, director of advertising and sales of Buick/GMC in today’s paper.  He added “This is really about position Buick in a progressive marketing space, so that people can think of Buick as a progressive company overall.”  This quote, a reference to a new selling application for iPhones and Androids.

Hello?  You can market younger but the car designs must appeal so. They don’t yet. See you in 2020. Peace!

Facebook Email. The chatter and cheddar.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

There’s been lots of online chatter about the expected announcement today of Facebook email — and how it might kill Gmail. It won’t.  There are a lots of Gmail fanboys. It will, however, hurt new accounts and current usage among Millennials, teens, and tweens. But the really big news is that Facebook email will be a crazy money maker.

Online Advertising

It is reported that 1 in 4 ads displayed on the web are Facebook ads — with 1.28 trillion banners ads viewed in the 3rd quarter of 2010 alone. Dude!  That more than TV, radio, and OOH combined (please don’t fact check, I just made that up). That is a lot of impressions.  If Facebook’s email — through which users will have personal email accounts  (spoppe@facebook.com) — takes off, I smell another trillion…give or take.  That’s some cheddar.

Debate all you will about the integration of web applications into the Facebook email product (Microsoft, Google Docs, Mobile, Enterprise, etc.) and its revenue implications, this puppy is going to be an advertising breakthrough.  Privacy will be a major issue of course. Think about it, if I send an email to a friend about a camping trip (That camping trip joke never dies, thanks Jed) and the recipient gets an REI ad, it’s going to be an issue.  But that’s a story for next month. There will be lots of chatter and lots of cheddar coming off of this announcement. Whoo. Peace!

A Sign of Economic Life.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

It’s been a couple of years since Bernie Madoff pounded the NYC elite, making off with their summer homes — and until now, you could feel it in the pages of The New York Times.  Lots of ads disappeared. Then more ads. And finally more ads.  There was a big reduction in luxury goods advertising and the pages of the Times were no longer filled with Avedon-type photographs of beautiful men and women dressed and accoutered to die for.  Photos and ads were under-produced and unbecoming. Well, the ads in the Times are coming back — in number and refinement. And though some promise 30 and 40% off, advertisers are beginning to pump it up.

I know, I know, it’s almost holiday season but you can smell change in the luxury goods market. Could it be the leadership shuffle in Washington and the wishful thinking of the tax-burdened?  Or has the string of Bernie been salved over?  How about the quarterly reports from retirement accounts reclaiming lost ground? Yes, yes and yes.  I’m no economist and I’m certainly not counting truck drivers in the truck stops along the highway, but at least in The New York Times the pages are beginning to show a bit more smile.  Peace.

Loving Wal-Mart’s Free Shipping.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

“I love free shipping” was my wife’s response when I mentioned Wal-Mart’s newest offer on all website purchases this holiday season. 

eCommerce is propping up the shipping business (US Postal Service, UPS and FedEx) and dinging the oil business.  Some economics student should plot U.S. online sales increases growth to barrels of oil consumed as a thesis topic.  When a consumer says “I love __________ (fill in the blank)” you need to pay attention. The wifus loves free shipping and she loves free returns – especially so, when the return label is already in the box. 

This is how the return thing works: Outside in the garage is a second refrigerator.  On top of the fridge, spilling off in all directions, are boxes. The boxes are a few steps closer to the kitchen than the car.  To return a product, she walks to the garage, grabs a box and some Amazon bubble bags or newspaper, then returns to the kitchen where she assembles the box, labels it, grabs the packing tape out of the cupboard in the butler’s pantry – zip, zip and to the front door.  If it’s UPS or FedEx she may have to dial a telephone number or click-to-pick. Could that be any easier?  Easier than say, driving to a store, standing in line and doing the whole credit card thing?  

This “I love free shipping” behavior, even as a trial at Wal-Mart may, as The New York Times declares, deliver a “knock-out punch.”  Not to Amazon, but to a number of smaller retailers with inelastic margins who can’t play this game.  Oh, it’s here to stay. So watch out.

eCommerce makes every day Christmas day (insert your holiday here).  In store shopping, for its many positives, has more than its share of negatives; especially around the holidays. Wal-Mart is paying attention. What a marketing juggernaut. Peace!

BBH’s Vaseline Intensive Rescue Work.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Unilever has launched a Vaseline Intensive Rescue campaign via Bartle Bogle Hegarty, NY.  It was conceived in a conference room, formed and nurtured through social media, and produced by a CPG company and ad agency. Excuse the pun, but BBH never uses a rough hand in its work so I’m surprised by what I’ve seen and read so far.

According to a write-up in today’s NYT, BBH employed a web monitoring company to scour blogs and social networks for women with dry hands.  Smartly, they were looking for Posters rather than Pasters and found three who like to blog about mommy stuff and seem web-o-genic. But then they trotted out camera crews, writers, producers etc., in an effort to create “authentic” spokesperson stories. I smell 15 minutes (of fame).

Social media campaigns works best when the spokesperson is not managed.  When they are real.  Melting Mama, for instance, is an example of a Poster who is real.  Kandee Johnson, make-up artist, is real.  These two have personal motivations that makes them compelling. Not a motivation, seeded, tilled and fertilized by a marketing engine.  BBH is better than this. It feels B team and formulaic. This is no “Prescribe the Nation” campaign – BBH’s brilliant work for Vaseline Clinical Therapy in 2008-9.  That was an idea with ballast. Peace!

Branding and Selling.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

The word “branding” means many things to many people.  To an art director it means design.  To a writer it means tag- or campaign-line. A media person sees it as threshold weights of eyes and ears. A web designer sees branding in terms of wireframes.  Digital agencies view it as the part of their portfolio that doesn’t need to be judged on click throughs.

Selling, on the other hand, is a verb and it has only one meaning.  Moving merch.  Or services.

No matter who is using or misusing the word branding, it’s important they know it means selling. Not exposure. Sadly, many feel getting the name out there is enough. When a communication is all claim and no proof it’s nothing more than “we’re here” advertising.  “We’re here” advertising simply acknowledges the category and where to buy. “If you have lung cancer, our hospital provides hope.”

Branding is about organizing proof beneath a claim.  That’s why creative briefs have a line called “reason to believe.”  If there is no reason to believe – following an organized, road-mapped, discrete plan – there is no branding. There are simply tactics.  Tactic may be the fun in the business but the revenue and earnings are in brand management. Peace!

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