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Words Are Important.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I was listening to a radio commercial this morning in which Joe Torre and the president of J.H. Cohen are prattling on about professionalism and category experience in the consulting and accounting business.  And it’s bad, so I’m really only listening for how poor the performances are — not really hearing the words.  And then president or announcer recites a list of fluff ending with “unmatched integrity.”  WTF!  Is anyone reading this shizz?

Advertising Claims

There was a time when you couldn’t just poop out claims on the radio. Or in print.  I suspect they are a little more vigilant in the TV standards and practices depts., but today you can say just about anything on the radio. Maybe that’s why advertising is so ineffective.  Anyone can say anything.  “Unmatched integrity?”

If Coors Light can say it’s the “world’s most refreshing beer,” what does that make all the competitors?  Is someone sleeping at the switch?  Words are important; anyone in marketing will tell you that.  As we make words less important, is it any wonder that we need the algorithm to help us find our arses.  Peace.

We’re Here!

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 

This is a leader board from AOL that appeared on Adweek.com.  It’s a perfect example of “We’re Here” advertising, doing little more than telling users they exist.  The creative for this baby could not have taken more than 10 minutes.  And that with 3 re-dos.  Come on AOL, you can do better than this!  Peace!

Action vs. Access

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 Yesterday’s post was about brand managers ceding control of brand marketing. Today, I’d like to suggest that brand managers need to take back control of their websites. A website done well is a website that creates customer action. And when I say action I don’t mean things like time on site, or likes or pages viewed – I’m talking about moving the ball ahead in the sales cycle. 

Many commercial websites provide lots of product detail, layers of information and customer testimonials. Colorful pictures and product videos are also common. In many of these cases, the web is simply providing access to digital information – not unlike a brochure.  Rather, the web should be promoting action. The sales cycle starts with Awareness, moves toward Interest, then Preference, Purchase and continues on to Loyalty.  Most web metrics today measure Interest (visits). If an e-comm site, they measure Purchase. The Loyalty metric is gauged by repeated visits. 

No wonder many companies think they don’t need websites and focus their selling efforts on Facebook.  There’s plenty of action on Facebook.    

Websites are not brochures. They are not video repositories. Commercial websites should be living, breathing selling tools. Reflections of the product value in an ever changing, colorful, bi-directional medium. A smart marketer once said “Good advertising gets you to feel something then do something.”  The same applies to a good website. Peace!

Ceding Control of Brand Strategy.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Advertising used to make us get off our asses and go buy something. Or, call someone to talk about buying something. That was its job.  Retail advertisers understood this better than most, watching the cash register ring when ads activated customers.   

In the NY market AT&T and Verizon used to be able to tell how many new cellular customers they were going to add based upon how far forward their ads were in The New York Times. 

The Web has changed all that.  Social media pundits and digital strategists tell us we turn to one another to learn which products to buy. Consumers believe consumers, they say, not ads.  The web facilitates this consumer-leading-consumer behavior.  Through community and ratings machines, consumers can certainly gather information to help them with purchase decisions. No argument from me. But these online tools that gather and parse consumer attitudes, with no organizing principle behind them, are eroding brand strategy.  And brand managers are allowing it. 

Good advertising and market professionals find “reasons to buy” that are way more powerful than those offered by John and Mary Q public. Professionals are trained to prioritize and organize reasons to buy.  If we let consumers decide, and then employ the algorithm to drive our decisions, there is no art or science. We cede control of the brand strategy. It may even alter product design, so everything moves toward the middle.

Marketers who let consumer do their job for them are lazy. Great brand strategy comes from consumer insight, no doubt. But a consumer collective as brand manager? Nuh uh.  Peace.

Where is the Original Art?

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 I was just flipping through CIO Magazine looking at the ads and here’s what I found.   There were 17 full page ads: 8 were all type, 4 used simple product shots and the rest clip or stock art.  What would Don Draper say?  And I’m talking about ads from companies like HP, Dell, CA, Symantec and Palm — companies that should know better.

Let’s not even get into whether the ads have an idea, support the brand strategy or are well written.   B2B print advertising today is a joke.  If it wasn’t for clip art, there would be no art.  The people tossing these ads together (tossers) are not professional ad crafters, they’re drag-and-droppers.  This is “We’re here!” advertising at best.

Corporations that allow this type of work are lazy.  I know the economy is poor and companies are looking for ways to cut corners, but let’s put a little art back into selling.  No wonder print is dying.  Sad.  Peace!

A Site 4 Next Generation Business Leaders.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

High level departures.  Those of us in the business world are fascinated by them.  Who is being forced out at the Tribune Company?  Which chief software architect is leaving Microsoft?  What CEO is taking fire at one of the world’s largest web portal?  Companies with massive high level departures are seen as damaged companies. And markets move based on this type of intell.

But what is the opposite of high level departures? Mid-level hires? The hiring of really smart people on their way up? Employees with a bullet, on top of their games, destined to change markets? Yup.  These mid-level executives, very much appreciated by their companies, don’t get celebrated publically. Oh, they want the notoriety but they keep their heads down.  Not blow-hard bloggers, they work their asses off, pay their dues, get smart on everyone else and wait for the payday.  By the time they get noticed in the press, they’ve already made their moves.  The human resources people and head hunters who find these people early on are the real heroes.

We need a website that caters to this business segment.  It’s a perfect online community: active, aggressive, engaged. But anonymity is a key. Perhaps this community is sponsored by a recruitment company and all posts are anonymous.  Only the site owner can identify the participants. OnTheirWayUp.com?  It’s experiential not narrative…and the perfect place for mid-level over-achievers to get noticed early.  “I yike it,” as my kids used to say. Peace!

Twitter’s Billion Users.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

My first tweet (www.myfirstweet.com), a fun application conceived by Noah Brier, contained a typo. That’s just about right. 

Though not a 10 tweets a day kind of guy, I do love the app. Readers know I have great expectations for Twitter in the business world.  Twitter doesn’t have the users of Facebook and many still think it a silly web exuberance, but it really has only just scratched the surface of its potential.  My daughter who’s a Millennial just signed up and she didn’t get Twitter for the longest time.

Yesterday I was in the locker room of a professional sports team.  Can’t say the name.  Outside the looker room in the hall next to the showers is where all pertinent team information is posted.  An 8 x10 memo on insurance, a notice that the barber will be on prem Friday, small laminated color piss charts encouraging proper hydration. Don’t forget to shower before you get in the whirlpool.  Next to all these little officious documents is a huge horizontal poster “Twitter Dos and Don’ts.” 

Dos: Okay to say “great game” and “thank the fans.” Don’ts: no RT (retweeting) other peoples’ unsubstantiated stuff, talk about injuries or the game plan.   The list is quite long and modular so it can be expanded. It starts at eye level and is currently down to the waist. Athletes love Twitter.

I once wrote a brief stating that a musician is never more in touch with his/her art than when staring into the eyes of the audience.  Twitter is not exactly the same thing but its close.  When marketers learn how to use Twitter to really listen it will become, as Dick Costello predicts, a billion-user application. Peace!

Save a Cup.

By
Steve Poppe
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On average, Americans use 159 gallons of water a day – more than 15 times that of the average person in the developing world.  Today is Blog Action Day and the topic is water.  Our overuse of water in America is. embarrassing.  My mother-in-law, who lives in North Carolina, is always talking of droughts.  Our lawn this year was a brown mess by summer’s end, because we chose to limit our watering.  (Our neighbors lawns looked fine.) That said, our upstairs toilet is huge, wasting more water per flush than it needs. Many are aware of their water-wasting and are beginning to do something about it.  In fact, we are legislating change but it’s really not enough.

Just as I stopped taking brown paper bags and handfuls of napkins from delis years ago, I need to think more about flushing and ablutions and showering.  No brainer. What the future holds in store for us are two kinds of water in America: potable water and non-potable.   Non-potable water will be used to wash clothes, cars, flush toilets and water lawns.  It will probably be recycled water or slightly desalinated from the coast. The good stuff will be for drinking, cooking and brushing teeth. (And hopefully in the preparation of beer.)

We have lots to do, so let’s start now.  If you’ve ever been really, really thirsty you know how special water is.  Please celebrate it and treat it as precious.  Save a cup today. Peace!

Bing Likes Likes.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Charlene Li has a great post today about Bing and its product alliance with Facebook — one she feels will help Microsoft cut into Google’s search share.  She is quite right. Bing, number 3 in search, announced it will integrate Facebook’s social graph information (“Likes’) into search results, as an option.  If you use Bing to search a particular topic you will have the ability to check results based upon how your Facebook friends affect those results as determined by their “Likes.”   

This is smart logic on Microsoft’s part…jumping on the bandwagon of the world’s most populous social network.  It’s smart for Facebook, backing up the truck to the Microsoft bank. And it’s good across-the-board logic, allowing search to be viewed based upon the likes of friends, followers and communities.  

When Facebook changed “Fan” to “Like” it struck me as a bit odd, though. Call me paranoid, but I now smell the backroom deal. The timing was about right.

Personally I am not a big “Liker.”  I don’t really click on “Liked” things, yet many do and it has become a popular pastime and app.  As more marketers encourage Facebook users to Like things – and shill for their brands – the behavior will become tired, forced and die down.  As permissions and privacy interests grow Likes will also die down.  Facebook will still be Facebook, finding new ways to grow and monetize, and Bing will have won some serious market share points with this new tactic. That said, Bing will still be innovating OPS (other people’s stuff). Peace!

Unbridled Web Growth.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Have you ever picked up a magazine containing 200 pages and thought it too bulbous to read?  

Steve Rubel in a post today suggests “Space on the Internet is infinite. Time and attention, meanwhile, remain finite. Therefore, Digital Relativity will become a major challenge.” In his book “Cognitive Surplus” Clay Shirky suggests “as more of us become content creators rather than consumers, it’s ushering in a new age of enlightenment.”

I agree with both sentiments, but also agree with Thomas Malthus in whose essay “Principles of Population” it is stated that overpopulation will stifle healthy planetary growth.  Says Malthus “The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.” 

As the web grows as a source of all content with everyone and her brother becoming a content creator, will it not end up over-filled with the unimportant?  Will the songs of poor singers make it harder to find the Joss Stones? Will cartoon-like films bury the Coen Brothers?  The answer is yes and no.  Thanks to search engines, algorithms and relevance much cream will still rise to the top. But with too much content, it might be harder to find the gems. And, as is the case with the overstuffed magazine, it is likely that some may opt to not pick it up. There is an organizational opportunity here me thinks. Peace!

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