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Unorganized Marketing.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

What is the pent-up demand for brand strategy services? What keeps company officers up at night that a brand strategy can fix? The answer: Unorganized marketing.

The Oxford Dictionary defines organize as “give an orderly structure to, systematize.” Therefore, unorganized means the opposite — not organized or not orderly. Disorganized has a stronger connotation. It means to “destroy the system or order; throw into confusion.” It indicates a chaotic mode.

The fact is, most companies in need of brand help suffer from unorganized marketing, not disorganized. That’s because they never had an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging. They may have a logo, tagline, marketing plan, even a good ad campaign, but not a constant framework that governs everything.

So what is the result of having unorganized marketing? Loss of time developing programs. Loss of money in poorly performing media and tactics. Lack of focus around customer care-abouts and brand good-ats. And poor accountability because marketing doesn’t know what to measure other than sales. With unorganized marketing big data becomes little data.

My job as a brand consultant is to dig deeply into business fundamentals, determine care-abouts and good-ats and create a framework of values for presenting a brand that creates sales and loyalty.

This is upstream planning — and too many marketers are afraid to paddle up. Ergo they lose sleep and sales.

Peace.

 

Brand Strategy and Altruism.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I read on Bright Planning that “People want to connect with brands that are giving back or doing something for the greater good rather than just their bottom line. Figure out how your business fits into that and share the story through your brand identity.”

Most marketing people, especially branders, would agree with this sentiment. I mean, what’s wrong with doing good?

Not to be contrary but this isn’t for everyone. Not doing good – that’s never a bad idea – but to make it part of your brand identity. Unless you are a nonprofit.

At What’s The Idea?, brand strategy framework is one claim and three proof planks. The claim is a value statement built upon care-abouts and good-ats and the planks are the proofs or evidence of the claim…organized into discrete groupings. These proof planks are best when endemic product/service values. A more comfortable children’s underwear. A more fastidious building cleaning service. A healthcare system that integrates better with the community.

Being a good corporate entity is the price of entry. It’s not your day job. It’s not a brand plank. Branding is about currying favor with consumers, meeting their needs, in indestructible productized ways. Do good, be a good corporate citizen. Use your brand wealth to share the good, but don’t make it a bolt on to your identity. Not everyone can be Patagonia.

Peace.

 

The Difference Between Brand Identity and Brand Strategy.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Is there a different between brand identity and brand strategy? Hell yeah. Most everyone has a brand identity. Very few have a codified brand strategy. I say codified because most marketers believe they have a brand strategy but can’t articulate it.

Brand identity comprises the people, places and things presented to consumers to generate purchase and loyalty. Think of it (hopefully) as organized selling. Brand identity components include: logo, packaging, signage, color palette, retail experience, sales people, ad copy and imagery. The cleanest way to see if you have a distinct brand identity is to ask consumers to play it back. Brand identity is the state of your brand in consumers’ minds. All controlled by the various outputs (or buildables), as I like to call them.

Brand strategy, on the other hand, is how you get there. How you get to the perception of what a brand is and what a brand does (Is-Does). Brand strategy must precede brand identity.

The more ingredients to throw into the pot, the less flavor you have. That’s what happens when you create brand identity before brand strategy. Brand strategy is an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging. That how you build a brand from the ground up.

Peace.

 

Story or Proof?

By
Steve Poppe
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0

“We have got to tell our story, said Mark Reuss, president of G.M., “The story hasn’t gotten out,” he added when talking about G.M.’s electronic vehicle business. Since December Tesla stock has doubled into the $700s. G.M. is down 25% since it’s 52-week high in July.

Back in the 60s during the NY World’s Fair, the G.M. pavilion showed the future of the automobile. It was an experiential phenomenon the likes of which the world had never seen. And today Mr. Reuss rues the fact that G.M.’s problem is in storytelling; in public relations and Super Bowl ads.

Where most marketers go wrong and they do so at the behest of their branding counsel is in storytelling. They rely too much on this pop-marketing practice. Ty Montague, of Co-Collective understands this and has morphed storytelling into story-doing. The fact is it’s not about telling a story to consumers, it’s about what consumer play back to you. It’s about what consumers think. Consumers are swimming in an ocean of storytelling, while they should be standing on the terra firma of reality. On experience.

Elon Musk built an electric car. He didn’t proselytize about it. Ish.

Proof is how one builds a brand. And proof is how one builds a brand strategy. Not the other way around.

G.M. has been dormant for so long it has become a marketing company of storytellers. Mary Barra, may just have woken up and decided it’s time to “do.” It’s time to launch a fleet of electronic vehicles.

Let’s hope so. Peace.

 

 

Imposter Syndrome.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

There’s a phenomenon in brand planning called Imposter Syndrome. If I understand it correctly, it’s when planners feel that their work is undervalued and, perhaps, they are imposters in the process of creative content development. Leave it to planners to be so sensitive that they question their own work. Question everything, after all, is our mantra.

I know how this has become a thing. It’s mainly because we give our work product to creative departments who are often beholden to nothing other than their own creative whims. Of course they want input. Of course they want validation from approvers. But foremost, they want to please themselves. Through creativity. The result? The work doesn’t always reflect the strategy. If the work sucks, we tell them it’s off. If it’s good we smile and congratulate.

Here’s the thing: a brief for a project has numerous touchstones for creative. It’s not always the main idea that drives the creative content. It could be a target insight, a needs assessment, an endemic cultural insight. If it contributes to good work, we’ve done out jobs. If it sparks an idea for good work, we’ve done our jobs.

We can’t be too sensitive. If our briefs and insights suck, we get fired. If we continue in our job, then our objective is to learn and get better at providing stimulus every day. “Be in it to win it, like Yzerman.”

Imposter Syndrome be gone. Otherwise it’s therapy time.

Peace.

 

Master Brand Strategy and Me.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I am a self-taught brand planner. The fuel for my business was scores of exploratory interviews with high-level and executive planners from big city agencies. I honed my craft and framework with research, reading books, blogs, newsletters, and by watching interviews and webinars. I have also worked with business consultants.

My two key discovery tools are 24 Questions, business and financial Qs used to understand how money is made and lost, and a battery of Fact Finding questions used with company chiefs, salespeople and customers.

I do master brand planning. That is, I create the organizing principle for product, experience and messaging that governs all marketing work. Every tactic used to build sales and loyalty, no matter the channel, should adhere to the master brand strategy. But it’s a job that eats itself. Once the master brand strategy is done, it needn’t be done again. (Unless, the business model changes.) Of the thousand of brand planner around the world, only a few handfuls actually work on the master brand strategy. Most planners are focused on tactical brand insights. Downstream of the master plan. Both jobs are awesome. But there’s only one master. Hee hee.

Peace.

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Low Versus High Level Branding.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Trail of Bits is a client along with Teq, Inc. that has made the greatest impact on my brand strategy business. I learn from everyone I consult with – that’s how the business works – but these two companies have had a powerful effect. What I learned from Trail of Bits, a software security company, is that there are two levels of security. Low level and high level. It’s a wonderful analog for branding.

In software there is the device and the software. The device is what one uses to do stuff and the software provides the rules and process driving the effort. You can train a person to use a computer/device. It’s a completely different story to teach them how the machine works. Using it is high level, understanding how it works, low level.

In branding, the business is flooded with people who know how to use devices, e.g., advertising, web development, PR, logo design, etc. They are all captains of their individual tactics. But at the lower level, where branding actually works to inform all tactics, there are few experts. Brand strategy is low level. It creates the framework for brand success. It creates the composition of sales and loyalty success. It creates the “organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.” Most importantly it integrates all the various pieces, across all devices.

By many business definitions “low level” means simplistic and “high level” means strategic. Not in software security. And not in branding. We flip the model.

Peace.

 

Proof in Politics.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Illegal immigration has been a powerful President Trump issue from the earliest days. Some say his signature issue. Illegal immigrants, says he, contribute to many of our country’s ills; from MS 13, to rapists coming across the border, we’ve heard it all. His strategists knew it would be a hot topic for the voting public and were right.

But illegal immigration has been a political things for a long, long time. Addressing it has been a political ping pong ball. Yet only one candidate by my reckoning has ever talking about creating a wall along the Mexican US border. Dare I say a “big, beautiful wall,” as the sound bite goes.

If president Trump is anything, he’s a sales person. Everyone can talk about more processing camps, increasing the number of judges, reducing back logs and the like, but who talks about a building a wall? Trump understands the notion of “proof” in branding

What’s The Idea? readers know my brand strategy framework is built upon “claim and proof.” Fix immigration is the claim and the wall is the proof. Trump understand big sweeping proof gestures and it works in politics. It also works in brand building. Look at your business, find your claim then develop your proof.

Peace.

PS. The president is dead wrong on all things realeted to immigration his policy. But branding?

 

When Branding Is Not Suspect Science

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Ever the metaphor hunter when posting about brand planning, today I rip language straight out of the political scene. 

With all the talk about fake news and the questioning of climate science, I thought I’d borrow suspect science for my post. Suspect science is actually an oxymoron. If it’s scientific it is provable. It should be formulaic.

Branding in my book is mostly suspect science. That is it’s not predictable in its results. Advertising is much the same but at least with advertising you can look to sales and try to work backwards. Still, most would agree it is not very scientific. Branding is, I’m afraid, even less so.

That’s why I rely heavily on the claim and proof array framework. It sets out a means by which data collectors can ponder ROS (return on strategy). When you get the proof array right, three support values for your brand claim, it’s possible to measure awareness and attitude increases and tie them directly to business success measures. It’s not a count-the-clicks measure, it’s a long term measure. And the beauty of it is the framework was developed to measure more than dollars and sales. It was developed to cover many other business building values, like employee retention, customer loyalty and most anything.

It’s science…not suspect science.

Peace.

 

How To Get To Whoa.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I’ve always loved working in categories that blow up the status quo. Let’s call them emerging categories for lack of a better term. Over the last 30 years, emerging has been tech. Prior to tech, it was chemicals. Next I’m hopeful the emerging category will be renewable energy and global climate.

Being a brand planner and creator of marketing strategies is fun when you are not re-cutting the pie over and over again. Bake new pie is what emerging category development is all about. That’s breakthrough shit.

I have a client in an emerging area within tech and when they meet others in the business and share where they work the response is always “Whoa.” When other makers and buyers say whoa about your company you know you are doing something right. So how do you get to whoa?

The cognoscenti might say, build a better mousetrap quietly and launch it with a splash. Secret your R&D, protect your IP, patent your jam. That’s not how it works today. Whoa comes from creating a company culture more open and democratic. One in which the best ideas are shared and communal learning happens. The best minds coming out of school wanting to learn. They paid hundreds of thousands to learn. And now, in real life when they can learn from a smart cohort for free?? Or be inspired by a cohort for free?? Whoa.

Education and sharing are how you create the whoa factor. Drop knowledge for free. It lifts all boats. And when you do it in an emerging category, ala, plant-based meats, or contra virus meds, you are doing the right thing. It’s a fastest way to Whoa.

Peace.

 

 

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