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Epigrams.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I make paper for a living.  People pay big paper (money) for my paper, brand strategies.  Brand strategy is what my mentor Peter Kim would call a “selling idea,” an idea that predisposes consumers to a product or service, e.g., “the world’s information in one click” (Google), “refreshment” (Coca-Cola), “for doers not browsers” (ZDNet). 

To get to the idea one has to process a lot of information, typically presented on paper in the form of a brief. Briefs are my output to clients. But they are buying an idea. That’s the honeypot.    

I attribute my ability to craft good briefs to the proper creation and use of epigrams.

ˈepəˌɡram/

noun

plural noun: epigrams

  1. a pithy saying or remark expressing an idea in a clever and amusing way.
synonyms: witticism, quip, jest, pun, bon mot; More

saying, maxim, adage, aphorism, apophthegm;

informalone-liner, wisecrack, (old) chestnut

“a collection of humorous epigrams from old gravestones”

o   a short poem, especially a satirical one, having a witty or ingenious ending.

My briefs are filled with them. Hidden in a narrative, serial story. Clients find meaning and inspiration in my epigrams. They are word plays about them, about their products. They are memorable. It’s how I sell the idea. It’s how I come up with the idea.

The secret sauce. Epigrams.

Peace. 

 

 

Proof in Advertising.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Google Cloud is running a pretty cool advertising campaign these days.  Ironically, they’ve always done good advertising; a good deal of it coming from BBH. And BBH cohorts. What I like about this campaign is that they are serving up proof along with claim.  Without proof in branding and advertising there is nothing.

In their New York Times ad today, Google Cloud is furthering the notion that data analytics are the key success.  Be it business, sports, other.  Everyone has heard the term “artificial intelligence” and everyone knows about statistics and data analytics, but most people’s eyes glaze over when those thjiongs are discussed.

Google’s ad used proof to gain our interest. The ad is about the teams participating in tonight’s national championship basketball game. Rather than blather on about the cloud plumbing and intelligence, it states that Villanova connects on three point field goals from 2.178 inches farther away from the basket than does Michigan. Also, ‘nova has more successful 3-point shooters than most teams. The implication for Michigan (if they don’t read the ad) is that they are less likely to defend said 3s. Proof over claim. Proof of data. Proof of cloud. Nice advertising tradecraft.

Peace.

 

 

Fake Proof.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Fake news has crept into our lives and looks to have altered the landscape of American a politics. This, thanks to some horrid manipulation by politically minded hackers.  Hackers who used a Facebook poll to mine data then serve up false stories that fanned the fires of conservatism. If you were on the fence about whether or not to vote for the first female president ever and read the Pizzagate story, it may have pushed you off that fence.  Even when the story was proven false.

In the advertising business, you couldn’t make a claim on a TV ad without proof. Proof submitted to the network “Standards and Practices” department.  But the web has no such department. You can fake your news all the way into the living room of your most likely-to-be-effected target.

I’d love to be a brand planner who could just make up proof as I went along.  You see proof, 0be it true or false, is what convinces people. It’s how you get people to believe a claim.  Those who have decided to undermine elections understand the role of proof. Beware.

Peace.

 

Technalysis Paralysis

By
Steve Poppe
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0

So I was reading today how natural gas has passed coal and nuclear as America’s number one power source and how planners are looking beyond gas to solar and wind — two remarkably perfect energy sources. As planners are drawing up grids and plant plans for natural gas, some are actually getting gas wondering if they’re investing in yesterday’s technology. (They are.)  Perhaps, they are even wondering if in 12-years, these new forms of electricity generation will be obsolete. (Wondering when electricity will be obsolete.)

This makes me wonder if our country and the ROW (rest of world) will eventually move from national infrastructure choices to local infrastructure choices.  The angst over investing is the wrong technology not only keep moms and dads from buying the wrong television or car, but it has to extend to urban planners.

Rather than make a national commitment to an energy source, one might think it would be easier to make a smaller more localized commitments. Technology is evolving so quickly, it may paralyze nation-states to make decisions.  

Will local government’s gain more strength? Me thinks so.

Peace.

 

Just Be Cause.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

For some reason, I was never a Citibank guy.  I love Citi Field in Queens, home of the NY Mets and once applied for a job at Publicis to work on Citibank.  That said, I do have a rewards credit card in my wallet, but that’s more a function of American Airlines than Citi.  Banks are not a category I get all warm and fuzzy about, with the possible exception of  JPMorgan Chase, a brand I did a dive on a couple of years ago.

Today I was reading Andrew Ross Sorkin, a New York Times financial columnist, and as a result have newfound affinity for Citibank. It seems the boys and women at Citi Bank have decided to stop doing business with manufacturers and sellers of guns. Not an easy task. Certainly they will pizzle off the NRA. They will, as the story explained, suffer a number of credit cards being cut up and other lost relationships. Moreover, they will need to figure out how to shut down gun show work-arounds.     

But what they have done is put the masses ahead of their bottom line. This is a level of cause related marketing I have not seen in a long time. I don’t know the Citibank brand strategy. I don’t know the CEO. I don’t begin to understand basis points and earnings.  I do know balls. This is a ballsy cause.

Peace.

 

 

Instinct Don’t Stink.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I run a humble little brand consultancy.  Marketing consultancies and business consultancies are way more easily found if you Google them. Same if you search the topics on Amazon. But I chose to look at improved business metrics from the brand standpoint — ergo the “humble” reference. Not many in search of more revenue or margin are thinking brand.  For me, brand is the strategy — defined as “An organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.”

I find brand strategists to be divided among the most and least sophisticated people in the marketing business. Those who get it, can redistribute marketing wealth.  Those who don’t, sell you a new logo. Both types of brand strategist have frameworks for their output: qualitative and quantitative research as bedrock, a brief as the worksheet, and some type of presentation sizzle, to “get to yes.”

When I look at my business and the businesses of other brand strategists, what separates the good from the bad can be described in one word: Instinct.  What ideas, words, market positions and images are best suited to generate consumer fealty. It’s that simple. Framework easy. Instinct hard.

Peace.

 

Social Media Marketing Guardrails.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I wrote yesterday about implementing brand strategy on social media.  “Hit your proofs,” I wrote, and you are not only complying with brand strategy, you grow it.  

I’ve been paying attention to the cold-pressed juice category since speaking with the Love Grace people a number of years ago.  One Love Grace competitor is large, nicely-funded Blueprint, now owned by the Hain Celestial Group. Blueprint does social right. Here’s an example of an Instagram post.

The brand strategy for Blueprint is unknown to me, but the evidence – bread crumbs laid down leading to the strategy, are pretty obvious. Organic cold pressed juices are amazingly natural. People who buy them like natural. In Social Media Guardrails, one of the first suggestions is “Be interested in what your target is interested in.” Blueprint does not sell avocado on pumpernickel, but it’s natural (plank).  And it is what the target is interested in. In social media marketing you don’t always have to sell. You just have to be on strategy. 

Peace.

 

 

 

 

Hit Your Proofs.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Here’s the deal on social media and branding. If you have a brand strategy you need to prove it in social media. Every day. Random posts diminish your brand.  The brand strategy framework at What’s The Idea? is one claim, three proof planks. If you are posting with pictures on Instagram, you need to be hitting your proofs. If you are creating some sort of engagement post on Facebook, hit your proofs. Sharing news on Twitter? Yep, tap those proofs.  Pinning a crafty thing?  You get the idea.

Every day I look at companies and brands who are active in social media and can’t figure out what there are trying to do strategically — other than put more social flotsam into the ether. And please, please don’t think this claim and proof array approach is limiting, It’s not. It’s freeing. It’s less random.  Your goal is to put deposits in the brand value bank, not confuse your buying and prospect publics.

Find your brand strategy, then live it every day. Your custies will thank you.

Peace.

 

Benefits Bingo

By
Steve Poppe
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0


How can you tell when a B2B company doesn’t have a brand strategy?  When it plays Benefits Bingo on the home page. 

I’ve been after a prospect in the insurance space for years. I did some amazing brand strategy work with a company contact a while back and she gets how brand strategy can focus a company, internally and externally, for success.  She’s not the problem. Her management team is. When last we spoke she told me they had decided to go with another company for a brand exploratory. Someone familiar to a person in the C-suite.

I visited the website today and was greeted by a battery of words dropped out of pastel boxes: Innovation, Agility, Expertise and Engagement. Also on the home page, pictures of a women, a man, a downhill skier and hands on a tug-of-war rope. Got it?

Do you know how many B2B companies use Benefits Bingo on their home page? Thirty to thirty five percent would be my guess. Como se lazy? Como se doltish?

Can you imagine your best sales person out on a new client call checking in with the receptionist, asking to meet the buyer by saying “Tell them the innovation, agility, expertise and engagement” salesman is here.”

Peace.

Branding and Company Size.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

For most small businesses the name is the brand. I suspect, that is why small businesses remain small. For mid-size businesses, the name is also the brand, but there tends to be a need for more marketing and sales support; there is stationery, a website, boiler plate copy for press releases, a need to explain company ethos to new hires. In other words, the need for branding elements.  Whoever creates the elements is the de facto brand manager. When it falls to the CEO, it is probably on target strategically, but inelegant.  In a mid-size company, if there is a marketing person, the branding elements have a chance. 

Large companies have marketing people and marketing departments. They are awash in branding elements.  Smart large company marketing departments have brand strategies. Most do not. A brand strategy is “an organizing principle for product, experience and messaging.”  Every company can benefit from a brand strategy. From a one-woman shop to a billion-dollar healthcare system.

Beautiful things can come from disorganization – from random assemblages. But not brands. Not brands.

Peace.

 

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