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D2C.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

If you are a CEO in the mall business or major retailer, you had better quit your day job (as you know it) and start making some serious plans. Amazon is eating your lunch. And breakfast and dinner. I see a future for car dealerships. They had better ready themselves for the time when cars will not be bought on lots, but online.

We’re not that far away from virtual reality as a marketing tool and when it hitsit will accelerate direct-to-consumer purchasing. Amazon is fixing the same day deliver problem – one reason to buy in-store — and VR will allow user to try/experience products without a store visit. So buckle your seatbelts.

If you sell anything and are not thinking about direct-to-consumer, you’re napping. If you are thinking about ways to lead your category into direct-to-consumer, you will have an early windfall.

So get with it marketers. Get on the D2C bandwagon.

Peace.               

 

The Rhythm of Democracy.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

What I love about the U.S. government is its design. Checks and balances keep governance fluid. Every few years an election comes along that topples the status quo. As a brand planner I’m always the optimist, always looking for the good. The new regime in the US government was a euphoric cleansing for some and a devastating punch in the gut to others.  Let’s hope the euphoric side does smart things.  Because this is America and the gut punch side will be in power again. Once the “guts” get over their anger, sadness and disbelief, they’ll be energized like never before and set the cycle of democracy moving again.

This reminds me a bit of the ad agency business. When business is good everyone is happy. Things purr along and growth begets growth.  Then stasis and comfort set in. People become complacent and losses occur. It’s Darwinian.

Whether government or the ad agency business, we must constantly manage progress. Not take it for granted. Sharks know this. That’s not to say you have to hump 24/7, but you do have to keep moving with an eye toward the future. Otherwise you allow the rhythm or democracy to take its course. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just a thing.

Peace.

 

Paper the Walls.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Many years ago I learned a trick about advertising from Brendan Ryan, president of FCB/Leber Katz, in NYC. One day he asked the AT&T Network Systems account team to paper the walls with the current campaign. The headline for each as we “Are You Ready.” Network Systems sold the 5E switches to phone companies that powered American communications. So paper the walls we did.

Mr. Ryan walked around the plush conference room reading sub-heads, looking at visual and dashing through copy here and there. He pointed to campaign outliers and confirmed what he thought to be the idea. Neat trick. Neat way to level-set the idea.

Fast forward 25 years to an era when communications manifest across more channels than we ever perceived, some with control, many with none. If you were to paper the walls with the myriad comms we generate today, you’d have a messy, messy room. A walk around that room  would remind you why an “organizing principle for product, experience and messaging” is critical. Otherwise known as a brand strategy.

So me droogies, paper your walls with your internal and external comms and see what-ith you spew-ith into the consumer realm.

Peace.

 

Taglines and Campaign Lines…Big Diff.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

The tagline for What’s The Idea? is “Campaign’s come and go…a powerful brand idea is indelible.”  Perhaps a little lengthy and the real ballast lies after the ellipses, but it works. And that brings me to taglines; taglines and strategy.

Here’s an admonition to all brand managers and CEOs — Don’t use a campaign line as your tagline. They are communications or ad-focused, not strategic. One that immediately comes to mind, one that hits close to my planning heart, is the tagline for Northwell Health. Their tagline is “Look North.” Other than suggesting one look at Northwell, it doesn’t really have a strategic message. Wasted space, if you ask me.

I wrote a tagline (and brand strategy) for Beacon Health Partners, an accountable care organization that was strategic “Healthier Practices.”  That’s was the claim. It applies to improved physician practices, both economic and in the healthcare delivered. It applies to patient practices, putting more responsibility on people for their own health. And it appeals/applies to payers, the insurance companies who carry much of the reimbursement water.

Strategic taglines come from brand strategy companies. Tactical, flimsy taglines come from ad agency creative departments. Big diff.

Peace.

 

 

A Slippery Slope To Your Website.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Yesterday I wrote about using memes to drive website traffic and brand interest. Today I’ll build on that with a little search tip.

When I first started What’s The Idea? and blogging about branding, I realized it would be smart to tag my blogs with key content points but also with “Whats the idea” and “whatstheidea,” the actual URL  In a meeting with Faris Yakob, a marketing pal, I mentioned my approach, explaining this activity allowed me to tell people to  Google “whatstheidea+ a brand or marketing topic” and it will likely lead them right to my website.  Faris said I was “indexing” content to my website using Google’s search engine.  Leave it to Faris to find the right words. Love Faris.

By always posting with my brand name — it helps that I have over 2.100 blog posts — it has created breadcrumbs to my site all across the web…wherever Google goes.

Every brand must use this slippery slope to their site. And every brand must post.

Peace.

 

A Social Media Tip

By
Steve Poppe
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0

No one has done more for the medium that is Twitter than “The Donald.”  Listening to a snippet of the president elect yesterday, it made me feel as do many of his sound bites. I get the sense someone feeds him a disruptive and memorable sound bite (or he comes up with it himself) which he repeats 3 times. Sans evidence or support. Then he moves on. These sound bite are what hit the news. The approach is perfect for this Fast Twitch Media world.

In social media, sound bites can become memes. Memes get passed around as fast as jokes and news. And they can certainly last longer.  I built a consulting business around brand and marketing memes.

Have you ever gone to concert and sung along with the artist, but only able to sing a few of the hook lines? On the web, the memorable lines are the memes, everything else is flah-flah-flah content.

So, the social media tip is: “Know how to build memes.”  Memes that point back to you or your company.  Memes that others will replicate and share. Google reads the web every minute. And you can’t buy off Google.  You can sometimes trick it, but it can’t be bought. Memes create traffic.

If you are good at creating memes, endemic to your brand, if you use them and own them, you will win in social media. Just ask “The.”

Peace                                                                                            

PS. For more social media tips, Google “Social Media Guard Rails” (a meme).  

 

 

Sticky Brands

By
Steve Poppe
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0

In a piece of 2014 research conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit on the subject of customer experience, the top box response to the question below was about message uniformity.

I know to the hammer everything looks like a nail and to the brand planner everything marketing thing looks like brand strategy, but this one made my day. Brand strategy, defined here at  What’s The Idea? as “An organizing principle for product, experience and messaging,” is the key to message uniformity. Sure “voice,” “tone” and “personality” are important (ish) but the substance of the message is how one builds brands.

Find your claim. Identify your three proof planks, make sure they are key care-abouts and brand good-ats, and you have a strategy.

Stick to it and it will stick to your customers. And prospects.  

Happy holidays to all. Peace.

 

The Ironic Hyundai Genesis.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Here’s the thing. Hyundai did an amazing job in America with its long game of winning minds and market share. The low price point, 10-year warranty is the stuff of which Harvard Business School cases are made. I say long term, because that’s how you build a car brand – over time.  It’s a considered purchase, an expensive purchase. Hyundai did it the right way and consumer perceptions of quality and value were growing more and more positive.

Then came Genesis. The car designs were amazing. The ads, off-the-charts well-conceived. But the brand strategy was lacking. America wasn’t ready for a luxury brand from Hyundai. Just wasn’t. (And don’t go all focus group defensive on me.)     

When Peter Arnell did a branding assignment to make Samsung more a mainstream electronics brand 30+ years ago, it felt wrong. But it worked. The timing was right. The proofs were baked. Today Samsung rocks.

Genesis might have worked had it not been a Hyundai brand. Or if introduced 10 years down the road. But Alas, Poor Yorik, it was not.

Peace.

 

 

Twitter Brand Strategy.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Following is Jack Dorsey’s off-the-cuff articulation of Twitter’s brand strategy. “To be the fastest and best service to show what’s happening in the world.”  It was stated in a NYT article discussing the executive departure of Adam Messinger, Twitter’s chief technology officer. I very much like it. It’s focused. It’s organically tied to Twitter’s best feature. It works from a macro point of view and micro point of view.

Twitter is like New Coke.  If it were to go away or change, there would be a revolt.

I’m sorry to hear huge investors want more stock growth. I’m sorry senior officers want to leave. I’m sorry the leadership isn’t what it might be. But Twitter is bigger than all those things. Twitter is the world’s instant mouthpiece. In 750 years when the planet’s denizens are all speaking one language and share the same color skin Twitter will still be around. And Mr. Dorsey’s brand strategy will still hold.

Peace.

 

 

Planned Act Of Kindness.

By
Steve Poppe
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1

Just finished reading a story in The New York Times about the Robin Hood restaurant chain in Spain run by Father Angel Garcia Rodriquez, who operates a pay-for establishment during breakfast and dinner only to serve the homeless for dinner. The dinner crowd is served by waiters and waitresses, on real plates, using nice cutlery, not plastic. For free. In addition to the charity, his wish is that the experience will engender hope in his nightly diners. This planned act of kindness is popular and successful and may be on its way to Miami, Florida.

Acts of kindness and selflessness create powerful feelings for all involved. Selling is not a human trait. Charity is. Every brand should ask itself “What is the nicest thing we have done for customers this year?” If the answer is a one-day-sale or a pre-printed holiday card the brand needs to reexamine its approach.

Planned acts of kindness should be requisite for all brands. The financial officers may not always see the value, but they’re not building brands. They are building bank accounts.

Peace.

 

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