Brand Planning

Art, YouTube Style, and a Friggin’ Lightsaber

September 27, 2010 By jfisher Leave a Comment

From Jon Hussey, SVP, Director of Brand Planning, Palio

Let me start by saying I am a brand planner. This means that I am often amazed by things that other people find commonplace. Perhaps not truly a creative trait, but one that allows me to appreciate creative talent. I also grew up in the 70’s, which means that while I understand computers they are not quite part of me — I just missed being part of that generation. Working at an ad agency gives me the opportunity to work with people who are far more creative than I am, and with people who are far more technically savvy than I am. I get to watch, and sometimes to guide, but can’t quite participate. I am my generation’s equivalent of the music lover who can’t play an instrument or hold a beat.

Technology has become both the medium in which modern creativity is expressed as well as the way that it is distributed and consumed. Some of this creativity is really quite impressive. And apparently, for once, the Guggenheim Museum agrees with me. They have partnered with YouTube to create YouTube Play, a collaboration to unearth and showcase the very best creative video from around the world. Anyone can submit one for consideration, and the winners will be awarded at the Guggenheim museums around the world on October 21, 2010.

A shortlist of the finalists is available for viewing at http://www.youtube.com/play. They are awesome. Take a look if you have a few minutes to kill.

And while you are on Youtube, sign up to win a friggin’ lightsaber.

Palio is a full-spectrum global pharmaceutical and consumer advertising, marketing, and communications agency that excels in brand creation and specializes in brand strategy, product launches, global marketing, and digital and integrated media.

Filed Under: Brand Planning, Creative, Technology Tagged With: Brand Planning, Guggenheim Museum, YouTube, YouTube Play

Social Media: Too Cheap to Meter?

July 19, 2010 By jfisher Leave a Comment

From Geoffrey Sheldon, VP, Brand Planning Director, Palio

Whenever I hear discussions about one of the biggest urban myths associated with social media – that it’s “free” – I automatically think of Lewis Strauss’ infamous “too cheap to meter” quote about nuclear energy.

In fact, believe it or not, you can actually draw many parallels between these two misnomers.

The Nuclear Chain

The act of producing nuclear energy sounds fairly simple: use the heat produced from a nuclear reaction to convert water to steam that drives a turbine, and Bob’s your uncle – energy that’s too cheap to meter.

In reality however, the process is a little more complex, and getting to that energy production requires an intensive process involving exploration, mining, and enrichment before uranium ore is ready to be placed into a reactor. And it doesn’t stop there; once the fuel is spent, it’s either recycled (reprocessed) or converted into material for nuclear weapons (both extremely complex processes).

In addition, at each stage along this nuclear chain, the radioactive waste that is produced must be carefully handled and stored, and if there is an accident (a Chernobyl style meltdown, for example) or if the radioactive material falls into the wrong hands, the results can be catastrophic. Therefore the whole process requires careful handling and intense security, and suddenly that cheap energy is not looking so rosy, or cheap.

The Social Media Chain

Similarly, the use of social media to promote your brand also sounds fairly simple: Utilize the free channels to set up a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a YouTube account, develop a blog, and you’re on your way.

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple; in fact it’s a whole lot more complex and requires careful planning and oversight. Analogous to producing nuclear energy, the process for developing, executing, and maintaining a successful social media presence is very intensive and requires the similar steps of exploration, mining, enrichment, and production

By exploration, I mean strategic planning – Developing clear marketing and communication objectives for your social media efforts
By mining, I mean insight mining – Gaining a deep understanding of how your target audience uses these channels, and uncovering the unique opportunities on how you can connect with them there
By enrichment, I mean content – Clearly defining what type of content will be developed and distributed
And by production, I mean propagation – Defining who, and on what time frame, is responsible for generating, and maintaining content

Then there is the monitoring component of social media. In this space, things can easily go wrong and you can quickly lose control of your brand and messaging (akin to a reactor meltdown or having radioactive material fall into the wrong hands) so it’s essential that you are constantly monitoring the space to make sure that you are able to react to anything negative. Pre-planning for these types of worst-case scenarios can help you respond quickly and redirect ill-will to avert disaster (reprocessing, to draw another nuclear analogy).

At what price free?

All of this, of course, takes significant amounts of time and energy, and this is where the waste component of the nuclear chain comes into play. While the hours you invest in your social media efforts are not waste per se, the process of developing, executing, monitoring and maintaining them is extremely labor intensive, and those hours have to come from somewhere or someone (i.e. they are an unexpected drain on your resources). And when you start adding up those hours, assigning dollar signs to them, and including them in your ROI analyses, suddenly your “free” presence in the social space is not looking so free anymore, in fact you might find it’s not even looking too cheap to meter.

Filed Under: Brand Planning Tagged With: Advertising, Brand Planning, social media

Social Media: Are you willing to pitch ideas with a 50% chance of failure?

July 2, 2010 By jfisher Leave a Comment

Image reprinted from: Spam I am, A viral marketing book suitable for bedtime: http://farisyakob.typepad.com/blog/files/spam_i_am.pdf

From Geoffrey Sheldon, VP, Brand Planning Director, Palio

When the question of an advertising agency’s role in a corporation’s, or brand’s, social media platform was raised at a recent panel discussion about Social Media in Heavily Regulated Industries (hosted by Digital Somethings, with senior communication managers from Deutsche Bank, Jet Blue, Pfizer, and PR Newswire participating on the panel) the message was very clear: The agency’s role is not to build or run a company’s social media efforts, but to provide insight and ideas about how social media channels can be optimized to build brands and drive sales.

Unfortunately, for agencies pitching social media ideas, that’s a high-risk proposition. Like any other new, unproven, and hard to measure media, the likelihood of failure is extremely high. It is estimated by the market research firm Gartner that 50% of the social media initiatives by Fortune 1000 companies in the near future will fail… and what agency wants to be attached to a high profile failure?

So how does one minimize this risk, yet still provide the thinking that clients are looking for?

One can learn a lot by observing the successes and failures of other brands; and you don’t have to dig very far into the numerous case studies and examples of “social media success stories” and “social media failures” to quickly see some interesting patterns into what works and what doesn’t in this space.

What I found particularly interesting is that the brands that appear to have had the most success in the social media space (or social channel, as I like to call it) are the ones that have remained true to their brand. Looking specifically at Best Buy, Dell, Comcast, Obama and Jet Blue (all brands that are touted as high-profile social media success stories), their activities in the social channel are all tied together by a common thread: commitment and consistency. What has worked for these companies/brands is that, in addition to providing consumers with something useful (be it content/offers/information/a place to interact) and maintaining constant updates and real-time responses, all of their social channel tactics are seamlessly integrated into their overarching brand and communication strategy. The result, one brand, one voice, regardless of channel.

On the flipside, failures tend to be associated with not adequately supporting and maintaining social channel tactics, or allowing the tactics to deviate from their overarching brand strategy. Read through a few of the examples in Jennifer Leggio’s article “Nine worst social media fails of 2009… thus far” and you will see that it was simply a lack of commitment and/or consistency that was the cause of many of the problems with some of these social channel flops.

Overall, developing ideas that work in the social channel, is very much like developing ideas for any other media channel, and the success stories all seem to follow these 5 basic principles:

Clear communication objectives
In-depth target audience understanding
A long-term commitment
A voice/personality that is consistent with the overarching brand
A consumer benefit

Keep these principles in mind at your next ideation session and you might just avoid falling into the 50% trap.

Filed Under: Brand Planning Tagged With: Brand Planning, marketing, Pfizer, social media

The Sign on My Door

June 22, 2010 By jfisher Leave a Comment

From Bob Mason, EVP, Managang Director of Brand Strategy, Palio

Soon after arriving at Palio over five years ago, I posted a couple things on my office door. One was a full-page ad that I’d recently seen in the Wall Street Journal that, in big brazen letters, admonished “NO MORE MEETINGS ABOUT MEETINGS.” Having come from BBDO, one of the “big boys” of advertising, I wanted to set the tone right from the start: even though I was coming from a big agency, I detested bureaucracy and the “let’s have a meeting!” culture that plagues a lot of companies.

The other thing I put up on my door was a simple list created by Vanella Jackson, a women who is the CEO of a great global communication research firm called Hall & Partners (and whose name, I’m embarrassed to admit, makes me think of the Olympic gold medal winner and one-time Philadelphia 76er Luscious Jackson – plus the alternative band from the 90s that named themselves after him). I found this list from Ms. Jackson on the Account Planning Group website, which is a hub for agency strategy/research and planning types. Titled “My Top Tips For Being A Great Planner,” I put this list on my door to serve as a constant reminder of how I wanted my team and me to provide value to our organization and clients.

And there it’s still posted, over five years later. I probably pass by the list a good 30 times a day, bustling in and out of my office. It’s easy, of course, to not look at it most of the times I pass it. But, every once in a while, I’ll stop and read it over. I’ve found it to be very focusing on those “what the hell am I doing in this industry?” kinds of days. It’s not only sound advice for strategy/research/planning type folks, though. Taken in a broader context, it’s just as good advice to anybody who is employed in the field of marketing communications – even clients. So, in the spirit of sharing, here is Vanella Jackson’s list. Regardless of what role you play in the industry or where you’re at in your career, I think these could apply to all of us, in one way or another.

My top tips for being a great planner (by Vanella Jackson)

1) LISTEN: Listen to your clients, listen to your account team, listen to your creative team. No one listens enough and yet all the answers and opportunities are there if you listen. Advertising people are notoriously bad at listening to clients and really hearing what they have to say. Creative people are not always just being defensive when telling you why they don’t accept the clients view.

2) BE BRAVE: Tell people what you really think — what your heart tells you is true. Don’t be swayed by the intellectual arguments because they sound good, when you know deep down they are flawed.

3) ALWAYS BE GREAT: Never hear yourself say ‘that will do.’ Average work always starts somewhere. Make everything you do be the best it can be.

4) RELAX: Be comfortable with uncertainty and imprecision. Half formed ideas are the bread and butter of creativity. Don’t try to understand or grasp the whole too early. When working with creative people make sure there is space around ideas.

5) BE DIFFERENT: Always try things you haven’t done before. New ideas and insight are more likely to come when you are experimenting. Look for insights in unexpected places.

6) BE A TEAM PLAYER: Recognize that developing creative ideas is a team process. It is not just down to the planner and the creative team. Involve people. Seek lots of opinions as this will help feed your imagination and increase the chances of success.

7) HONESTY: Tell your creative team the truth. Tell it to them straight and make sure they hear it from you and not anyone else. Tell them as soon as you walk back to the agency. If they are not there leave a note and go back later.
FAMILIAR FACE: Get to know your creative team. Don’t only turn up for meetings. Pop in and see how they are doing. Take them something you have thoughts about that could be useful.

9) BE VISUAL: We live in a world that is over loaded with information. Make your mantra to be a picture can say 1000 words. Use images, videos and pictures to express feelings and emotions. After all, as planners, you work in the creative industry.

10) MAKE IT FUN: We all learn through experience and being involved. Find ways to involve your account team, your client and your creative team. Work should be fun. The best work comes more easily when it is.

So, there you have it. What, if any, tips would you add on how to be a great marketing communication practitioner? I’d love to hear them.

Filed Under: Brand Planning Tagged With: BBDO, Brand Planning, meetings, Vanella Jackson

Phoenix Suns Basketball Team Needs an Emergency Brand Circle Exercise

June 2, 2010 By jfisher Leave a Comment

From Mark McCoy, SVP, Brand Planning Director, Palio

The Brand Circle is a great tool that visually shows marketers the qualities and properties of their brand. It is very useful when developing, extending or periodically reviewing the performance of a brand. To briefly describe the Brand Circle:

It has 4 regions. The core, outer core, extension area and the no-go area
The core contains the elements that are essential to the brand. These elements can be benefits, attributes, personality traits or target customers for example
The outer core contains elements that are consistent with, and complement, the core
The extension area includes ideas about how the brand could be developed and broadened in the future

The no-go area is the off limits region. Things that would weaken the brand and confuse customers live in the no-go area. Which brings us back to the Phoenix Suns and why they need an emergency Brand Circle Exercise. The Suns management decided that the team would wear uniforms with the team name “Los Suns” in their Cinco de Mayo game against the San Antonio Spurs. No problem so far.

But then the Suns went off the rails like a crazy train, Ozzie Osborn-style, straight into the no-go area. They went political and started talking all kinds of smack about the newly enacted Arizona Immigration Law SB1070. Sun’s owner, Robert Sarver stated that Arizona’s immigration law was not “the right way to handle the immigration problem, Number 1. Number 2, as I read through the bill, it felt to me a little bit like it was mean-spirited, and I personally just don’t agree with it.”

Steve Kerr, the Sun’s GM added, “It’s hard to imagine in this country that we have to produce papers. It brings up images of Nazi Germany.” Steve Nash, a Suns player said, “I think the law is very misguided, I think it’s unfortunately to the detriment of our society and our civil liberties, and I think it’s really important for us to stand up for things we believe in.”

Politics is in the no-go area for all sports team brands, including the Phoenix Suns. The rationale for this is pretty simple. First, sports fans don’t want to be subjected to political messages while they are watching ball games. Watching a sporting event at the arena or on television is fun, entertaining and an escape from serious issues like politics. Second, sports bring people together and politics divides people. On any given political issue, roughly half of people are for it and half are against it. On the other hand, everyone in a given city can feel the love for their local sports team. If you doubt this fact, just watch “Major League.”

Suns General Manager Steve Kerr should know that it is bad form to insult your brand’s customers. When conducting brain storming meetings at Palio the issue of whether or not to compare a brand’s customer base to Nazis hasn’t really come up in any of our discussions. As a general rule, however, we would go on record as saying that likening your home market to Nazi Germany belongs in the no-go area for all brands except for Third Reich memorabilia brands.

Okay, so let’s review. In the sports team brand circle, “politics” and “calling your customers Nazis” belong in the no-go area.

Filed Under: Brand Planning Tagged With: Basketball, Brand Circle, Brand Planning

Gut Check Time

May 17, 2010 By jfisher Leave a Comment

From Paul Harrington, SVP, Creative Director, Palio

You sit down to dine at a fine restaurant: it’s supposed to be the best in town, impeccable service, and the food is reputed to be out-friggin’ standing. It’s going to cost you a bundle, of course, but worth every penny, right? So, would you hand your menu to a stranger at the next table and let him order for you?

Of course not. While the anonymous diner next to you at Chez Fancypantz might have some things in common with you – after all, you both breathe oxygen, you’re in the same restaurant on the same night, and might both be able to afford a meal like this – you really are your own person, with your own tastes and objectives. Why would you let a perfect stranger order your dinner for you? Instead, maybe a better idea would be to lean over and confidentially ask, “Say friend, how’s the steak here?”

You solicited an opinion to help you make a more informed decision. That’s the American Way: free thought, individual choices. So why, for Pete’s Sake, do brand managers let a roomful of strangers choose a marketing campaign for them in research instead of choosing themselves?

Tummy troubles.

Research/testing/interviews are just what their name implies: they are fact-gathering exercises. Fuel for making informed decisions. Yet all too often, advertising agencies sit back in horror and watch their client brand managers abdicate a marketing decision to a roomful of strangers. Talk about a case of indigestion.

Millions of dollars go into the preparation of concepts for the purpose of testing. And this litmus test of ideas is terrific, a crucible that helps separate the good from the bad, the better from the best. Opinions count, and understanding what your customers want is critical. Yet to let the strangers on the other side of the glass choose your marketing campaign is a recipe for disaster.

It takes guts.

However, a room full of gastrointestinal surgeons is not a room full of marketing experts. They don’t know your business plan, your competitive challenges, the looming FDA hurdles, and the rest. They know intestines. God Bless ‘em, they know intestines inside and out.

So let them tell you what they know about their specialty, their practice, their patients, and even what they think about the intestine medicine concept your ad agency created that uses the Gordian Knot analogy. That’s valuable information.

But their input is not a “get out of jail free” card. It doesn’t shift the responsibility for making the hard marketing decisions from our shoulders. We, the marketers, have to account for their tastes and opinions, but in the end, we have to have the intestinal fortitude to make a decision and pick a concept that will change behavior. (Sensing a digestive theme here yet?)

Queasy? Good.

In the ‘80s, there was a great quote: “If your advertising doesn’t give you butterflies, don’t run it.” A quarter of a century later, we seem to have forgotten that advertising is supposed to be inherently risky – the old, “nothing ventured, nothing gained” mentality has gone the way of the dodo. Advertising must be daring and unorthodox, because we are asking the audience to change the way they presently think. Why would they do that if the ad you show them only reaffirms what they already know.

Ergo, if 4 out of 5 gastrointestinal surgeons liked the Gordian Knot concept, that doesn’t make it a good ad to run. Their appreciation may well mean that this concept made them the most comfortable and felt the most familiar. It didn’t rock their world too much. It was the safe choice. Sure, it’s good. It tested near the top. It makes everyone feel swell, and everyone up the corporate food chain will stamp it “a-ok.” Mission accomplished.

Run. Don’t walk – RUN from this concept. It doesn’t possess the power to change behavior. It doesn’t challenge conventional thinking, and it doesn’t challenge the audience to consider another POV.

You want your advertising to make people uncomfortable. They will then purchase your product to alleviate that discomfort. If everything is safe, happy, and bouncy, why do they need what you’re selling?! Disturb them. Rock their world. Shake their faith. Make them question their fervently held opinions. Then, in a true behavior modification model, reward them for doing what you wanted by giving them a savory treat: your product.

Listen and learn from your stomach.

This is a risk, of course. It takes guts, and might cause you some sleepless nights and a trip or two to kneel before the porcelain throne. It’s damn scary. But it’s scary good too, like a great carnival ride. Buckle up buttercup, cuz it’s gonna be a wild ride.

However, you will ultimately own the day. You, the bold one who dared to follow your inner voice and break a new trail, will be validated. You looked, You listened. You internalized and studied. And in the end, you trusted your experience, heard the counsel of your peers, and ultimately followed your gut instinct. Boo-yah.

An advertising campaign that “listens” to research instead of “obeying” it?

Mmmmmm: tasty. Order up, and dig in.

- Paul Harrington, Iron Chef

Filed Under: Brand Planning, Creative Tagged With: Brand Planning, concept, Creative, research

Cut Through the Clutter

May 14, 2010 By jfisher Leave a Comment

From Geoff Sheldon, VP, Brand Planning Director, Palio

Even though medical journals are still the primary source of information for the majority of physicians, and readership is on the rise (a 2009 PERQ/HCI syndicated readership survey showed that readership and ad exposure increased 9% and 13% respectively from 2005), advertising within this medium is falling (down 13% in 2008) and there appears to be a growing perception among pharmaceutical marketers that these ads just don’t work.

And maybe they don’t, but I would argue that it is not the medium that is at fault, but rather the advertisements themselves.

This, once again, occurred to me as I was completing a competitive audit for one of my clients and I was left wondering, why is that the basic principles of communication are forgotten in the average pharmaceutical professional journal advertisement (brand advertisements targeted directly at physicians)? By the basic principles I mean ads with a singular focus that engage and motivate the consumer to take action.

The thing that I was struck by in this audit, and it appears to have become a lot worse over the last couple of years, was just how much information was being inserted into these journal ads. It seems that with the decline in sales rep access to physicians over the last few years, the solution has just been to use print/journal ads as a medium to just reprint sales aids in their entirety, and shove as many marketing messages as possible into 1 or 2 8½” x 11″ sheets.

The result: ads that don’t communicate a single message, and are so overly cluttered no one is going to bother to stop and read them. In short, ads that serve no purpose at all. Hardly surprising then that many a marketing manager is sitting around saying these ads are just not effective.

So what makes an effective print ad? The best print ads, provide a tease, they leave you thinking, they capture your curiosity, and they motivate you to learn more and take action.

Very few professional pharmaceutical journal ads do this. Flick through the ads in a recent medical journal and have a look at how many teasers or genuine calls to action you see. URLs are seemingly included as afterthoughts, and very rarely will you even see the words “for more information visit… “, and why would you, when everything has already been jammed into a single page.

In today’s evolving pharmaceutical market and changing media landscape journal ads need to work harder. They need to do more than simply raise brand awareness; they need to have strong calls to action, i.e. they need to drive traffic to the website traffic where physicians can actively engage with the brand and enter into customer relationship programs.

It is unlikely, though, that this can be achieved with today’s typically overloaded, over cluttered, multi-dimensional journal ad. However, a singular-focused, thought-provoking ad, with a clear call to action might just do the job.

Filed Under: Brand Planning, Creative Tagged With: Brand Planning, competitive audit, focus, PERQ/HCI

It’s Not a Vacuum, It’s a Dyson!

March 29, 2010 By jfisher Leave a Comment

From Jeremy Lichtenberger, Senior Brand Planner

Let me first say this, James Dyson annoys the hell out of me. His painfully slow British accent and pompous way of explaining how he came up with his brilliant ideas makes me want to smash a Budweiser bottle across his grill. However, in a world where every company claims to provide “innovative solutions,” you have to respect James Dyson for creating a brand that truly delivers on that promise. So as much as the guy annoys me, I listen to his commercials, I respect his opinion, and I believe that as marketers we can learn a lot from the Dyson brand.

The first global product Dyson launched was a vacuum cleaner and it set a new standard for consumers in that market. By capitalizing on the chief complaint of vacuums (losing suction), Dyson was able to demonstrate that he had solved this problem with new and innovative technology and thus reshaped the way we think of vacuums forever. In addition to solving the problem with existing vacuums, he created a new and very timely issue with vacuums. Dyson claimed that because vacuums had bags, they were actually creating dust and allergens rather than taking care of them. Essentially, he differentiated his brand from the entire market in 2 unique ways. Dyson also felt like he needed to display how well his technology worked by using a clear container in the vacuum. A strategy that market research and marketing experts told him was “crazy.” He went with his gut because he believed in his technology and the Dyson was born.

Since the launch of his vacuum, Dyson has put out a bladeless fan that blows filtered, clean air; and most recently, a hand dryer for restrooms. All of his products maintain their position throughout their marketing campaigns – Dyson’s brands provide a new way of thinking about their respective categories. I had the pleasure of using one of the hand dryers recently and it is awesome! But he still annoys me.

So here are 3 things we can learn from Dyson:

1. Think differently. If you continue to challenge the status quo, you just may come up with something brilliant.

2. Go with your gut. Market research is helpful and should be applied whenever possible but don’t allow market research to make every decision for your product or service.

3. Stay true to your brand. Establish a position and maintain that position throughout your marketing campaign.

And by the way, I own a Dyson.

Filed Under: Brand Planning Tagged With: Brand Planning, Dyson, Palio

Combating the Complicators

March 15, 2010 By jfisher Leave a Comment

From Bob Mason, EVP, Managing Director of Brand Strategy, Palio

The advertising industry, as much as any industry, often struggles to “keep it simple.” It’s fair to say that a lot of people who work in the business get all lathered up over new terms, processes and flavors of the month. Couple that with the complex and jargon-happy pharmaceutical industry and you can easily have a recipe for marketing communication initiatives that fall completely flat and short of achieving their ultimate goal.

Jon Steel is recognized as one of the wisest practitioners the advertising industry has seen in the last 25 years. Though this one-page article (from ADMAP, the best marketing/advertising/research periodical in the universe) is, in title, about “planning” (e.g. “brand planning”), it’s about far more than that.

It’s a great reminder that, regardless of how complex the product you are advertising, the best agencies and advertising practitioners continuously strive to simplify things and distill down insights and messaging to something usable for the creative teams.

I don’t care what level you’re at in a company or what department to which you belong, this one-pager is worth reading and worth thinking about. If we could all get better at distilling down complexities, we’d increase the likelihood of creating impactful communications by tenfold.

I’m curious to hear what others think.

Filed Under: Brand Planning, Creative Tagged With: Brand Planning, Jon Steel, Palio, simplicity, simplify

Art, YouTube Style, and a Friggin’ Lightsaber

The Sign on My Door

Phoenix Suns Basketball Team Needs an Emergency Brand Circle Exercise

Gut Check Time

Cut Through the Clutter

It’s Not a Vacuum, It’s a Dyson!

Combating the Complicators

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