How to best Execute your Brand Execution Plan

7 July 2013

FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS!!!

So now as we move on to the execution plan, should we still focus? Of course. As you execute, you are constrained by 3 things, time: people and money.

My challenge to all brand leaders looking at an Annual Brand Plan is to pick 3 strategies and 3 tactics per strategy. That means 9 things to do really well. Sounds kind of crazy right? It gets crazier when I tell you to put 50 to 75% of your resources to the 3 most important tactics overall. If you have 7 strategies and 7 tactics per strategy, then you’re now doing 49 things compared to my 9 things. If I asked you to pick your most important 9, and we compared how good of a job we both did on executing, then I believe my 9 would kick your 9’s ass. In fact, there’s a good chance your team hasn’t gotten to 1 or 2 of your most important 9. When it comes time to execution, focus means I can do a better job, bring some passion and magic to each tactic. Focus means impact, because I am able to put enough resources against it to be noticed and that impact might be the start of me driving a return on investment.

I once had a Director working for me that kept generating so many ideas that none of them ever got executed. Every day, 5 new ideas for his team to look into. The team was in chaos and ready for revolt. So I asked to see his quarterly project list and he came in proudly showing me 81 projects they had to do in the next 12 weeks. I was dumbfounded and said “narrow it down to the top 5 most important projects”. He said “they are all important”. About an hour later I had his finance director in my office telling me that he was overspent by 20%. While I couldn’t convince him to focus, he didn’t survive the quarter.

Every day I must tell at least 5 people they need to focus more.

Beloved Brands Start with a Big Idea

The most beloved brands are based on an idea that is worth loving. It is the idea that connects the Brand with consumers. And under the Brand Idea are 5 Sources of Connectivity that help connect the brand with consumers and drive Brand Love, including 1) the brand promise 2) the strategic choices you make 3) the brand’s ability to tell their story 4) the freshness of the product or service and 5) the overall experience and impressions it leaves with you. Everyone wants to debate what makes a great brand–whether it’s the product, the advertising, the experience or through consumers. It is not just one or the other–it’s the collective connection of all these things that make a brand beloved Look at a brand like Special K who for years was offering a low fat low calorie cereal with modest success. Only when they came up the Big Idea of “empowering women to take control and maintain their healthy weight” were they able to align their brand to connect with consumers and drive success. Special K created the powerful Brand Promise that with Special K, just twice a day for 2 weeks, you can lose 6 pounds or better yet, drop a jean size. The brilliant strategy is around the usage occasion of the second meal each day. Cereal had been a category that grew +3% for years, steady only with population growth and some demographics around boomers and echo generations. But now, there was finally a reason to eat cereal twice in one day. The communication of the Brand Story become about empowering women to take control using the Two Week Challenge. With a Brand Idea bigger than just a cereal, Special K’s innovation rivalled that of Apple. It started with the launch of Berry Special K that thrust the brand into a good tasting cereal, and has since added bars, shakes and water. Most recently, they’ve now launched potato chips (only 80 calories for 20 chips) and a Breakfast Sandwich option.

What is your big idea? And how will you align your promise, strategy, story, innovation and culture around that big idea?

The 3 Step Process

When I was at the Brand Manager stage of my career I remember being frustrated when I had to take my plan to the agencies. We spent so much effort trying to get everyone on the same page, aligning the tactics behind the plan, doling out the money and then waiting to see the execution ideas coming back from the ad agency, the in-store agency, our professional agency, PR agency etc etc. We’d see each idea and we’d try to piece them all together into a cohesive plan. Then I came to the point where I had finally had it with playing traffic cop. And came up with a simple “3 Step”:

Step 1: Briefing
Step 2: Ideas
Step 3: Tactical Plan.

Once you get your Brand Plan approved, you now start in on the execution Here’s the trick of how this works best.

For Stage 1, you get every agency in the room and you give them a 2 hour briefing so that everyone hears the same message. At this stage, I like to give agencies a high, medium and low-budget level, which gives me the control and flexibility to move dollars around to the best ideas. Yes, it creates some competition but that just makes my plan better.

At stage 2, we do an entire day where the agencies present their best ideas with everyone in the room at the same time. Everyone hears the best ideas and hears why I’m excited about those ideas. They might also hear what I don’t like or what I think might be missing. The agencies present big ideas hoping to get to the higher dollar figure. And we start moving money right in the room. The feedback is direct, tough and yet challenging. I love ideas that are aligned to the strategy and big idea and reject those that aren’t. Between stage 2 and 3 is usually where the magic happens. The agencies actually decide to meet and start acting like one agency. They get the feedback and start aligning their ideas together. They come up with new tactics to re-earn any lost dollars.

And by the time they come back to Stage 3, I’m now seeing a fully aligned and enhanced Tactical Plan The process did the work for me. All that frustration of me being traffic cop was replaced by the process. In year 2, this works even better. And when you put it across all your brands like we did at Johnson and Johnson, it works even better.

Filtering the Best Ideas with THE BIG EASY

For Tactics to an annual plan, you can use a very simple grid of Big vs Small and Easy vs Difficult. You can decide on criteria for Big and Easy, or you can use judgement. Create the grid and put the ideas on post it notes you can then plot. You’ll see the best of ideas rise to the BIG-EASY zone. The reason you want BIG is impact, to drive share and revenue growth. The reason you want easy is to efficiently ensure it has a good return on effort, believing effort and investment have a direct link.

If you don’t love the work, how do you expect your consumer to love your brand?

Follow me on Twitter @grayrobertson1

To read more about creating Beloved Brands:

How to give Feedback to an Agency so the work gets Better

23 June 2013

Before You Get Started: How will you Judge the Ad? Here are the ABC’S of Advertising

Here’s a potential tool you can take into the room that is very easy to follow along. You want to make sure that your ad delivers on the ABC’S which means it attracts Attention, it’s about the Brand, it Communicates the brand story and Sticks in the consumers mind.

Attention: You have to get noticed in a crowded world of advertising. Consumers see 6000 ads per day, and will likely only engage in a few. If your brand doesn’t draw attention naturally, then you’ll have to force it into the limelight.
Branding: Ads that tell the story of the relationship between the consumer and the brand will link best. Even more powerful are ads that are from the consumers view of the brand. It’s not how much branding there is, but how close the brand fits to the climax of the ad.
Communication: Tapping into the truths of the consumer and the brand, helps you to tell the brand’s life story. Keep your story easy to understand. Communication is not just about what you say, but how you say it—because that says just as much.
Stickiness: Sticky ads help to build a consistent brand/consumer experience over time. In the end, brands are really about “consistency” of the promise you want to own. Brands have exist in the minds of the consumer.

How to use Feedback to make the Work Better

I’ve seen guys go in with pure instincts and spin around in circles. My suggestion would be to use your instincts but be guided by a process that can help you judge the work. Look at sports as a metaphor, there’s instinct used in every sport, but the superstars of any sport (Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps) are disciplined in their approach and then let instincts go on top of the fundamentals. So use the ABC’S above, and then let your instincts take over.

The Creative Meeting is not Easy. You’ve got to balance, the head, the heart and the gut against the good of the brand. Take your time and sort it through asking the following questions:

Do you love what it can do for your brand? If you don’t love it, how do you expect your consumer to love it? A great ad has to have everyone’s heart and soul put into it. If you “sorta like” it, then it will be “sorta ok” in the end. If you love it, you will fight for it. (The Heart)
Is it on strategy? Is the Advertisement an expression of what you have been writing in your strategy documents? Is it doing what we hoped it would do? I love the ABCS technique (outlined below) because it helps me to frame things in my mind, so I can evaluate it past how I feel. I think you need something to ground yourself. (The Head) If there is something in your gut says it’s off, it likely is. (The Gut)
Is it long-term Idea? Is a big enough idea that fits with the brand, does the hard work you want to do for the brand and can last 5 years. Think about leaving a legacy—which forces you to think of campaign-ability. (The Brand) Look at the Creative Brief and if the ad is not on strategy, then it has to be rejected Advertising is an expression of strategy. If it’s not on strategy, it has no value.

Tips on Giving Feedback

Remember to Relax and Smile: I always find that the room gets so tense, stiff and serious: we forget to laugh, smile and be real. Imagine trying to present something funny to a room of deadly serious brand managers. It helps motivate a nervous creative team.
Give the feedback in three ways: a) First Impressions: during the presentation, it’s great to be engaged enough to say “I like that” or ask a question. b) Giving Direction: focus on what‘s working and how to make it better. Focus more on the board you like first, and then move to the ones you don’t like with less detailed feedback. c) Leave the Detailed Direction on how to make it better for the day after. Moving the details (copy points, placement, colours) to the next day, helps focus the immediate comments on big picture items. Take 24 hours to digest all the little details
Focus on Direction, not feedback: Feedback is static, direction has action and decision-making. Speak on behalf of your consumer & your brand.

You should agree upon a Feedback process with the Agency ahead of time and then use that consistently. There are two main ways you could do it. Either give the feedback live where everyone talks or take a break and consolidate your thinking first.. I’ve done both, trained on giving feedback live, but have changed my opinion over the years and now I’m a fan of taking the break.

Here’s the old tired Archaic 1950s style processes:

Account Team re-reads the brief then they do a set up of each board, explaining the technique/process (e.g. this is funny) Set ups can taint the client’s view of a spot.
Agency presents 3 scripts, and says which one is their favourite. Potentially de-motivator if you ask for their favourite and then dismiss it. A better question is “which spot did you find you kept coming back to, as you worked the process”.
Client Feedback is given with the most junior person goes first, all the way up to the senior person in the room. This feels very 1950s humiliation and de-motivating to the junior people on the team.

I’d suggest you Take A 30-Minute client huddle helps because:

Agency gets one piece of feedback. Time allows client to get the story straight. The break helps to slow down process so the client can think things through.
Gives Ownership to the Brand Manager, who should do all the speaking on behalf of the team, not the most senior person in the room that over-rules them.
Client Team has a very open discussion, freely hearing out everyone’s thoughts, giving the junior people easier input the final opinion. Brand Manager hears everyone then consolidates it to one message.

Tips to help Clients provide Clear Decision Making Process in place

Decision Making: Team leader in the creative meeting room gives direction to make the work as good as it can be before selling it in. This gives them ownership over the project. maximum to get it right. When the VP or President attend the early creative meetings, the work doesn’t get better, it gets more complicated.
Pre Testing Does Help: Narrow the creative concepts down to 1-3, put into animatic format and test to determine success potential in the market. Instincts are great, but having them confirmed by consumer feedback is even better.
Selling the work in to the Organization. The team leader accompanied by the senior account person (plus Creative Director if needed) should jointly sell it in the organization.
Make sure you leave Enough Time: While everything is a rush these days, a well run project, with adequate breathing space for creative ideas, 2-3 rounds of creative, potential testing and adequate time for development
Communication Goes Both Ways: Exhibit the leadership style that welcomes feedback, and gives it. Each side brings an expertise, the agency has advertising and communication expertise and the client brings consumer/brand expertise.
Seek Advice Beyond Advertising: Good account people know what it takes to be a good marketer. They can help you on the side. And many times, their superior people skills can help a client that might be lacking in that area. They also likely know how to sell to your boss, which can help you when you need to sell to your boss.
Build a relationship with the Creative Team: The creative teams want to engage with the client and will respect your attempts to get closer to them. Like anyone, they will do a better job for those they know, respect and even admire. Being the best client, will attract the best creative people on a given team. They’ll want to work on your brand.
Performance Improvements: Annual agency performance review, quarterly senior leadership discussion on what’s working/what’s not. Ask “how can we get better?”, “how are my people doing?” and “how is the work?”. You can talk about the gaps you or your team might have, and ask for advice how to close those.
Let the Agency Make a Profit: You can’t “nickel and dime” your agency. Be open about your budget, but once set, let the agency work to that budget.

If how you show up to the agency will produce better advertising work. Then show up right.

Follow me on Twitter @grayrobertson1

To see a training presentation on Get Better Advertising:

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How to Get Fired as a Brand Manager

16 September 2012

6 Comments

There’s been a lot of great Assistant Brand Managers to be fired at the Brand Manager level. So that would beg the question: why were they mistakenly promoted? Just like in sports where they are fooled by size, we sometimes get fooled by Charisma. They seem impressive to us–whether it’s how they speak in the hallways or answer questions in a plans meeting. We think Charisma is a great starting ground for a leader, so hopefully they can learn to be analytical, strategic, creative and organized. Hopefully that Charismatic leader can get stuff done, stay on track, hand in their budgets on time, know how to turn a brand around, can write great brand plans, work with agencies and motivate the sales team etc…etc… But then we find out that they can’t do all that stuff. And after 18 months as a Brand Manager, we see they really are “just charismatic” and we remind ourselves of what we already knew: Being a Brand Manager really is hard.

Brand Managers don’t really get fired because they can’t deliver the results. That might happen at Director or VP level. But at the Brand Manager level, we’d look for other Blind Spots that might be leading to the poor results.

I don’t want to see anyone get fired, so use this list to avoid it. I’ve provided advice for each reason, hopefully helping you to address it pro-actively.

Top 10 Reasons why Brand Managers get fired:

Struggle to Make Decisions: When these Brand Managers were ABMs they shined because they are the “super doer’s”, who can work the system, get things done on time and under budget. All the subject matter experts (forecasting, production, promotions) love them. But then get them into the Brand Manager seat and they freeze. They can do, but they can’t decide. They can easily execute someone else’s project list with flare, but they can’t come up with a project list of their own. For you to succeed, you have to work better on your decision-making process. You have to find methods for narrowing down the decisions. When you’re new to decisions, take the time to map out your thinking whether it’s pros and cons or a decision tree. It will eventually get faster for you and train your mind to make decisions.
Not Analytical Enough: Those that can’t do the deep dive analytical thinking. They might have great instincts, but they only scratch the surface on the analytics, and it eventually catches them when they make a poor decision and they can’t explain why they went against the obvious data points. The real reason is they never saw those data points. When a senior leader questions you, they can usually tell if they have struggled enough with a problem to get to the rich solution or whether they just did the adequate thinking to get to an “ok” solution. Just because you are now a Brand Manager doesn’t mean you stop digging into the data. The analytical skills you learned as an ABM should be used at every level in your career right up to VP. As I moved up, I felt out of touch with the data so at every level up to VP, I used to do my own monthly share report just to ensure I was digging in and getting my hands mucky with the data. Because I had dug around in the data, I knew which of my Brand Managers had dug in as well and which Brand Managers hadn’t even read their ABM’s monthly report yet. Take the time to know the details of your business. Dig into the data and make decisions based on the depth of analysis you do.
Can’t Get Along: Conflicts, teamwork issues, communication. These Brand Managers struggle with sales colleagues or the subject matter experts (SME’s). They might be the type who speaks first, listens second. They go head-to-head to get their own way instead of looking for compromise. Yes, they might be so smart they think faster than everyone, but they forget to bring people along with their thinking. They start to leave a trail of those they burned and when the trail gets too big they get labelled as “tough to deal with”. Listen more–hear them out. The collection of SME’s will likely teach you more about marketing than your boss will. If you don’t use these people to enhance your skill, you’ll eventually crash and burn. And if they can’t work with you, they’ll also be the first to destroy your career. You aren’t the first superstar they’ve seen. And likely not the last. My recommendation to you is to remember that Leadership is not just about you being out front, but about you turning around and actually seeing people following you. In fact, it should be called “Follower-ship”.
Not good with Ambiguity: Some Brand Managers opt for the safety of the easy and well-known answers. They struggle with the unknown and get scared of ambiguity. Brand Managers that become too predictable to their team create work in the market that also becomes predictable and fails to drive the brand. These Brand Managers are OK–they don’t really have a lot of wrong, but they don’t have a lot of right. You can put them on safe easy businesses, but you wouldn’t put them on the turn around or new products. Ambiguity is a type of pressure that not all of us are capable of handling easily, especially when they see Ambiguity and Time Pressure working against each other. Don’t ever settle for “ok” just because of a deadline. Always push for great. You have to learn to handle ambiguity. In fact revel in ambiguity. Have fun with it. Be Patient with Ideas. Never be afraid of an idea and never kill it quickly. As a leader, find ways to ask great questions instead of giving quick answers. Watch the signals you send that may suck the creativity energy out of your team. When you find a way to stay comfortable in the “ambiguity zone”, the ideas get better whether it’s the time pressure that forces the thinking to be simpler or whether it’s the performance pressure forces us to push for the best idea. So my recommendation to you is to just hold your breath sometimes and see if the work gets better.
Too slow and stiff: The type of Brand Manager that is methodical to the extreme and they think everything through to the point of “Analysis Paralysis”. They never use instincts–and have the counter analytical answer to every “gut feel” solution that gets recommended. They have every reason why something won’t work but no answers for what will work. I have to admit that this type frustrates me to no end, because nothing ever gets done. They struggle to make it happen: they are indecisive, not productive, disorganized or can’t work through others. They are frustratingly slow for others to deal with. They keep missing opportunities or small milestones that causes the team to look slow and miss the deadlines. You have to start to show more flexibility in your approach. Borrow some of the thinking from dealing with ambiguity and making decisions. Realize there are options for every solution, no one perfect answer.
Bad people Manager: Most first time people managers screw up a few of their first 5 direct reports. It’s only natural. One of the biggest flaws for new Managers is to think “Hey it will take me longer to explain it to you, so why don’t I just do it myself this one time and you can do it next time”. They repeat this every month until we realized they aren’t teaching their ABM anything. And they became the Manager that none of the ABMs wanted to work for because you never learn anything. But as we keep watching great ABMs crashing and burning while under them, we start to wonder “you are really smart, but can you actually manage people?”. To be a great Brand Manager, you have to work on being a better people leader. We expect you to develop talent. Be more patient with your ABM. Become a teacher. Be more selfless in your approach to coaching. Take time to give them feedback that helps them, not feedback that helps you. If you don’t become a better people manager, you’ve just hit your peak in your career.
Poor communicators, with manager, senior management or partners. They fail to adequately warn when there are potential problems. They leave their manager in the dark and the information comes their manager from someone else. They confuse partners because they don’t keep them aware of what’s going on. You have to become a better communicator. Make it a habit that as soon as you know something, your boss does as well–especially with negative news. It’s normal that we get fixated on solving the problem at hand that we forget to tell people. But that opens you up to risk–so cover your bases.
Never Follow Their Instincts: They forget that marketing also has a “Gut Feel” to it, taking all the data, making decisions and then getting to the execution and believing it by taking a risk. Too many times people fail because “they went along with it even though they didn’t like it”. You have to find ways to use your instincts. The problem is that sometimes your instincts are hidden away. You get confused, you feel the pressure to get things done and you’ve got everyone telling you to go for it. You get scared because you’re worried about your career and you want to do the ‘right thing’. But your gut is telling you it’s just not right. My rule is simple: if you don’t love the work, how do you expect the consumer to love your brand. The worst type of marketer is someone who says “I never liked the brief” or “I never liked the ad”. At every touch point, keep reaching for those instincts and bring them out on the table.
Can’t Think Strategically or Write Strategically: As you move up to Brand Manager, we expect you to be able to think conceptually, strategically and in an organized fashion. We also expect that to come through in your writing–whether that’s your Annual Brand Plan, monthly share report or just an email that you send. Be organized in your thinking–map it out. I do believe that every good strategy has four key elements: 1) Focus in either target or messaging 2) an Early win where you can see results 3) a Leverage point where you can take that early win and achieve a position power for your brand and finally 4) a Gateway to something even bigger for the brand. Every six months, I would find a quiet time to answer five key questions that would help me stay aware: 1) Where are we? 2) Why are we here? 3) Where could we be? 4) How can we get there? and 5) What do we have to do to get started? In an odd way, the more planning you do, the more agile you’ll be, because you’ll know when it’s ok to “go off plan”
They Don’t Run the Brand, they Let The Brand Run Them. Some Brand Managers end up in the spin zone where they are disorganized, frantic and not in touch with their business. They miss deadlines, look out of control and things just stockpile on one another. They may take pride in how long they work or how many things they are getting done on their to-do list. But they are out of control and the business is absolutely killing them. They just don’t know it yet. My advice to you is to stay in Control so you hit the deadlines and stay on budget. Dig in and know your business so you don’t get caught off-guard. Make sure you are asking the questions and carrying forward the knowledge. Instil processes that organize and enable you and your team, so that it frees you up your time to push projects through and for doing the needed strategic thinking. Stay conceptual–avoid getting stuck in the pennies or decimals–so you can continue to drive the strategy of your brand.

Now let’s be honest: You likely won’t be fired for just one of these. You likely will see 3 or 4 of these come together and begin to showcase that you’re just not up for being a Brand Manager. But even 1 or 2 will keep you stuck at the Brand Manager level and you’ll notice your bosses are hesitant to put you on the tough assignments.

But the big question is what do you do about it. My hope is that you can use the list as a way to course correct on something you might already be doing. We each have a few of these de-railers, some that you can easily over-come but others that will take a few years to really fix. Those who seek out feedback, welcome it and act on it will be the successful ones. I hope that your company has a process of giving feedback or that you get lucky to have a manager that cares about your career and is willing to give you the tough feedback. But if not, seek it. Be honest with yourself and try to fix one of these per quarter.

I hope you can figure out the blind spots before your manager does.

Use this list to ensure that you will be a successful Brand Manager career.

Ask Beloved Brands how we can help train you to be a better brand leader.

Read more about marketing careers in the following presentation:

ABOUT BELOVED BRANDS INC.: At Beloved Brands, we are only focused on making brands better and making brand leaders better.Our motivation is that we love knowing we were part of helping someone to unleash their full potential. We promise to challenge you to Think Different. We believe the thinking that got you here, will not get you where you want to go. Our President and Chief Marketing Officer, Graham Robertson is a brand leader at heart, who loves everything about brands. He comes with 20 years of experience at companies such as Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer Consumer, General Mills and Coke, where he was always able to find and drive growth. Graham has won numerous new product and advertising awards. Graham brings his experience to your table, strong on leadership and facilitation at very high levels and training of Brand Leaders around the world. To reach out directly, email me at graham.robertson@beloved-brands.com or follow on Twitter @grayrobertson1

At Beloved Brands, we love to see Brand Leaders reach their full potential. Here are the most popular article “How to” articles. We can offer specific training programs dedicated to each topic. Click on any of these most read articles:

Ads with Strong Brand Link

4 September 2012

2 Comments

It’s always easier to judge everyone else’s advertising than when you are on the hot seat and judging the ads on your own brand. I’ve been there 100s of times, and I still find it very difficult. You try to balance having it be a good ad, jamming in all the messaging you want and still maintaining enough branding so that it pays off for the brand.

The tool I use for judging ads is the ABC’S. The best ads attract Attention (A) are about the Brand (B), Communicate the brand’s story (C) and they Stick in people’s minds (S)

Attention: You have to get noticed in a crowded world of advertising. If your brand doesn’t draw attention naturally, then you’ll have to force it into the limelight.
Branding: Ads that are about the brand will link. The balance is to have it be about the consumers view of the brand. It’s not the amount of branding, but the climax to where the brand fits in.
Communication: Tapping into the truths of the consumer and the brand, helps you to tell the brand’s life story. Communication is not just about what you say, but how you say it—because that says just as much.
Stickiness: In the end, brands are really about “consistency”. They exist in the minds of the consumer. Sticky ads help to build a consistent brand/consumer experience over time

So let’s focus on the BRANDING part. How do we ensure high brand link scores? The 4 simple ways to brand your spot are:

Be Part of the Story: In the spirit of big ideas, how do you tell a story, using your brand. It’s not how much branding you use, or how early you bring the brand name in, but rather how closely connected the brand to the climax of your ad.
Is it the Truth: It sounds funny, but if there is a disconnect between what you say, and what you are….then the brand link won’t be there. People will discard the ad. But ads that are hitting that truth zone really nail the brand link. This starts with your creative brief to make sure it connects with what people think about the brand.
Own the Idea Area: Be a bit different—make sure that what you do sets you apart from anyone else. Not only does the difference help you stand out, it helps you to own it over time. Within your category or your market, make sure that it doesn’t feel like a copy-cat ad. “Me Too” = “Me” diocre.
Repeat: Don’t be afraid of building your campaign—and the simplest way to get branding is to repeat and repeat and repeat. So many great campaigns have built them over 5-10 yeas. As you’re in the creative room, sit there and say “can I see this lasting for 5 years? Is the idea big enough?”

Here are some brands that do a good job in driving Brand Link:

Google “Parisian Love”

Google’s first and only TV was a pure beauty. Google is part of the story, in fact it’s the facilitator of every part of the story. And for creative people that hate demos, this is just a demo! All this ad does is showcase how using this product can make your life better, showing how often we now reach for Google as a support to everything we now do. The beauty of this ad is they were able take the searches into such an emotional space. Whenever you do an interesting demonstration of how your brand really works, the brand link will be very high. The new great idea is to create an Ad that will be passed on. Aired once during the Super Bowl, it’s been passed around emails and viewed on youtube millions of time. In fact, there are hundreds of parody ads as well which shows the power of the idea.

Listerine “Bottle Guy”

I’m sneaking another one of mine in here. Listerine ads are hard to make interesting–it’s a very serious brand in a low interest category, it’s clinical with information to deliver and how can you make gingivitis interesting. This campaign idea lasted 10 years, and had brand link scores of 85-97%. People would dress up as Listerine at Halloween and when we brought the Bottle Guy to events, we had people lined up to get their photo taken with him. These ads were kind of crazy–but so different that they stood out. With such a high brand link and stickiness already embedded in the idea, we could dedicate all our attention to driving the message–a new message about healthier gums. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure whether it would work or whether I’d be quickly fired. But it was sure fun finding out–and Listerine grew over 10% for the next 10 years.

Wheat Thins “Wheat Thins”

Imagine a creative idea that just says the brand name over and over again. For those with a quirky sense of humour, this one works. For an impulse driven brand, Wheat Thins aired these spots 5 minutes into football games last year. Just how popcorn does ads at the beginning of a Movie, this media buy likely made a few people think about Wheat Thins for the next hour before they finally got up, went to their kitchens and grabbed the box. It worked on me. I kept saying “wheat thins” the rest of the day.

Apple: “Mac vs PC”

Mac took such a simple concept of the side-by-side demonstration and made it compelling and ownable. In terms of repeating, Mac must have made hundreds of these, all great and all consistent to the same tone and message. Part of the brilliance is they never shifted too far from the big idea and yet found room to continuously surprise and delight their loyal following. So many creative teams presented the “apple” style ads after those ads, but in reality, Apple owned any two guys standing side-by-side.

For more reading on the ABC’s, view the following presentation:

Or read an article on being An Advertising Leader.

About Graham Robertson: I’m a marketer at heart, who loves everything about brands. I love great TV ads, I love going into grocery stores on holidays and I love seeing marketers do things I wish I came up with. I’m always eager to talk with marketers about what they want to do. I have walked a mile in your shoes. My background includes CPG marketing at companies such as Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer Consumer, General Mills and Coke. I’m now a marketing consultant helping brands find their love and find growth for their brands. I do executive training and coaching of executives and brand managers, helping on strategy, brand planning, advertising and profitability. I’m the President of Beloved Brands Inc. and can help you find the love for your brand. To read more about Beloved Brands Inc, visit http://beloved-brands.com/inc/

How to Win by Linking into the Consumers’ Need for A Life Change

31 August 2012

How the Marketing can Match up to the Change Model

At the early stages, you need to find some way to trigger them into the consideration of the need for change. For the Pro-Active Consumers, you can take advantage of their mindset by trying to trigger a need for change by connecting your product to a risk or a known solution need state. You would want to drive problem awareness & outline risks, dangers, issues of non action. For the Reactive Consumers, you likely need to be there at the trigger point, using key influencers such as healthcare professionals to help dial-up the seriousness of the need for change.

As consumers are in the contemplation stage, they start to prepare and get themselves ready. You want to show positive easy solutions and make change feel do-able. You can use your product to help them visualize that the change would be easier and help set up the idea that they are capable. You can change their minds about their confidence level with something new.

As they move to the preparation stage, they’ll look for information that can help their journey and re-enforce their capability for achieving success. You want to Own Search. In the modern world, consumers turn to the internet before they turn to healthcare professionals. By helping the consumer early, you may be able to hold onto them throughout the change journey. The problem is that every brand knows this and will drive the costs of search and everyone is doing great websites that are providing information, advice and tips as they ready themselves. You may wish to use the entry point as the time to introduce the idea of a coach or self-help group. As consumers feel reluctant to take action, they worry they may fail. The coach or group can help add confidence they are not in this alone. Professional, peer, counsellor or on-line support. With the internet, a virtual coach can be highly effective with daily motivational tips to keep going.

Just before the Action stage, it’s important to help them set realistic goals. Baby steps might be necessary early on, so the consumer can experience a degree of success and feel motivated to keep going. Early failure could send them into the relapse before the change kicks in. They say it’s 21 days to change a habit, but it’s usually a lot longer with all the temptations around.

The change doesn’t end until you get through the maintenance stage. It becomes all about compliance and building the change into your life. Even a year later, you could find an event that triggers you into a relapse. A lot of vices are connected with stress. For many, comfort food or a coffee and a cigarette just feel great when things get highly stressful. So a new level of life stress can see the consumer reaching for old habits. Compliance is never an easy thing–even the most serious of heart medications can struggle with compliance.

Keep Awareness Strong at all stages. Depending on the potential size of the business, you may wish to cover all parts of the Change Model with a constant level of brand awareness. You want to be visible so that when the consumer turns to looking at solutions, you’re well known and the first point of consideration. For smaller and more specific categories, the first point of awareness would come into play after the consumer has been diagnosed giving power to that doctor recommendation. Doctors love to write scripts, because their patients expect answers. But they can also be conservative and slow to adopt new items, preferring to stay with their trust and usual choice.

Having worked in the quit smoking business for years, here’s a TV ad that shows just how hard change really is. People quit 6-8 times on their own before reaching for the help of a quit smoking product such as Nicoderm or Nicorrette. We capitalized on that fact to show a side-by-side demonstration of the difference when using Nicoderm.

Do you want to be an amazing Brand Leader? We can help you.

Read more on how to utilize our Brand Leadership Learning Center where you will receive training in all aspects of marketing whether that’s strategic thinking, brand plans, creative briefs, brand positioning, analytical skills or how to judge advertising. We can customize a program that is right for you or your team. We can work in person, over the phone or through Skype. Ask us how we can help you.

At Beloved Brands, we love to see Brand Leaders reach their full potential. Here are the most popular article “How to” articles. We can offer specific training programs dedicated to each topic. Click on any of these most read articles:

How to Write a Brand Positioning Statement

How to Write a Brand Plan

How to Write a Creative Brief

How to create a Brand Strategy Road Map

How to Judge Advertising

How to write a Mini Creative Brief

How to Think Strategically

How to Build a Media Strategy

Brand Love = Power = Profit

How to Have a Successful Marketing Career

Ask Beloved Brands to run a workshop to find your brand positioning or ask how we can help train you to be a better brand leader.

A Brand Leader’s View of Social Media

19 August 2012

4 Comments

There’s been lots of talk lately about how much marketing and brand management has changed. I’m not sure it’s changed at all. As Brand Leaders, we still need to start with the consumer, drive for insights, match up their need states to your brand’s offering and then create a competitive offering that you can own so that no else can. A great brand has to be either better, different or cheaper. That still holds true, and we still aren’t at the media decision.

Yes, the media options have changed, but there is so much more to running a brand than just the media options. The average consumer now sees 6,000 ads per day, and likely only engages and acts on a few each day. Not just social media, but every little space to and from work each day. Media is ubiquitous, making it even more important to choose a media plan that makes sense for your brand. Before we get into the role of social media for brands, let’s review where Media options fit into the Brand Planning process. Here’s the fastest 130 word summary of the planning process.

We have some long-term thoughts on where the brand can go and the special assignment to get us on our way. And that helps shape the things we want to achieve with our brand. To get started, the brand has different options for how to get there

We try to find a slice of the population to get them to take an action that makes our brand bigger. We then find out what to say and how to talk to them to trigger that action we need to re-enforce why we can do it and others can’t.

We then create the most motivating stimulus to get them to take action and put it in part of their life where they are most likely to hear it and act on it.

So the media choice is all about finding a part of the Target Market’s life where they are most likely to hear the message and act on it. As I’ve always looked at media plans from the vantage of the Brand Leader, I’ve always looked at a balance of strategy, media efficiency, the link in with the creative and finally, the mood of the consumer at the time of the media exposure. So with TV, while day parts matter to the efficiency, the day of the week also matters to the mind and mood of the consumer. How receptive will they be to your message at the time of exposure? When I worked on serious healthcare brands that wanted to deliver serious news about the brand, we wanted to own Sunday nights when people’s brains were working full-speed as they get ready for work. But we would avoid Thursday night when we knew they were thinking about the weekend. When I worked in confectionery, the reverse was true, as we wanted to own the weekend slots.

So as we look at Social Media and where is their mood and emotional state as they engage certain social media options? I started with the 8 emotional need states that Hotspex as mapped out:

I seek knowledge
I want to be in control
I want to be myself
I’d like to be comfortable
I feel liked
I want to be noticed
I want to feel free
I feel optimistic

I then mapped out the consumer’s mood and emotional state while they are using the various social media tools.

For instance, when the consumer is seeking knowledge, they might use google, slideshare, wikipedia, TD Ameritrade or Harvard Business Review, depending on what knowledge they seek. But when they in the mood to be noticed or liked, the same consumer might then choose Facebook, foursquare, meebo, twitter or even Pinterest to express their personality on-line and connect with friends. The same consumer seeks out various social media tools to fuel their emotional needs at different points of the day. I know at lunch, I sneak away from the seriousness of work and read gossip on People.com or check for sports trades on ESPN.

From a Brand Leaders view, as you try to win with consumers,the first thing to do is understand where your brand stands emotionally with consumers. Using the Brand Love Curve, most brands start off at Indifferent, then move to Like It, then to Love It and finally to becoming a Beloved Brand. Be honest in your evaluation, use data to support your view, because it impacts the mood and emotional feelings of your consumer about your brand. For instance, at the Indifferent stage, where consumers have little or no opinion, I’d recommend using display ads that create awareness and in places that match up to your brand’s main strategy, positioning and messaging. You might not want to create a Facebook page that only 17 people like–which re-enforces that consumers are indifferent to your brand. Last month, I saw a rock quarry with a sign that says “Like Us on Facebook”. That’s crazy! Conversely, if you are a Beloved Brand, it becomes more about opinion and less about the pure facts. Engage on Facebook and twitter to continue the conversation and fuel the love of your consumers, use your popularity in those mediums to influence the feeling of a movement and popularity for your brand.

Whenever I talk to Social Media experts, they rarely talk about anything that involves the consumer. When I ask about the consumer, they blow me off, as though I don’t really understand Social Media and how powerful it will be in the future. They tell me I’m old school. But, regardless, I keep asking about the consumer because that’s what old school marketers are told to do. I need to know how my consumers interact with the medium because I need to match up the behaviour of my target so that I can get my message to them in a way that matches up with my strategic needs–whether that’s connected to the stage of my brand, any strengths and weaknesses in my brand funnel or a large opportunity in the market that plays into my brand’s natural strengths. Wait a second, that’s the same thing that great marketers have been doing since the 1920s. So while the execution of media has dramatically changed with the internet, the strategic thinking of really good marketers has not.

So next time you sit with a media expert, as they present ideas ask

How does my target consumer use this medium?
What is their mood and emotional state when they use that medium?
How receptive will they be with my brand’s strategy, positioning and message when they are engaged with that medium?

About Graham Robertson: I’m a marketer at heart, who loves everything about brands. I love great TV ads, I love going into grocery stores on holidays and I love seeing marketers do things I wish I came up with. I’m always eager to talk with marketers about what they want to do. I have walked a mile in your shoes. My background includes CPG marketing at companies such as Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer Consumer, General Mills and Coke. I’m now a marketing consultant helping brands find their love and find growth for their brands. I do executive training and coaching of executives and brand managers, helping on strategy, brand planning, advertising and profitability. I’m the President of Beloved Brands Inc. and can help you find the love for your brand. To read more about Beloved Brands Inc, visithttp://beloved-brands.com/inc/

How to Drive Profits through Your Brand

12 August 2012

46 Comments

The more loved the brand, the more powerful the brand and in turn the higher growth and profit it can generate.

A beloved brand can use the connection with their consumers as a source of power. The tighter the connection to consumers, the more loved the brand. As a brand becomes more loved, it becomes more powerful, and is able to wield that power onto all aspects of the market. A Beloved Brand can entice consumers to keep coming back, it can fight off competitors to win with key targets, it can generate earned media easier, it can challenge suppliers to come back with lower costs and it leverage its positional power to gain preferential treatment with real estate owners, government or tour operators. Even employees would rather work for a powerful beloved brand than an indifferent brand.

Brands move along a “LOVE CURVE” going from Indifferent to Like It to Love It, and then they’ll make it their Brand For Life. The farther along the curve, the more connected to the brand.

The “Brand Love Curve” can be linked to the Brand Funnel which becomes the underlying scoreboard. You can use the funnel to map out the buying process for the consumer, identifying both strategy and tactics to move them along the funnel towards being more loved. Used properly, the Power of the Brand can help drive the P&L with four important levers: driving increased price, lowering costs, increasing share, creating new markets. As a result, a powerful connected brand is much more efficient. And that efficiency can leverage the P&L to invest back in the brand’s connectivity and drive Profit and over the long run create value for the Brand.

As a Brand Leader looks to how to drive their Brand through the P&L, here are the four ways the Brand Leader can drive profits:

1. Using price as a weapon to drive Brand Value. It can be a price change, up or down, or it could be trying to get consumers to trade up or down.

Price Increase: You can do a price increase if the market or brand allows you. It likely has to be based on passing along cost increases. Factors that help are whether you are a healthy brand or it’s a healthy market as well as the power of your brand vs competition and channel.
Price Decrease: Used when fighting off competitor, if you need to react to a sluggish economy or channel pressure. Another reason to decrease price is if you have a competitive advantage around cost, whether that’s manufacturing, materials or distribution.

There are watch outs for price changes. It’s difficult to execute especially if it has to go through retailers. You need to understand power relationships–how powerful are the retailers. Many times, price changes are scrutinized so badly by retailers that you must have proof of why you are doing it. It’s likely your Competitors will (over) react. So your assumptions you used to go with the price increase will change right after. And finally, it’s not easy to change back.

Trading Up: If you have In a range of products, sometimes it can be beneficial to get consumers to trade up. Can you carve out a meaningful difference to create a second tier that goes beyond your current brand? Does your brand image/ratings allow it?
Trading Down: Risky, but you see unserved market, with minimal damage to image/reputation of the brand. In a tough economy, it might be better to create a value set of products rather than lower the price on your main products.

Beloved Brands seem more capable at driving profits through pricing, but they also are careful to ensure the premium does not become excessive to create backlash. There are a few watch outs around trying to trade up or down: Premium skus, can feel orphaned at retail world—on the shelf or missing ads or displays. Managing multiple price levels can be difficult—what to support, price differences etc. For all the effort you go to, make sure your margins stay consistently strong through the trading up or down. Be careful that you don’t lose focus on your core business. Can’t be all things to everyone. The final concern is what does it do your Brand’s image, especially risky when trading downward.

2. Managing cost as a weapon to enhance the Brand’s Value. It can be either your cost of goods or the potential selling costs.

Cost of Goods Decreases: You are able to use the power of your brand to drive power over your suppliers, you find cheaper potential raw materials, process improvement or find off-shore manufacturing.
Cost of Goods Increases: Make sure that you manage the COGs as they increase. Watch out for suppliers trying to pass along costs. But realize that with new technology, investing in brand’s improved image, going after premium markets, offering new benefit or a format change, that cost of good increases could be a reality.

The watch outs with managing costs: with cuts, make sure the product change is not significantly noticeable. You should understand any potential impact in the eyes of your consumer on your brand’s performance and image. Can the P&L cover these costs, either increased sales or efficiency elsewhere. Managing your margin % is crucial to the long-term success of your brand.

Selling Cost Decrease: To counter changes in the P&L (price, volume or cost), it’s very tempting to look to short-term P&L management or look at changes in go-to-market model. Where a brand stands on the product life cycle or how loved the brand is can really impact the selling costs. Even though we think that Beloved Brands have endless spending, they actually likely have a lower investment to sales ratio.
Selling Cost Increase: When you’re in Investment mode, defensive position trying to hold share against an aggressive competitor or when you see a proven payback in higher sales–with corresponding margins.

Always be in an ROI mindset: Manage your marketing costs as though every DOLLAR has to efficiently drive sales. Realize that short-term cuts can carry longer term impact. Competitive reaction can influence the impact of investment stance–like a price change, your competitor might over-react to your increases in spending.

3. Externally, the Share and volume game are traditional tools for brand. Either stealing other users or get current users to use more.

Offensive Share Gains: Use it when you have a significant Competitive Advantage or you see untapped needs in the market. Or opportunistic, use first mover advantage on new technology.
Defensive Share Stance: Hold the fort until you can catch up on technology, maintain profitability, loyal base of followers needs protecting.

Be careful when trying to gain share. A Beloved Brand has a drawing power where it does gain share without having to use attack modes. Attacking competitors can be difficult. It could just become a spend escalation with both brands just going at it. After a share war that’s not based on a substantive reasoning (eg. technology change), there might end up with no winners, just losers. Many times, the channel will try to play one competitor against another for their own gain. Watch out what consumers you target in a competitive battle: some may just come in because of the lower price and go back to their usual brand.

Get Current Users to Use More: When there is an opportunity to turn loyal users into creating a potential routine. Changing behaviours is more difficult than enticing trial. It’s a good strategy to use, when your there’s real benefit to your consumer using more. It’s hard to just get them to use more without a real reason.

There has to be a real benefit connected to using more or it might look hollow/shallow. Driving routines is a challenge. Even with “life saving” medicines, the biggest issue is compliance. Find something in their current life to help either ground it or latch onto. When I worked on Listerine, people only used mouthwash 20-30 times a year compared to 700+ brushing occasions. So we focused on connecting rinsing with Listerine to the twice daily brushing routine.

4. Increase the Size of the Market by Finding New Users or Creating New Uses.

Find New Users: When there is an untapped or under-served need. There could be a significant changing demographic that impacts your base. Or you are able to translate/transfer your reputation to a new user group. There should be something within your product/brand that helps fuel the brand post trial. Trial without repeat, means you’ll get the spike but then bust. Substantial investment required. Don’t let it distract from protecting the base loyal users.
Create New Uses: Format Line Extensions that take your experience or name elsewhere. Able to leverage same benefit in convenient “on the go” offering. Make sure current brand is in order before you divert attention, funding and focus on expansion area. Investment needed, could divert from spend on base business. Be careful because the legendary stories (Arm and Hammer) don’t come along as much as we hope.

Beloved Brands drive strong sales growth, which helps the P&L work harder and more efficiently.

Higher volume helps you exert pressure on costs. That could be supply costs, operations costs, distribution over even media costs.
Get More for Less From the Trade. You can begin exerting power over the sales channels to your advantage–trimming variable trade costs with retailers while demanding more display, prime real estate, coop advertising and more control over pricing. ROI on trade programs.
Smarter More Efficient Management: manage your inventories, meet customer expectations, control pricing and drive cheaper costs.
Growth means you start outgrowing any fixed costs. This includes start-up costs, sales force, product plants or R&D costs.
Lower Cost of Capital: More certainty means lower risk and you can re-invest, knowing the ROI will be quicker and stronger.

You should be looking at your business through the lens of your brand. Yes, the brand promise sets up how the external community views your brand whether that’s consumers, customers or key influencers. It’s the consistency in delivering the promise that connects consumers with your brand, both emotionally and rationally, letting it become a part of their lives. But equally so, brand becomes an internal beacon to help guide behaviour, decisions, action, structure and the formation of a culture. You should drive your growth and profitability through your brand, with a focus on driving share, enhancing price while managing costs and finding new markets.

Most marketers will tell you that branding is about positioning. I think positioning is a means to driving growth and making money.

To view a copy of How to drive Profits into your Brand, click below:

I run the Brand Leadership Learning Center with programs on this very subject as well as a variety of others that are all designed to make better Brand Leaders. Click on any of the topics below:

To join the Brand Leadership Learning Center Facebook page, click below:

If you or team has any interest in a training program, please contact me at graham.robertson@beloved-brands.com

About Graham Robertson: I’m a marketer at heart, who loves everything about brands. My background includes 20 years of CPG marketing at companies such as Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer Consumer, General Mills and Coke. The reason why I started Beloved Brands Inc. is to help brands realize their full potential value by generating more love for the brand. I only do two things: 1) Make Brands Better or 2) Make Brand Leaders Better. I have a reputation as someone who can find growth where others can’t, whether that’s on a turnaround, re-positioning, new launch or a sustaining high growth. And I love to make Brand Leaders better by sharing my knowledge. My promise to you is that I will get your brand and your team in a better position for future growth. To read more about Beloved Brands Inc., visit http://beloved-brands.com/inc/ or visit my Slideshare site at http://www.slideshare.net/GrahamRobertson/presentations where you can find numerous presentations on How to be a Great Brand Leader. Feel free to add me on Linked In at http://www.linkedin.com/in/grahamrobertson1 or on follow me on Twitter at @GrayRobertson1

Target Market: Why Not Just Target Everyone?

8 August 2012

2 Comments

“You have to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You cannot start with the technology and try to figure out where you are going to sell it”

Steve p. Jobs

I once had a Brand Leader tell me that their target was “18-65, new potential customers, current customers and employees”. My response was “you’ve left out tourists and prisoners?” It took me another hour to talk them into potentially focusing their limited investment on a group of people who might be most likely to buy their product. That Brand Leader was a Bank selling first time mortgages. While there could be an 18-year-old or a 64½ year old that might be buying a mortgage for the first time, it’s actually not likely. In fact 18-65 is the opposite of a target. I did manage to talk them into a 28-33 year old target, which gave us the chance to build insights about all the life-changes these consumers were going through (careers, babies, need for more space) that allowed us to develop Advertising Creative around moments that the consumer goes through and we focused the media in places where the 28-33 year olds would most likely see our ads. That would have been missed with the broader 18-65 target range–we would have spread our dollars so thin that no one would have seen it, and we would have spread our message so broadly that no one would have felt any connection to it.

A good brand strategy has four key elements:

FOCUS all your energy and investment to a particular strategic focal point or purpose. Match up your brand assets to pressure points you can break through, maximizing your limited resources—either financial resources or effort. Make tough choices and choose to be loved by the few rather than tolerated by the many.
You want that EARLY WIN, to kick-start of some momentum. Early Wins are about slicing off parts of the business or population where you can build further. Without the early win, you’ll likely seek out some new strategy even a sub-optimal one. Or someone in management will say “it’s not working”. You don’t want either of those–so the early win helps keep people moving towards the big win.
LEVERAGE everything to gain positional advantage or power that helps exert even greater pressure and gains the tipping point of the business that helps lead to something bigger. This is where strategy provides that return on Effort–you get more than the effort you are putting into it.
Seeing beyond the early win, there has to be a GATEWAY point, which is the entrance or a means of access to something even bigger. It could be getting to the masses, changing opinions or behaviours. Return on Investment or Effort.

Since Every brand has limited resources—marketing dollars, people resources to carry out programs and any share in the market, whether that’s share of voice, shelf, display, recommendations–you never want to waste these resources by spreading them so thinly on everyone. When you turn to your brand P&L, your CEO and finance people will expect you to deliver an appropriate ROI, or that investment will start to get smaller because they’ll give your dollars to someone else that can deliver a higher ROI. And yet, even with that, you still refuse to focus? If you had to lift up a car, would you rather 8 football players each standing 3 feet apart or a simple $89 car jack. I’d take the jack because lifting up at a key focal point gives you an early win as you start to watch that car start moving up, the leverage point of the jack holds that 3000-pound car in the air so you can change your tire without even breaking a sweat (the gateway) and you can now drive away. Those poor football players would begin shaking after a few minutes.

Spreading your limited resources across an entire population is cost prohibitive. While targeting everyone “just in case” might safe at first, it’s actually less safe because you never get to see the full impact. Realizing not everyone can like you is the first step to focusing all your attention on those that can love you. Be honest in assessing your brand’s assets and then match those assets up to who is most likely to be motivated enough to buy your brand. That’s when you start to define the target, and then take your resources and do your best to get them to buy.

Who is the Consumer Target and What do they want?

Try to balance the target based on demographics (age, sex, income) and psychographics (behaviours, attitudes and values). Yes, people criticize relying on demographics, but when you go to market, traditional media usually sells their media based on demographics (e.g. TV target is 18-34 years old). With new media, whether that’s search, display or social media it allows you to focus more on psychographics and match up to whats most important to the consumer. In terms of the creative, I always challenge people to narrow the target down to a 5 year range (eg. 28-33 years old) to give the creative the appropriate tone and feel. For every part of the buying system connected to your brand, take a walk in the shoes of the person who is paying their hard-earned money for the brand you offer, whether that’s a customer, consumer, purchaser, contractor or medical professional. I always think of my consumer as the “most selfish animal on the planet” just to ensure I’m doing the most I can to satisfy that selfishness. After all, the selfishness is well deserved, since they have money spend. Understand and meet those needs.

What do they want?
Consumers don’t care what you can do, until you care about what they need. They will only pay you money, if you give them something. That sounds simple. But, keep in mind they will pay you even more money if you give them what they need. And they’ll start to do that over and over again if they get even more from your brand. That means moving your brand from just features up to benefits and all the way up to emotional benefits. Ask consumers what they want. Listen. Don’t start with what you’re selling. Put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself over and over again “so what do I get from that” until you’ve come up with something powerful. Speak in terms of benefit, not features.

And remember, no one ever really wanted a quarter-inch drill; they just needed a quarter-inch hole. Sell the hole, not the drill.

About Graham Robertson: I’m a marketer at heart, who loves everything about brands. I love great TV ads, I love going into grocery stores on holidays and I love seeing marketers do things I wish I came up with. I’m always eager to talk with marketers about what they want to do. I have walked a mile in your shoes. My background includes CPG marketing at companies such as Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer Consumer, General Mills and Coke. I’m now a marketing consultant helping brands find their love and find growth for their brands. I do executive training and coaching of executives and brand managers, helping on strategy, brand planning, advertising and profitability. I’m the President of Beloved Brands Inc. and can help you find the love for your brand. To read more about Beloved Brands Inc, visithttp://beloved-brands.com/inc/

How to Write a Monthly Report? And why you should have one on your Brands.

7 August 2012

48 Comments

“You run the brand. Don’t Let the Brand Run You”

Every brand should have a monthly report to track how the brand is doing through the course of the year. In fact, if you are investing in a brand, it’s almost negligent not to do one. While these reports can feel tedious to write, the 3-4 hours it takes to dig in is a good investment in discipline, knowledge as well as maintaining that touch-feel of managing of the brand. The report serves as a guide for all those across the company to stay on track with the annual plan everyone is committed to delivering. It gives senior management awareness of the grass-root issues, it enables course correction decisions at the senior levels, it exposes weakness and risk. It should carry action statements within the document that serve as a mini-version of the brand plan. And finally, it gives everyone a sense that the brand team has full control of what’s happening on delivering the plan.

The monthly report should answer the following Consumption questions:

What’s the one-line story that captures what’s happening on the brand? This is your elevator speech for the CEO.
What’s the dollar, tonnage or unit share, on a 4 week, 12 week and YTD basis? Focus on the share that the company uses–it can vary. Having all 3 time breaks allows people to see the trends.
How’s the brand doing vs year ago, prior periods, vs the category or vs plan for the year? Speak in terms of both % and share point changes. Theory of relativity allows you to tell the story better.
What’s the competition doing? Trends in the consumption, tracking results related to their brand funnel or potential action that’s rumoured in the marketplace.
What are the top 3 drivers of the brand for the month or year? It can be a combination of consumption trends (sku, regions, channel, account, flavour etc), beneath the surface Brand Funnel scores, program results that are contributing to share, competitive moves. Explain how you’re going to continue these going forward.
What are the 3 inhibitors and what are you doing about it? These are things that are holding back the brand. Expose weaknesses you’re seeing in the programs, potential distribution gaps, competitive moves that are beating you, changes in consumer behaviour etc. Explain what you plan to do about it, giving the assurance that you are running the brand.

The monthly report should answer the following Shipment questions:

What’s the one-line story that captures what’s happening on the brand? This might be the story that you know you could back up, when confronted by the VP of sales in the same elevator. If it’s bad news, they will have to answer to the CEO.
What’s the overall sales for the month, the quarter and how will it impact the year-end call? Senior management might adjust their own forecast or may change their short-term investment stance based on that performance.
How are the sales by key account, by skus or by regions? Track on both the month and on a YTD basis. This highlights strength and exposes weakness.
What are the top 3 drivers of the brand for the month or year? You want to highlight the accounts, skus or regions that are showing the most growth, explain why and tell what you’re going to do to keep these going.
What are the 3 inhibitors and what are you doing about it? These are things that are holding back the brand. While the sales numbers are in the chart, start to explain the top line of what’s happening. Connect with the Account lead, ensuring they buy in to the statement you’re about to put. This gives you a chance to stay connected to what’s happening on each account. If your account people aren’t great at getting back to you, saying “I’m about to write a monthly report for the President and I want to know what’s going on at your account”. They’ll get back to you. Also, you need answers in the report to show that you are trying to get as much out of the brand as you can. Both short and long-term.

Digging In: As you are analyzing the mounds of data in front of you, you want to dig in everywhere that you can.

Start at the 4 week share for the brand overall, compare it to the 12-week, then the 52 week and see the major trend. This is the start of the story. Dig deeper on regions, channels and skus, figuring out the relative differences you start to see–either on the overall share basis (development index) or on the overall growth rate. Do the same with major competitors. That should give you the basis of your 4-week story and you can begin the document.
You next want to focus on the performance for the overall year. With both consumption and share, you want to give management a good forecast on what you think will happen. This can be in consultation with sales and your demand teams. The story has to be consistently told and shared with the senior leaders. If they sense a disconnect, it will look bad on you.
If you have good tracking studies, dig in on program tracking (advertising, sampling, in-store, professional recommendations etc) any brand funnel tracking (awareness, trial, repeat, U&A) that can support what’s happening on the consumption and shipments.
Drivers and Inhibitors are things that are happening in the market, not things that could happen. Ideally, they should match up to the Annual Brand Plan and the objectives on the brand. Think of these monthly reports like 1/12th of your brand plan–not only highlighting how the brand is doing, but what you are willing to do about it.
Keep it all on one page, forcing your writing style to be more direct. A senior leader should be able to digest it in 10 minutes.

When I was an ABM, I dreaded doing the monthly report. It was a chore that cut into my life. I always wondered if anyone read them. I was awful at the beginning and then became a master of the report. I kept thinking if I can just get promoted to Brand Manager, I’ll no longer have to do them. But as I made it up to the VP level, I read them in detail, even sending back questions for each brand. Then, I started to do my own version of the report for the President. I dug in as I had at the ABM level and crafted the story. Not only did it project a sense of control to my boss, it also allowed me to sleep better because it gave me the sense that I knew what was going on.

Here’s an example of a best in class Monthly Report (for a fictional brand):

How to Think Strategically

28 April 2012

107 Comments

If you don’t know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else. Yogi Berra

After 20 years of managing marketing teams, I’ve seen hundreds if not thousands of marketers–some classically trained CPG and some with just good instincts. While 100% of them would proclaim of themselves “I’m a strategic thinker”, in reality only about 15-20% were actually strategic. Yet, even some of the best implementers I know still want to be strategic. I don’t get it. Why? I want someone to just finally say “I’m a really good tactical thinker and not really that good at strategy”. I have finally started to ask some of my friends who are great implementers: “Why do you want to be strategic?” I finally got an answer that made sense. “Strategic people get paid more”.

Are you sure you are Strategic?

To me, the difference between a strategic thinker and a non-strategic thinker is whether you see questions first or answers first. Strategic Thinkers see “what if” questions before they see solutions. They map out a range of decision trees that intersect and connect by imagining how events will play out. They reflect and plan before they act. They are thinkers and planning who can see connections. Non Strategic Thinkers see answers before questions. They get to answers quickly, and will get frustrated in the delays of thinking. They think doing something is better than doing nothing at all. They opt for action over thinking. They are impulsive and doers who see tasks. They are frustrated by strategic thinkers. Aren’t we all.

But to be a great marketer, you must be a bit of a chameleon. While pure strategy people make great consultants, I wouldn’t want them running my brand. They’d keep analyzing things to death, without ever taking action. And while tactical people get stuff done, it might not be the stuff we need done. I want someone running my brand who is both strategic and non-strategic, almost equally so. You must be able to talk with both types, at one minute debating investment choices and then be at a voice recording deciding on option A or B. You need to make tough choices but you also have to inspire all those non-strategic thinkers to be great on your brand instead of being great on someone else’s brand.

OK, then you can’t just one day wake up and be strategic. You need more discipline in the way you think. Here’s some thoughts on how to force yourself to be strategic. Here’s HOW TO THINK MORE STRATEGICALLY.

Focus, Early Win, Leverage, Gateway

So Let’s see if there is a model that can help people be better at strategy. When I teach people this model, I tell them it will force them to structure their thinking at first, but then it should just start to flow easily. It’s like driving a car in England, it feels different at first, but then natural very soon after.

A simple way is to break it down into the 4 elements of a good strategy: there is usually a good Focus of resources on what has the biggest potential return, an Early Win that allows you to confidently keep going, a Leverage point you can twist and turn and finally a Gateway to something even bigger. Here’s how the 4 stages of thinking works:

FOCUS all your energy to a particular strategic point or purpose. Match up your brand assets to pressure points you can break through, maximizing your limited resources—either financial resources or effort. Make tough choices and opt be loved by the few rather than tolerated by the many.
You want that EARLY WIN, to kick-start of some momentum. Early Wins are about slicing off parts of the business or population where you can build further. Without the early win, you’ll likely seek out some new strategy even a sub-optimal one. Or someone in management will say “it’s not working”. You don’t want either of those–so the early win helps keep people moving towards the big win.
LEVERAGE everything to gain positional advantage or power that helps exert even greater pressure and gains the tipping point of the business that helps lead to something bigger. This is where strategy provides that return–you get more than the effort you’re doing from it.
Seeing beyond the early win, there has to be a GATEWAY point, which is the entrance or a means of access to something even bigger. It could be getting to the masses, changing opinions or behaviours. Return on Investment or Effort.

Looking at using “Focus, Early Win, Leverage, Gateway” in Real Situations

Lots of explanations on strategy use war analogies, so let’s look at D-Day and see how it matches up. While Germany was fighting a war on two fronts (Russia and Britain), the Allied Forces planned D-Day for 2 years and joined in full force to focus all their attention on one beach, on one day. The surprise attack gave them an early win, and momentum which they could then leverage into a bigger victory then just one beach. Getting on mainland Europe gave the allied forces the gateway they needed to steamroll through on a town by town basis and defeat the Germans. The allied forces had been on the defensive for years, but landing on D-Day gave them one victory and the tipping point to winning the war. For those who struggle with focus, imagine that if the Allied Forces decided to place one soldier every 15 feet from Denmark all the way around Europe to Greece. Would it have been successful? Not a chance.

If you were to write the brand plan for D-Day, it might look like this:

Vision: Win World War II
Goals: Re-claim Europe, remove Hitler, minimize losses
Key Issue: How do we turn the tide in the war effort in Europe?
Strategy: Focused Pin Pointed Attack to gain a positional power on Continental Europe.
Tactic: D-Day, take all our troops and attack the Beaches of Normandy to get back on mainland Europe and battle Germany on an equal footing.

While war analogies put some heightened sense of intelligence into marketing, let’s look at an example using Avril Lavigne and see if it still works. If it does, then maybe it’s still a good model. In 2005, Avril’s career was flat, a normal path for young musicians. To kick off her album, she did a series of free mall concerts—and was criticized as desperate. She was desperate and no one really understood the logic. But think about it: mall’s are exactly where her target (11-17 female) hangs out, allowing her to focus all her energy on her core target. She attracted 5k screaming 13 year olds per mall—creating an early win among her most loyal of fans: those who loved and adored her. She was able to leverage the good will and energy to get these loyal fans to go buy her album in the mall record stores which helped her album debut at #1 on the charts. And everyone knows the charts are the gateway to the bigger mass audience–more radio play, more itunes downloads and more talk value. The comeback complete. Madonna has done the same strategy, except she seeded her songs into dance clubs for the last 20 years.

If you were to write the Avril Brand Plan, here’s how it might look;

Vision: Recording Super Star
Goals: New Album Sales, increase popularity, new recording contract
Key Issue: How do we drive album sales for a slumping Avril?
Strategy: Reconnect with core teen fans to create momentum to trigger album sales
Tactic: Free Mall tour to get most loyal fans to reconnect and buy the new album.

Avril Lavigne Wows Thousands At Free Indy Concert

INDIANAPOLIS — Pop singer Avril Lavigne serenaded more than 2,000 fans during a free concert at a shopping mall. “You guys are awesome,” the 19-year-old Lavigne told the enthusiastic crowd Thursday at Glendale Mall. Some people waited several hours to see the singer perform songs from her upcoming CD and 2002 hits “Complicated” and “Sk8er Boi.” The half-hour acoustic concert was part of a 21-date “Live and By Surprise Tour” promoting her new CD, “Under My Skin.” People started lining up at the mall early in the afternoon for a chance to see Avril Lavigne up close and personal.

Starbucks experienced tremendous growth through the 80s and 90s, mainly because of the their coffee. Starbucks quickly become a life ritual in the morning to wake you up. The focus shifted to build a broader portfolio of products around these two time slots. The early win were a series of new products that made Starbucks seem big on innovation. Sandwiches, Wraps, pastries, cookies. All high quality. The leverage point was turning a coffee routine into a breakfast/lunch routine. The gateway is expanding the life ritual of Starbucks so that it’s now a broad-based place for breakfast and a light lunch, but still connected with coffee. No longer are they just for coffee. Recently, Starbucks has been giving incentives through their “treat receipt” program to get people to come into the store after 2pm.

If you were to write the Starbucks, here’s how it might look;

Vision: Cherished meeting place for all your quick service food needs
Goals: Increase Same store sales, greater share of requirements from Starbucks loyalists
Key Issue: How do we drive significant growth of same store sales?
Strategy: Move Starbucks loyalists to lunch with an expanded lunch menu.
Tactic: Light lunch menu, increase desert offerings.

Most Marketers Struggle with Strategic Thinking

However, even though all these marketers are saying they are strategic, strategy actually runs counter intuitive to many marketers. You mean by focusing on something so small, I can get something big. That makes no sense. I better keep trying to do everything to everyone. But that’s exactly how a fulcrum works to give you leverage. Next time you’re taking off your tire on your car, try getting 6 really strong guys to lift your car or just get a tiny little car jack. This is the same model for brand strategy. Focus on your strengths, focus on those consumers who will most love you and focus on the one potential action point you can actually get them to do.

Many marketers always struggle with the idea of focus and always try to do it all. And for everyone. They worry they’ll pick a potential target too tight and alienate others, focus on one message and forget to tell all they know and miss a crucial fact or focus too tight on one part of the business and forget the others. I saw a brief describe their target was “18-65, current customers, potential customers and employees”. I said “all you’ve eliminated is prisoners and tourists.” I get it that it can feel scary to focus. But it should feel even more scary not focusing, just in case you’re wrong. You always operate with limited resources no matter how big of a brand: financial, people, partnering, time. Trying to do everything spreads your limited resources and your message so that everything you do is “ok” and nothing is “great”. In a crowded and fast economy, “ok” never breaks through so you’ll never get the early win to gain that tipping point that opens up the gateway. When you focus, three things happen: 1) you actually become very good at what you do 2) people perceive you to be very good at what you do since that is the only thing you do 3) you can defend the positioning territory

Many times, Marketers fall in love with the best ideas—not always the best strategies. This is where they tactical and they end up chasing down a path with a hollow gateway. It’s crucial you always start with the best strategies and then find the best ideas that fit with those strategies, not the other way around. What you need to do, is try to map out all the potential wins, try to understand what’s behind that win, and if there is something bigger then go for it, but if there isn’t, then you should reject this path. There has to be a large gateway behind those cool ideas, so you love what the idea does more so than just loving the idea.

Strategic Thinking: Focus, Early Win and Leverage should lead to a gateway to Something even Bigger

Do you want to be an amazing Brand Leader? We can help you.

Read more on how to utilize our Brand Leadership Learning Center where you will receive training in all aspects of marketing whether that’s strategic thinking, brand plans, creative briefs, brand positioning, analytical skills or how to judge advertising. We can customize a program that is right for you or your team. We can work in person, over the phone or through Skype. Ask us how we can help you.

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How to Think Strategically

Are you sure you are Strategic?

Focus, Early Win, Leverage, Gateway

Looking at using “Focus, Early Win, Leverage, Gateway” in Real Situations

Most Marketers Struggle with Strategic Thinking

Strategic Thinking: Focus, Early Win and Leverage should lead to a gateway to Something even Bigger

Do you want to be an amazing Brand Leader? We can help you.

Ask Beloved Brands to help train you to be a better brand leader.

FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS!!!

Beloved Brands Start with a Big Idea

The 3 Step Process

Filtering the Best Ideas with THE BIG EASY

If you don’t love the work, how do you expect your consumer to love your brand?

Other Stories You Might Like

Share this:

Before You Get Started: How will you Judge the Ad? Here are the ABC’S of Advertising

How to use Feedback to make the Work Better

Tips on Giving Feedback

Here’s the old tired Archaic 1950s style processes:

I’d suggest you Take A 30-Minute client huddle helps because:

Tips to help Clients provide Clear Decision Making Process in place

If how you show up to the agency will produce better advertising work. Then show up right.

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Share this:

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Use this list to ensure that you will be a successful Brand Manager career.

Ask Beloved Brands how we can help train you to be a better brand leader.

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Wheat Thins “Wheat Thins”

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Share this:

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Do you want to be an amazing Brand Leader? We can help you.

Ask Beloved Brands to run a workshop to find your brand positioning or ask how we can help train you to be a better brand leader.

Share this:

Share this:

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The monthly report should answer the following Consumption questions:

The monthly report should answer the following Shipment questions:

Here’s an example of a best in class Monthly Report (for a fictional brand):

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Share this:

Are you sure you are Strategic?

Focus, Early Win, Leverage, Gateway

Looking at using “Focus, Early Win, Leverage, Gateway” in Real Situations

Most Marketers Struggle with Strategic Thinking

Strategic Thinking: Focus, Early Win and Leverage should lead to a gateway to Something even Bigger

Do you want to be an amazing Brand Leader? We can help you.

Ask Beloved Brands to help train you to be a better brand leader.

Share this: