Category: Brand Management

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Target Market Definition: How to Create Yours

Target Market Definition Brand Strategy
(Reading Time: 5 minutes)

In a previous post, we met Beth and Andy, two fictitious (but reality-based) designers who take very different approaches to their target market definition.

Andy’s approach is “I can do it all, and all sales are good sales.” Beth is more deliberate and precise.  By defining her ideal client and project, she also defines the kind of business she doesn’t want. Hers is a much more effective approach, particularly for challenger brands.

Today, I’ll show you how to create your ideal target market definition. The framework is meant to be broad enough to apply to everything from a solo consultant to a major consumer brand, so it will need to be tweaked as appropriate to your particular situation. (Also, for the rest of this post, I’ll use the word “consumers” to include clients and customers as well.) Continue reading “Target Market Definition: How to Create Yours”

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Dumb Numbers

(Reading Time: 3 minutes)
Nate Silver knows a smart number from a dumb one.

In the months leading up to Tuesday’s presidential election, the major news networks regularly presented the results of polls of the popular vote.

Funny thing, though – here in America, we don’t elect candidates based on the popular vote.  We have an Electoral College.

A poll of the national popular vote is kind of a dumb number. Continue reading “Dumb Numbers”

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The Long Haul of Branding

(Reading Time: 4 minutes)

After a recent presentation, an audience member asked for my opinion on the most common misconception about branding.

It was an easy question to answer. It’s the idea that branding is an initiative.  That it’s something that requires a brief investment of attention and time, and can then be moved down the priority list. This way of thinking suggests that branding is a sprint.  But it’s not.  It’s more like marathon.  It’s a commitment for the long haul. Continue reading “The Long Haul of Branding”

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Less Can Be More

(Reading Time: 4 minutes)

A young brand manager faces his vice-president of marketing, ready to present the first strategic plan he has ever created. He is nervous, but also confident in the fact that he has done a thorough job. The two fat binders that sit on the veep’s desk are proof of this.

The brand manager launches into his spiel. His presentation is a dazzling, overstuffed collection of words and pictures. Charts follow graphs. Data tables precede more dense data tables. At one point, the young man sets a world record for “most words crammed into a single PowerPoint slide, ever.” Continue reading “Less Can Be More”

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For New Brand Ideas, Look Beyond Your Backyard

(Reading Time: 4 minutes)

We’re all looking for the next big thing – that silver-bullet product or that new brand idea that sets us apart from the pack and sends our growth curve rocketing ever skyward.

Trouble is, we often look in the wrong places. We’re waist-deep in the same data points, stuck between the walls of our narrowly-defined industries. We’re looking at the usual suspects and, inexplicably, expecting them to tell us something new. We’re turning over the dirt in our own backyards. Continue reading “For New Brand Ideas, Look Beyond Your Backyard”

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Super Bowl Ads: A Brief Post-Mortem

(Reading Time: 3 minutes)

So the results are in:

  • According to the USA Today Ad Meter – a survey of 288 volunteers in Portland, OR, and McLean, VA – the most-liked Super Bowl ad was the Doritos “crystal ball” spot.  Next up were the Budweiser “circus horse romance” and “Clydesdale plays fetch” spots.
  • According to Nielsen IAG, the most-liked ad was Bud’s “fetch” spot.  After this, two Doritos spots: “crunch causes things to happen” and “crystal ball.”
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The CEO Doesn’t Get It!

(Reading Time: 4 minutes)

A reader recently called to talk about a problem with her CEO. For reasons that are about to become abundantly clear, this reader will remain nameless.

She told me that she and her work group have great energy to develop a branding program for their company. They want to bring the company “out of the dark ages” of a production/sales mentality, into a new day.

But the CEO isn’t having it. He doesn’t think branding applies to his company and doesn’t see it as a priority. How, the reader asked, could she convince him otherwise? Continue reading “The CEO Doesn’t Get It!”

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300-page Branding Statements?! A Plea for Simplicity.

(Reading Time: 3 minutes)

A colleague relayed the following story about a conversation with the chief marketing officer of an international retail chain. This CMO was grousing about having paid a big-name agency $500,000 for a branding statement.

But it wasn’t the price that bothered him – it was the fact that the statement was 300 pages long (not a typo), and he doubted whether anyone, himself included, would read it. He went on to say that what he had read was far too open to interpretation to suit him. Continue reading “300-page Branding Statements?! A Plea for Simplicity.”

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Want Results? Get Objective.

(Reading Time: 4 minutes)

It was 1995 when the phone rang at Van Melle USA, manufacturer of Airheads and Mentos candies. A reporter from a major advertising industry publication was calling Liam Killeen, Van Melle’s vice president of marketing.

The reason?  To inform him that a panel of big-agency creative directors had just voted the Mentos ads the worst of the year. So, the reporter asked, did Liam have any plans to kill the campaign?

“Yes, we absolutely do,” said Liam.

The reporter began to make some noises about what a smart decision that was, but Liam interrupted him. Continue reading “Want Results? Get Objective.”