‘Tis The Season. (For strategic planning.)

As this difficult economic year winds to a close, many companies will tell you they are happy to have simply survived. But as CEO strategist Dr. Rick Johnson writes in a recent article, “…now is not the time to dig deeper into the bunker. Now is the time to start thinking about revisiting your vision.”

In, “It’s Time to Revisit Strategy,” Johnson talks about the critical need for strategic planning: “A strategic plan is not a business plan and it is not the same as your annual budget with departmental objectives. However, these vehicles become a part of the tactical support for meeting strategic objectives once the strategic plan has been approved and implemented. To be successful in this century requires a heightened sense of awareness about what is going on both inside and outside of the business.”

But many organizations don’t readily see the value of strategic planning when change is rapid and profits are lean. Says Johnson, “Executive teams become so immersed in the day-to-day activities of running the business during a recession that strategic thinking with respect to long term planning is often not a priority. However, effective leaders recognize the value of strategic thinking backed up by a strategic plan.”

At Cohesion, we’ve watched as companies have come to view strategic planning as either “outdated” or something they will “get around to later.” But as Johnson points out, the need is more urgent — and more organic: “Strategic planning is a disciplined effort to support fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, what it does and why it does it, with a focus on where it wants to go and how it is going to get there.”

As Cohesion shifts its model from ‘agency’ to ‘messaging company,’ more and more companies are seeking our strategic planning services. As part of an overall approach, Cohesion helps organizations develop insightful and practical strategic foundation in three phases:

1. Strategic Direction: Refine current business, brand and marketing strategy (based on the timing of your fiscal year), and lay the groundwork for next year’s plan.
2. Positioning/Messaging Direction: Refine the various brand, service and product positioning and messaging needs for your organization.
3. Tactical Direction: Based on your organization’s needs, develop specific messaging and tactical templates for internal execution — or turnkey development for you.

Should your organization update its strategic plan? From a positioning and messaging standpoint, are you living and driving your core purpose? Are you working toward every business and brand goal you’ve planned? If not, perhaps you could use a little help getting there?

While I’m working on my next post, I hope you’ll browse the archives. I also hope you’ll visit Cohesion to find out how we help organizations build stronger messaging to increase consistency, lower cost and drive growth.

The World Has Changed. (Are you telling the right story?)

“We need to rethink our message. What we’re saying doesn’t make sense anymore.”

–Fortune 1000 CMO, September, 2009.

This chief marketing officer isn’t alone. In the past 60 days, our firm has interviewed dozens of C-level executives and other marketing/sales professionals who agree. As they plan now for 2010, they’re including a (new) line item in their marketing strategies and budgets: messaging. Because for them, what worked in the past has little if any relevance today (much less tomorrow). According to McKinsey, “For the immediate future, business leaders will have to master the disciplines of uncertainty. (Managers) must drop the pretense that they can predict the future.”

An article in the October 19, 2009 issue of Entrepreneur, asks the question: “Is your brand story doing justice to your business?” Author Mary van de Wiel (Van), spells out a number of points, including: “Think about how you want your audience to react to your story. What’s the outcome–the object lesson here? What kind of conclusion do you want them to reach?”

Building the right story means developing a foundation of messaging that is flexible, adaptable and nimble to take best advantage of emerging opportunities, while mitigating unforeseen obstacles. As the business world continues to shift beneath your feet, a message platform (and the story that guides it) can be the roadmap for remaining relevant to every stakeholder in every situation.

As we all look to a more positive 2010, every company needs to question its relevance, its value — and yes, its story. So, do you have the right one? (If not, I know a firm that can help.)

While I’m working on my next post, I hope you’ll browse the archives. I also hope you’ll visit Cohesion to find out how we help organizations build stronger messaging to increase consistency, lower cost and drive growth.

‘The Idea’ Awarded Top Medical Blog Distinction



In a recent poll conducted by NewDoctor (a Medical Professional Database of more than 100,000 monthly users), The Idea was voted “an excellent source of information.” It’s great to know that marketing (and other) professionals in the healthcare category are interested in our point of view on brand and communications strategy.

According to an email from NewDoctor.com, the site has awarded The Idea with a Top Medical Blogs award distinction.

Thanks to everyone for your continued interest in The Idea. While I’m working on my next post, I hope you’ll browse our archives. I also hope you’ll visit Cohesion to find out how we help organizations build stronger messaging to increase consistency, lower cost and drive growth.

(Re)Discovering Relevant Value. (Part 2 in a series.)

“Procter & Gamble, the world’s largest consumer products company, has just announced a stunning new business strategy to jump-start growth. It begins in a startling, almost counterintuitive way — with company values and sense of purpose. Invoke the heart and care about human needs, the strategy seems to say, and the money will follow.” –HarvardBusiness.org, Sept. 2009

As the world economy emerges from recession, the corporate community is seeking new strategies to compete more effectively. Among them is a groundswell to (re)consider corporate values as a vital business tool that – when identified, articulated and communicated properly – can enhance economic value. To be sure, organizations aren’t examining their values solely out of a sense of altruism, community stewardship or to ‘feel good’ about themselves. Rather, this trend is emerging as a critical business strategy focused on boosting the bottom line.

In the second part of Cohesion‘s white paper series titled, ‘The Fall of Incrementalism,’ we discuss the resurgence of corporate values as a catalyst for simulating relevant value – the reason why customers buy. We examine how the practice of incrementalism can be a barrier to such forward thinking, unless harnessed properly. When executed in the framework of a broader strategy, incremental moves can be a positive force for change. When they are not, the results can range from disappointing to disastrous.

To read the full white paper: The Fall of Incrementalism (Rediscovering Relevant Value), please click here. To read the first part in this series, please click here.

While I’m working on my next post, I hope you’ll read about how Cohesion helps organizations build stronger messaging to increase consistency, lower cost and drive growth, here.

“A Messaging Plan? (Do we even have a message?)”

As businesses emerge from their long, dark marketing sleep, it’s important to recognize that things really have changed. From environment to attitude, the marketing factors impacting business have shifted. And whether you believe these are short-term changes, or changes that will last forever, one thing is certain: Your business message cannot be the same as it was before.

Recently, we were called into an organization to develop a messaging plan. Sitting with the company’s marketing staff, it became obvious that they wanted us to concentrate on the mechanics of distributing the message, and not the message itself. “Our message is still right,” said one of the marketing folks, after we questioned whether the economic events of the last year had shifted the relevance of their message.

As our conversation continued, the head of sales was called in to our meeting. Told that marketing was interested in developing a new messaging plan, his only response was, “A messaging plan? Do we even have a message?”

Sales, arguably the most critical messaging audience, didn’t believe the company had a consistent message.

As you plan for our new economy, strategic and tactical marketing planning are critical. But as you plan, don’t forget to evolve your message. (By the way, if your organization is ready to develop stronger and more relevant messaging, I know a firm that can help.)

While I’m working on my next post, I hope you’ll read about how Cohesion helps organizations build stronger messaging to increase consistency, lower cost and drive growth, here.

The (Not-So) Hidden Cost Of Saying The Wrong Thing.

As we study new ways to save money and grow business efficiency, one area has gone largely untouched: Communication. Interesting, because it’s one of the biggest issues facing business today.

An SIS International Research study discovered that 70% of small- to mid-size businesses claim that ineffective communication is their primary problem. Communication issues are not just annoying; they are also costly. A business with 100 employees spends an average downtime of 17 hours a week clarifying communication. This translates to an annual cost of $528,443.

As businesses get larger, so do the communications problems.

Most C-level managers readily admit that their organizations do a poor job of communicating. But while many admit the problem, few have focused on its answer. For most companies, communication is a major liability.

A typical organization pays the average employee $9,000 a year to read, write and answer email. Mid-sized corporations spend $2.5 million on internal meetings every year with little or nothing to show for it. A recent University of Maryland study states that poor communication in U.S. hospitals costs $12 billion a year, which represents more than half of an average hospital’s margin. Many other industries pay a similar price.

Add to this the inefficiencies in brand communications, marketing direction and sales efforts, and many companies simply throw up their hands. “Companies live in denial,” a CMO recently told me. “Because without a strategic path to change messaging and behavior, everyone is convinced that communication is too big and too soft a problem to wrestle.”

Not only is the problem complex, it’s fragmented. While many companies do a good job of project and/or vertical communications efforts, very few address the issue in a holistic way. Said my CMO friend, “The sad thing is, with the right approach you can make tremendous strides. Problem is, most managers don’t know how and where to start – or how to keep the process alive.”

(By the way, if your organization is ready to tackle the communications problem, or if you’re simply looking for stronger brand and communications messaging, I know a firm that can help.)

While I’m working on my next post, I hope you’ll read about how Cohesion helps organizations build stronger messaging to increase consistency, lower cost and drive growth, here.

Save Our Burning Library. (A plea to marketers.)

It’s not in vogue to look to the past for lessons anymore. Today, many in marketing have built a wall behind them – having decided that the world of business began just a few short years ago. These people believe that things are simply moving too fast and have changed too much for marketing history to hold any answers.

It’s been said that when an elderly person dies – because we lose their knowledge and wisdom – a library has been burned. Sadly, it appears that marketing may be suffering a similar fate. As we race to harness the speed of our new marketing world, the knowledge of our past is slipping away.

In a recent Ad Age article (sign-up may be required), Pete Blackshaw writes: “Speed is good, and change is gospel, but we might be moving too darn fast and making too many dumb or shortsighted moves along the way. That fuels cynicism, which is not what we need in an environment of increasingly empowered consumers, eroded trust and greater regulatory scrutiny.”

Blackshaw continues,”We blog, we Twitter, we litter e-mail boxes. We celebrate every online ‘conversation’ as though it actually matters. We’re breaking new ground, but we’re acquiring a few bad habits along the way.”

Marketing (like all forms of business) is an evolution. Where few things ever start from scratch, because history is always part of the context. The best marketers know this, and work to adapt new trends and technologies to existing schools of thought. They learn the lessons of the past so as to not repeat its failures.

Smart marketing is about the long view. Building credible, sustainable brands. Creating honest and relevant dialog with customers. Building business trust and value for the future. Technology (as wonderful and critically important as it is), is but a tool to achieve these things. It cannot replace the 150 years of learning that must be a part of every marketer’s point of view.

Because to deny – or worse, to not know – the past is to sell our marketing future short.

(By the way, if you’re looking to balance today’s marketing needs with tomorrow’s marketing goals, I know a firm that can help.)

While I’m working on my next post, I hope you’ll read about how Cohesion helps organizations build stronger messaging to increase consistency, lower cost and drive growth, here.

And Now, The Brand Renaissance.

Those who have called a death to brands have severely underestimated their potential. In fact, as I suggested in an earlier post, brands – true brands – may be the answer to many of our current marketing ills.

In a recent post, entitled, Branding: The Next Generation, Martin Lindstrom of Branding Strategy Insider, says this: “There’s every indication that branding will move…into an even more sophisticated realm — reflecting a brave new world where the consumer desperately needs something to believe in — and where brands very well might provide the answer. I call this realm the HSP — the Holistic Selling Proposition.” Lindstrom’s HSP (Holistic Selling Proposition), follows an evolution that began with Rosser Reeves‘ original USP (Unique Selling Proposition). “Each holistic brand has its own identity, one that is expressed in its every message, shape, symbol, ritual, and tradition — just as sports teams and religion do today.”

True brands — those that can establish honest, credible rapport with customers — will thrive in our new marketing world. And while Lindstrom’s vision of ‘brand nirvana’ for some brands (think Harley-Davidson), is certainly accurate, there is also a place for those brands that simply have a relevant and differentiated premise, act on purpose and keep their promises. These brands listen to customer wants and needs and consistently incorporate comments and feedback back into their evolution and growth.

Not because they have to; but because they want to. Brands that work to become a conduit between company and customer, rather than a top-down contrivance of management, will win in our new marketing world. Those that do not will continue to function as an over-dressed product or service, but not a brand.

The days of so-called ‘branding’ (slapping a contrived name, a cool logo and a generic tagline on a product or service) are over. But the dawn of true brands — born of mutual respect, need and conversation between organizations and audiences — well, those days have just begun.

While I’m working on my next post, I hope you’ll read about how Cohesion helps organizations build stronger messaging to increase consistency, lower cost and drive growth, here.

The Economy Is Ready To Grow. (Is your brand?)

By most accounts, including the recent address to Congress by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and a report by Charles Schwab’s chief investment strategist, the economy is about to start growing. By any measure, that’s good news for business, and even better news for the business of marketing. But before we dust off old marketing plans and begin to assess current budgets, let’s take away some learning from the recession.

As attention turns to marketing again, companies first need to admit that the business world has changed. Dramatically. And with it, the landscape that every brand now faces. In our new reality, brands cannot simply shout hollow promises; they must provide real value. Value, that can withstand the test of customer discussion and feedback. Social media has forever changed the ‘contract’ that companies have with their customers. Customers that don’t like your product, service or brand now have a forum through which they can instantly tell you — and others.

Today’s brand must hold true value, defined on the basis of long-term human benefit, rather than short-term shareholder value. Value, that an organization can honestly deliver on every front — from marketing and sales, through customer service and behavior, to management objectives and actions.

It’s easy to see that the tactical world of marketing has changed. From the death of the newspaper industry to the rise of social media, the communication paradigm is in transition. But before you address this obvious media shift, I implore you to study the relevance of your brand. Before you throw an old, inside-out promise into a new, outside-in world, your brand and its messaging will need a few tweaks. Some brands, more than others. Please, before you spend a nickel on execution, re-stage your efforts based on this strategic reality. Your customers, and your shareholders (in the long run), will thank you.

Is your company ready? Are your brands? Is your message? (By the way, if you need a bit of strategic assistance, I know a firm that can help.)

While I’m working on my next post, I hope you’ll read about how Cohesion helps organizations build stronger messaging to increase consistency, lower cost and drive growth, here.

People Don’t Read Anymore. (Except for you, right now.)

It has been a standard marketing axiom for the past two decades: People just don’t read anymore. Originally, this thinking was attached to the printed word, as in “people don’t read books, or newspapers anymore.” In recent years, however, it has become a more general indictment — one which has been used to justify everything from how much copy should be used in marketing materials to how much funding should go to education.

During his keynote speech at the Macworld 2008 Expo, Steve Jobs, discussing Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader said, “the fact is that people don’t read anymore.” He noted: “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year.”

Yes, research proves we spend less time with the printed page. Books and newspapers, especially. But here is where the generalization rings false: Many people (perhaps you) are actually reading MORE than before. While the web has changed what we read and how we read it, for many, it has also increased our appetite for information. And, with it, the amount of time we spend reading. (If I’m not mistaken, you’re reading this right now.)

A plea for reality: Marketers, it is time to stop generalizing that ‘people don’t read,’ and begin understanding that more people ‘do’ than ‘don’t.’ This is not meant to endorse our growing literature-averse population, nor defend an appalling drop in grammatical standards. It is simply to say that well-written words are still a powerful weapon and that there is still (and in some cases, a growing) audience for their readership. Of course, it helps if you actually have something to say.

Remember: people don’t read what’s in front of them; people read what interests them. The basic principles of context and relevance still apply as new trends emerge: Every post, text and ‘tweet’ simply give us the ability to be more immediate and more intimate.

Businesses take note: Not only do people still read, in many cases, they read more. Social media in all its forms have given new relevance to the written word. One could argue (and I am) that for many businesses, the written word has again become the most important marketing tool there is. If you’re still reading this, you just might agree.

While I’m working on my next post, I hope you’ll read about how Cohesion helps organizations build stronger messaging to increase consistency, lower cost and drive growth, here.