An interview with Mark Pollard (Podcast)🔈

Arek Dvornechuck

Published in

Ebaqdesign™

15 min readNov 13, 2020

In this episode, Arek Dvornechuck interviews Mark Pollard and we talk about brand strategy framework.

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“Brand Strategy: Build a Business that Lasts” by Mark Pollard.

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1. Warning about frameworks

Arek Dvornechuck:
What’s up branding experts! — Arek here at Ebaqdesign. And welcome to On Branding Podcast — The only podcast where I interview branding experts to give you actionable tips on everything branding and beyond! And in this episode, I interview Mark Pollard, and we talk about Brand Strategy Framework. Mark is a strategist, speaker, and writer born in Sydney and living in New York. And Mark has spoken at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, and he’s focused on helping people, who think for a living, live, which means he trains strategist. So he has trained strategists all over the world, and he runs the community and podcast Sweathead.
Mark has also contributed to 10s of publications, including Vice, Quartz, Wharton’s Future of Advertising, and the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA) report. Mark runs his strategic firm ‘Mighty Jungle’, under which he has worked with clients like The Economist, Facebook, Twitter, The Wall Street Journal, Mozilla, Euro News, just to name a few. So Mark, recently published his book “Strategy Is Your Words: A Strategist’s Fight for Meaning”, and this is the book we are going to talk about today. Hello, Mark, thank you so much for taking the time to join us on our podcast.‍

Mark Pollard:‍
Greetings. Thank you very much for having me.‍

Arek Dvornechuck:
Thanks. So in the first half of your book, you go into the words of strategies used in their heads was, like imposter syndrome, lone wolf, truth, clarity, empathy, and so on. In the second half, you feature some of your go-to strategy techniques and tools that you use. So I wanted to make this podcast actionable and talk about your four-point strategy framework. Okay? So, in your book, you’ll give a warning about frameworks and you say; “strategists are addicted to frameworks and side effects of frameworks can be deadly”. So basically, you say that frameworks can actually scare some people out of thinking, but they are here not to just prevent us from thinking but to help us start thinking right. So can you speak to that a bit? What’s the problem with using frameworks and how we should approach using them?

Mark Pollard:
Frameworks are great, they’re fine, I mean, you can break anything down in life, anything that exists in the world into some kind of structure, some kind of patent, some kind of category or set of categories, its fine. It’s just that I think the strategy work. Sometimes people think it’s really, really important and fancy and expensive work and that the main job is just to fill in the framework and to do so without actually thinking very much. And not to be mean, but every now and then I look at some of the Twitter, and social media presences of some of the management consulting companies, and they do this, they’ll have some framework like pastel or a SWOT, or whatever it is, and the language used, it’s like a 10-year-old did it. And just because it fits in a framework doesn’t mean that it’s insightful, it doesn’t mean that it’s useful. So that’s the main risk that the framework is there to potentially frame your work, but you still need to do the work rather than treating a framework. Like you’re just filling in some kind of form and then you send it off, and you get the grade. That’s the main issue that I see.‍

Arek Dvornechuck:
Right, so the framework is not just like a question that where we just fill in the answers. It’s more about encouraging us, encourage the thinking to happen, right? And, just help us solve the lack of thinking and just started that thinking, right? ‍

Mark Pollard:
Yeah, yeah, I’ll give you an example. So for example, in storytelling, people talk about a story needs a beginning, middle, and an end. That is a kind of framework and if you put that into a diagram on a page, and then designed it, to fill in, in work that says beginning, that the hero wakes up and goes about their day, and then in the middle, some bad stuff happens. And then at the end, they win and they come back and they’re okay, and there’s a new routine set. That’s just not very interesting. It might be correct and accurate as far as a lot of storytelling structures go. But you’re not telling a story. There’s no depth in there. There’s nothing specific or unique in that answer to the framework.

2. The Four Points Framework

Arek Dvornechuck:
Right, right. So since we know about, how to approach strategy framework, it’s just to help us start thinking, and critical thinking happens. So can we talk about the four-point strategy framework now? So basically, this framework stands on four points, right? So it is self-explanatory. So those four points are problem, insights, advantage, and strategy. And each point is a sentence that stands on an idea, and you talk about ideas quite a lot in your book. So each idea needs to emanate from the same team, right? So it’s all connected, those four points are connected around the same team. So can you just give us a quick overview of your brand strategy framework? And then we just going to dive into each part and talk a bit more, you know, about details?‍

Mark Pollard:
Yeah, sure. So it’s called the four points, which is a really straightforward name. And there’s jargon in this, I explained my jargon. And the point is to not use this in a really dogmatic way, but for it to be a technique or a set of techniques that are available to you, as you think. And it’s not to say, to avoid all the other techniques, I mean, one of the most common ones with brand strategy, or getting to a credit brief is the four C’s, where you think about what the consumer truth, competitive truth/category truth, and then cultural truth and company truth, and you put them on a slide or in some kind of diagram, and you’re trying to work out the thread between them to get to some kind of strategy. So, the four points are complementary to anything that’s out there. But what I’m trying to do is encourage people to try to solve problems. That’s first and foremost. So at the top of the four points is the word problem, and what I look for is the human problem behind the business problem. Again, there’s some jargon in there that I’m aware of. But essentially, what is the obstacle or the barrier in people’s minds, potentially, the criticism of this brand, or of this product that’s preventing them from wanting it or from buying it that’s going on in their heads that’s in the way of them doing something or buying it because also, it’s not always about a product or a brand, it could be about a social issue. Or you could actually use some of these techniques on your own self-talk, for example. And then insight in the four points is an unspoken human truth that sheds new light on the problem. So I’m looking for a sentence as a strong provocative problem statement, and then the insight will open it up. So essentially, that’s like the second paragraph of a one-page essay. But here’s the thing about this problem bomb. And whatever comes next is hopefully some kind of insight, the insight, and the advantage, they clash together. The advantage is just another way of saying what’s unique and motivating about a brand, based on the features and functions of it that are relatively unique, and they combine in a relatively unique way. And then strategy in the four points is at the bottom. So you got a problem at the top, you’ve got insight and advantage below that that come together, they clash together to get to a solution, or a strategy. So the strategy solves the problem by colliding the insight and advantage together. And the strategy is essential, this is vague, but it’s a new way of looking at your brand based on all of these things so that the strategy statement tries to solve the problem through some kind of intelligence, some kind of insight that is also relevant to what the brand and the product are about.‍

Arek Dvornechuck:
Right. So that’s great, hopefully, for our listeners. So, just wanted to talk a bit about how to use your four-point strategy framework, so basically, we start with identifying the issue is the problem, right? And then we conduct some stakeholder interviews, gather some customer surveys, so let’s go through reports, digest online reviews, expert opinions, and so on, and write everything down. And we can run this multiple times and have competing versions for one project, right?

Mark Pollard:
Yeah, totally, totally. And the thing it’s hard to explain this in a way that doesn’t assume a bunch of existing understanding because some of these words like I said, it’s the jargon. And as I’ve taken this thinking beyond people who’ve got a few years of strategy experience under their belts, it can be a bit confusing. But the thing is, we can break it down in really simple ways. And the thing is, just think about if you like beer or wine or I don’t know what you’re into; cheese or a hamburger or pizza, or potentially if you don’t like those things, or you don’t like a type of them, just think about why you don’t like that thing. So for example, when I talk to people about IPA beers, often I’ll say I don’t drink IPA beers because they’re feeling. So, IPA Beer is a feeling that could be a problem in the way that I use the four points. So but the feeling is kind of interesting. It’s not marketing speak. I’ve heard it before. So I’ll push into that as a problem. You know, why do you think it's filling? What’s wrong with it being feeling? Is there a time when feeling full is okay or are there times when feeling full? Are really not okay? But you push into it, you ask why is that the problem? What’s causing it? What’s causing it, because you’re trying to get to the root cause, but the point of these, this particular framework, at least is to get to something that’s very plain English, that could be something, or a set of words that you might actually use in regular conversation and that would probably look quite unusual in a business presentation, at least in most business presentations that I’ve seen. So I just wanted to make sure that we don’t lose people because the way to use these things is actually through quite a simple language. It’s just that in explaining it, there are quite a few topics that are assumed, or that we assume some kind of understanding how to even get to something that’s trying to encourage people to write four sentences.

3. Brand Problem

Arek Dvornechuck:
Right. So, since we have an overview of the framework and its components, now let’s talk about each part in more detail. And perhaps you can give us some examples so that we can understand the concept behind it right. I think the framework is pretty straightforward. You know, it may seem complicated, but it gives a lot of examples in your book. So let’s talk about the problem first, right? So we started with the problem, as you said, is a human problem behind a business problem. So the business problem could be suffering like, for example, you give this example with New York Knicks, the New York Knicks, right? And the business problem is that ticket sales are down, so does the business issue. And now, the human problem behind that issue is that fans are hate supporting the team. So they’re angry. So they basically don’t want to come, they don’t want to buy tickets and come to watch them because they never win. So can you talk a bit more about that?‍

Mark Pollard:
Yeah. So again, the four points, it also assumes not only a general understanding of some of the basic concepts of marketing and advertising, but it also assumes on a given project that you’re able to talk about, and identify a business issue, simple business issue, right. So for the New York Knicks example, the business issue there is that season ticket sales are down. And this is hypothetical, it’s just made up and it’s a bit of a joke. And then you need to think about the audience. Well, who would we sell season tickets to who’s most likely to buy season tickets and or what kind of customer might have the longest lifetime value? So there has to be some kind of thinking and research there to identify who to chase. In the example that I like to use, I call out this audience of people that I will call the holdouts that people who love New York, they love the New York Knicks, but New York and the New York Knicks. Well, the New York Knicks has a reputation for not doing very well for a very long time. And the owner seems to be only interested in money. And it’s almost as if we see this in a few different sports, but it’s almost as if the sports team is trying to become successfully independent, as in, they’ll make money even if they’re not successful on the court, which you can’t do in all sports in all markets like you need to be successful to have people to turn up in some places, and hadn’t on New York might be a bit different. So before we even get to the four points itself there’s a little bit of a wrestle, trying to understand what the business issue is, like this one straightforward, season ticket sales are down. And then there’s an identification of an audience, which we’ll call the holdouts, people who are likely to buy season tickets, they’ve potentially held them before and they just waiting for the next to come well before they spend any money. And I’m not saying that that’s the right audience. It’s just that this is a hypothetical technique or a hypothetical example. And it’s one way to get into it. And so yeah, you do your research, and you talk to people, you look at what people are putting on YouTube, and then you identify this problem as being that the fans and your fans, the holdouts, the New York Knicks, holdouts hate supporting the team, as in this supporting it, but they really resent it. And you see a lot of people talking that people have been talking about how much they love New York and how much they love the Knicks, but also how much they can’t stand watching them for years. So that’s where we start.

Arek Dvornechuck:
Okay, and then you give a lot of different tools to identify those problems, right? So you talk about tools like SWOT analysis, dump a problem, we incompetence high, the problem behind the problem, the five why’s and so on. So what’s yours like? What’s your favorite technique? Can you just give us some tips on how to identify those problems?‍

Mark Pollard:
Yeah, they’re all just trying to get your toys, your Lego your puzzle pieces out onto a table. And then you get to reassemble them in interesting ways. And all of the techniques, trying to get you to think about things you don’t usually think about. So SWOT which looks at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, is very common and it’s a framework that you’d probably learn in the first week or two of Business School.

It’s trying to get you to understand what your strengths and weaknesses are. And then what’s happening in the outside world, it could be an opportunity, or it could be a threat, things that you might have thought about recently, just to make sure that you are thinking beyond your assumptions and the easy things to discuss.

And then there are other techniques like the five whys from Toyota, or the problem behind the problem, one where you’re essentially taking a problem as you see it in a very shallow way. And you’re trying to get to a root cause. And you’re doing that by asking why. So really, ‘why’ is the main technique here. So, you know, if you look at the idea that people are not all these holdouts and not supporting the team or not buying season tickets, you go, Why? Well, they don’t want to spend money in New York. Why? The New York Knicks haven’t been doing well. So, why would that prevent them from buying a ticket? You said they’re loyal, right? Oh, well, they resent the owner. Why? Because he just seems to be about money. So, what’s that got to do with anything? You know? So you continue just having this long back and forth? Question and Answer to try to get to a deeper root cause or to a root cause of the problem. So you’re not just solving a symptom, something that might repeat itself, and when you don’t actually tackle the thing at the heart of the issue.

Arek Dvornechuck:
Right, so people can see human, they can see themselves in the grant. Okay, so the next step would be an advantage. And so here, we want to express what makes us better than other products or services, right? So basically, we take this the problem and the inside, and we develop some think about what’s the advantage to our buyers. So what’s unique and motivating about that product or service in the audience’s mind, so, what we can do is we can interview people and ask them, why did you buy it? How do you use it? What’s best about this product or service? So the example for the New York Knicks is the New York Knicks are designed to make people angry. So that’s the advantage. So can you just talk any game also, again, you know, there is a lot of tools in the book, like the pyramid of advantage, the benefits ladder, the product world, the decision funnel, path to purchase reason to believe some give a lot of tools, and techniques on how to find that advantage? But can you just give us an overview, and perhaps some tips on how to find out an advantage?

Mark Pollard:
Yeah, again, it’s really important to point out what you pointed out that you’re trying to do this through the audience or the customer slash consumers' minds. And what this is trying to push for, because there’s nothing necessarily novel about the four points I’m not claiming it is. It’s just how I like to work. And I enjoy it. And it’s helped me get where I need to go and fight through all the noise and the jargon and the bureaucracy. But the advantage is really just it’s a sentence that summarizes an argument for the key features and functions of a product or a brand. And that makes sense to the customer based on what they are usually drawn to. So if I can get out of the New York Knicks, I’ve never actually done this with the marriage example. But let’s see; let’s say your business issue is that you’re not happy in your marriage. Let’s say that’s the business issue, the audience is you; potentially the other person or the couple, but let’s say it’s you and you’re unhappy in your marriage. And you state the problem, as my marriage isn’t meeting all my needs. And then you probably dig into that, you know, I think the way they use the four points, I would push a little deeper. Why isn’t it meeting your needs and what’s going on there and we push that around for a while? But then the advantage could be when we look at the world needs, I don’t know what the actual advantage statement would be. And it’s funny when I do this stuff on the fly because I don’t know what’s going to come out, which is why I’m talking right now by myself at time. But, but essentially what that strategy could try to get to the advantage is to talk about marriage in a slightly different way meeting needs that you need met but not all your needs. As I said, it’s a bit risky to do this stuff on the fly, but it’s one sentence that summarizes the features that make the most sense, and that is the most compelling to the audience, which could be yourself if you’re using the four points on yourself and what’s going on in your head or it could be The next example the holdout. So the New York Knicks are designed to make people angry, why? The tickets are expensive. It seems like you need to be a celebrity or a wall street to get near the core, they never look like they’re trying to win. The coaches are not being successful. They’ve traded players like Jeremy Lin that we’ve loved. There have been arguments and fights between former players. And the owner, there was a guy went viral on Twitter about a year and a half ago, former player yelling at the owner because a lot of people want the owner to sell it. But these little points, sort of support points for the argument that the New York Knicks are designed to make people angry. And this is a joke example. So it would be silly to take the next example seriously, but that’s how you would use the advantage.

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