It’s looking like branding as we come out of the recession is still not for the faint of heart or weak of bowels.
Good Lord. I sure felt the truth of this over the last several weeks. And it looks like the new Forrester report called The Future of Agency Relationships confirms it.
We recently started working with a new client and straight out of the gate we’re launching an important promotion and ongoing brand experience that no one either here at ID Branding or there at the client has ever done before. In fact, the more experts I talk to in hopes of smoothing the process a bit, the more I’m finding out that no one has ever done this. Not exactly this way.
Great.
But this is exactly what the new era calls for. We all better plan on living in a whole lot of uncertainty from now on. Because our audiences out there are demanding that we invent on their behalf, and that means not just the messages or the visual effects or the casting and sound track, but the experiences themselves and the venues for these experiences. (I’ll get more specific about this project in a future post if my client says it’s OK.)
Suffice to say, we are figuring this thing out as we go. And it’s been bumpy.
Now, I’m used to doing that in situations like a commercial shoot when you’re working with the production company to figure out how to put a 16 mm camera into the middle of a fast-flowing steam so you can shoot migrating steelhead underwater as they pass up stream. And then determining that you’re going to have to buy the fish and release them. And finding out there aren’t steelhead available, but you can get a tanker truck of really big trout, which is close enough.
And after that’s solved there’s the question of finding the damsel fly or dragon fly in the script, but the production company comes up dry and you’re lucky enough to have seen a lake loaded with them when you were scouting for locations. And so it goes, for maybe a few days. Pure unadulterated scramble.
But this is now becoming every day, not just production week. And if we’re doing our jobs right, we’re constantly doing something we’ve never done before. On a much bigger scale. It’s exhausting. But it’s also damn exciting.
That’s kind of what the Forrester report is saying, but in a much drier fashion and with much more scholarly authority and a bit more jargon. I’ve only read summaries and commentaries on it, but that’s enough to start a conversation with my fellow branding people about it.
Edward Boches has got a nice handle on it and it’s reinforcing what he’s been doing over at Mullen. He calls it Adaptive Brand Marketing. It’s reinforcing what a lot of us have been trying to do recently. And it’s helpful because it’s clarifying and articulating some of the challenges we’re all going to be facing together, side by side, agencies and clients. And that can be soothing when things get bumpy. Which they will.
Because uncharted territory is our new home. Thank God I’ve got a great client who is willing to co-conspire with us, rather than demand flawless execution at every turn. Because the only way you can be flawless is when you’ve done something over and over again. And that’s exactly what ISN’T going to cut it anymore.
It reminds me of the days when I was part of an interactive agency called Paris France. Everything we did was something we’d never done before. This was from 1999 to 2003, and the interactive brand experience was in its infancy. We were constantly wondering how we were going to pull off what was in our heads. We repeatedly turned to a slew of experts like the Flash wizard Phillip Kerman to help us figure things out.
And that’s what we’re doing with this current promotion event — we’re calling in all kinds of experts and friends and just figuring it out. And watching for results. And measuring. And then making tweaks and changes as necessary. Trial and adjustment.
The days of knowing are over. We are all sailing off the map, and it’s pretty exciting, as long as our clients are willing to be explorers with us and get wet. As the Forrester paper points out, “agencies and outsourced partners will become more important than ever (the world is too complex to figure it out alone).”
I (heart) this article. You guys are spot on. The rules are changing and while I am still a brand strategist and marketer who loves to measure things (the Type A in me), some things you just have to roll with in this age of change and see if it works.
I just wrote a book called Branding Basics for Small Business: How to Create an Irresistible Brand on Any Budget (2010, Norlights Press http://www.brandingbasics.info) and I talk about how everything has to start with the brand story before you can then figure out what channels to use, which levers to use and where you can connect with customers. But I even say in the book that after walking through my simple 10 question process (designed for scrappy small businesses) effective brand strategy development is still part art, part science and part luck and that it’s really in the process itself that the magic happens. And that requires a huge leap of faith when someone wants to know “exactly what they are going to get upfront.”
And I know of what I speak: I’ve been on both the client and agency sides. I know what clients deal with in having to prove ROI when deadling with an analytical CFO who has no idea what they are signing off on – they have to take a lot of bullets, believe me.
Perhaps one day clients could take a lesson from wedding vendors (bear with me – I was just presenting at a wedding industry function): When I planned my wedding, I chose a florist, a caterer and a photographer, like most people do. Al I really had to go on was past samples of their work and really connecting with them personally to the point that I had faith they would “get” vision. I was not guranteed what the flowers would look like “exactlt”, that the food I tasted was going to taste exactly the same when prepared on my wedding day, or exactly what the photos were going to look like when I signed the contract. But I partnered with these folks so that we could create something wonderful together. And it all worked out.
Maybe one day clients can look to all branding agencies (and marketing agencies in general) and understand it’s not coin-operated. But if the agency is worth it’s salt, the client may put in 25 cents and end up getting back a million bucks. That is the exciting part!
Sweet analogy, the wedding thing. It’s so true. A relationship that never ever should have involved the word “vendor” is getting even drastically more so. It’s like the client and agency are in a life raft and if they work together, they make it. Thanks for your comment, and good luck with your book.
- Doug
Great energy, somewhat scary for a recent graduate (at least the “venue” part), but man loving the energy. I can’t wait to contribute with collaborative people once I land a position here. It’d be exciting to see what future projects your guys will turn out.
Thanks for sharing!