Creative Development Process for Agency
03-1015001-407

(Where is your brand today?) Current Perception
Consumers have a relationship with your brand. It makes them feel a
certain way. And surprisingly enough, it may have very little to do
with what your brand actually is today, for it is a function of their
perceptions, prejudices and perhaps even what their Aunt Mildred may
have thought.

However, in order to grasp exactly what that is, our first task is to
dissect the consumer (albeit not literally) and the marketplace to see
where your brand is. (In account planning terms—desk, qualitative,
quantitative, and even anthropological and psychographic research.)
This exploration offers up clues as to the real potential of your
brand, and will give us insight as to where it could ever realistically
hope to be in the collective mind of the marketplace.

(Where do you want it to be tomorrow?) Desired Perception
Okay, so we know where the consumer thinks your brand is. Now let’s
decide where we want it to be. For any number of reasons, including
expanding sales goals and marketing objectives, you want to elevate the
position of your brand to another point in the minds of your consumers
and the marketplace. Once we agree upon that eventual goal for your
brand, we can set upon a course of action for achieving it.

(Insight into the) Consumer Insight
This is the fun part. We roll up our sleeves and begin the often
unpredictable process of poking and prodding the consumer to see what
makes them tick. We may conduct simple focus groups, one-on-one
interviews or, heck, we may even move into their homes and live with
them for a while. Point is, there is no conventional way to fully
understand the consumers’ values and lifestyles. This is an important
part of the process, because this is when we may find a valuable
opening, a path into their psyche, and discover what may compel them to
empathize with your brand.

The Product Truth
Our next task is to uncover the truth about your product. How, you ask?
Well, we begin by asking you. But then, both account planning and
creative teams immerse themselves in your culture and eat, sleep and
breathe your brand.

The cold, hard reality is that most products are functionally the same,
so it’s important for us to uncover a singular point of difference on
which we can hang our marketing cap.

The Big Bang
So we’ve figured out where your brand is today and decided where we
want to take it. Add to that the consumer insight and the product
truth, and something interesting happens. An explosion occurs.

The Big Bang, we call it. The point at which everything we’ve learned
comes together and combusts in a fiery ball of enthusiasm, releasing an
inspiring, insightful statement from which every piece of communication
will be developed. Call it what you will, the Single-minded
Proposition, Insight or Strategy, this statement becomes the rallying
cry of your brand, and the launching pad for ideas that will lead your
consumer across the bridge from where they were to where we want them
to be.

A clear and cohesive message in every piece of communication
(advertising, marketing, direct mail, interactive, even hangtags)
builds brands, and although our Cost Control Department doesn’t like
this analogy, it makes 2 + 2 = 5.