Whether you’re creating a branding and marketing strategy or working on new product planning, brands benefit from knowing their user inside and out. When it comes to the brand development process, it’s the first step in transforming consumers into passionate brand advocates. And as an agency, that’s something we’re passionate about.
The development of a campaign has to start somewhere. And the execution of a good campaign definitely needs to lead somewhere. The question is where do you start, and where are you trying to lead your consumer?
Our consumer-centric approach uses research to derive insights about the consumer, because a campaign needs to be driven by a core truth about the consumer’s beliefs, lifestyle or aspirations. The most effective campaigns create a connection between the brand, the consumer and the action we want them to take, so the challenge is to find the area of opportunity where the brand truths and the consumer insights overlap.
Once we find the sweet spot, we identify the channels that will most effectively reach consumers with our message. As a full service agency, we know the importance of carefully selecting channels for a purpose. A channel should never be an afterthought, or merely used because it’s cool. For example, marketing through social media isn’t as easy as slapping a hashtag onto a TV spot and assuming it will trend on Twitter. You use a channel because your consumer is there, and it’s a method of effectively reaching them with your message.
A truly integrated campaign must play to the strengths of each channel to inspire a consumer to take action. In other words, there should be no dead ends. As a full service agency, we use each channel to motivate consumers to do something different. In some channels, our goal might be to get them to think about the brand. When marketing through social media, our goal might be just to get them to share. At retail, our goal is to drive consideration and purchase. We recognize that every channel plays an important role in the process of recruiting and retaining consumers.