If You Can Transform a Brand, You Can Transform Your Agency

Six Principles for Evolving Effectively



As we head into the new year, it's only natural for us to reflect upon the previous one and make plans to improve upon what we accomplished. This often includes resolutions and changes. If you're considering a significant change at your agency, be it anything from a new office building to a merger or acquisition, it may seem like an insurmountable task. But if you've transformed a brand -- a challenge agencies across the industry are asked to undertake every day -- there's no reason why you can't transform your agency, regardless of size.


Beyond the physical and structural changes, here are six guiding principles to lead your transformation. Organizations and brands alike can benefit from these principles, however bold your evolution may be.

1. Decode your DNA. Know who you are. Every agency, just like every brand, has a unique story to tell. If it is the agency's role to carefully and insightfully uncover a brand's core DNA, then you need to do the same with your own brand. You need to honestly assess who you are, what core values define your culture, and what truly differentiates you from your competition to stear your vision, voice and foundation for the future.

2. Share your vision then relentlessly pursue it. Agencies and brands need to be transparent. Transparency allows employees to understand the road map, become a part of the journey and believe it is possible. It is vital to ignite an organization around a shared vision so that its people can take an active role in making it a reality.

3. Build strong advocates. Your agency needs loyalists and advocates, just as brands do. Fuel the loyalists within your organization and build the next generation of leadership. Hire talent that is smarter than you are and complements your culture. While raw talent is exceptional, personal character and cultural fit are just as important. You want advocates to fit in, believe in your purpose and be inspired to achieve it.

4. Every detail matters. Every facet of a rebranding campaign (internal and external) needs to work together and be consistent to achieve effectiveness. The same goes for an agency, which needs to create exceptional ideas and execute them flawlessly.

5. Promote a culture of accountability, collaboration and experimentation. Successful brands are accountable to their customers, but they can afford to experiment once in awhile to achieve greater success. An agency should create an expectation that every effort to reach the goal can't just be good, it must be great. Creativity shouldn't be a department, it should be an expectation. Fostering a collaborative environment (with colleagues and clients) can empower everyone to do his or her personal best and helps achieve optimal results.

6. Make every decision based on what supports the vision and stay the course. Don't be tempted to chase shiny objects. It is critical to base every decision on what's best for the brand and the business in both the short term and long term. Remain focused on your vision throughout your efforts. Don't let your resources be drained by exploring new businesses or partnerships that don't fit where you are trying to go. Keep your focus on what is right for you and your clients.

And remember, transformation does not happen overnight. Enjoy the journey.

WINTER OLYMPICS USES DIGITAL GRAFFITI AROUND ATHLETE'S VILLAGE

Digital Graffiti at the Olympic Village from Alex Beim on Vimeo.

WOMEN IN MARKETING & ADVERTISING

JULIE GREENWALD

President :: Atlantic Records

SHANTI DAS

Former Executive Vice President :: Universal Motown

Founder of R&B Live

BONNIE GARCIA

CEO of Market Vision

SLYVIA RHONE

President :: Motown Records - Executive Vice President :: Universal Records

MARVET BRITTO

The Britto Agency

JEN YU

FORMER ENTERTAINMENT MARKETING MANAGER :: NEW ERA FITS

CURRENT DIRECTOR OF MARKETING :: AKOO CLOTHING

SHANTE BACON

FORMER DIRECTOR OF MARKETING :: DEF JAM RECORDS

CEO :: The 135th STREET AGENCY

STEVE STOUTE :: THE LIFE FILES

LIVE From The Fortune List It's Steve Stoute! from the.LIFE Files on Vimeo.

ABSOLUT NY-Z

ABSOLUT Vodka presents NY-Z, a new 15 minute short film featuring Jay-Z. This documentary was directed by Danny Clinch and paints a rare portrait of the global hip-hop icon. Watch it here.

About ABSOLUT: ABSOLUT is a Swedish brand of vodka, produced near Åhus, Scania, in southern Sweden.

From Warhol to Gartel to Kravitz to JayZ, ABSOLUT has partnered with true creative Visionaries since 1979 to develop unique, inspired works of art.

The next wave is coming. What is it? Get fanned and find out.

ENJOY WITH ABSOLUT RESPONSIBILITY®

ABSOLUT® VODKA. PRODUCT OF SWEDEN. 40% ALC./VOL. DISTILLED FROM GRAIN. ©2009 IMPORTED BY ABSOLUT SPIRITS CO., NEW YORK, NY.

JONATHAN MANNION FOR K-SWISS & RESPECT MAGAZINE

If you haven’t picked up a copy of RESPECT Magazine yet, you must not be a card carrying member of the hip hop generation. For those who don’t know, RESPECT Magazine, is an amazing, and rare, blend of equal appreciation for both the music itself and the amazing photographers who’ve shaped the way we look at hip hop.

Photo edited by the insanely talented Sally Berman, this magazine doesn’t focus on the tabloid gossip of hip hop, but the amazing blend of artists that come together to make this culture something to cherish. Hip hop isn’t dead y’all, its alive and kicking on the pages of RESPECT.

Recently the magazine partnered up with K-SWISS and asked 4 legendary photographers to define the meaning of the word “Classic” through self-portrait, video and written word. Check out a bit of the campaign here, and for even more go pick up a copy of RESPECT Magazine currently on stands now.

Jonathan Mannion is hands down the most celebrated and sought after photographer amongst the hip-hop culture. Hey, his name alone has become a household brand with aspiring rappers who are adjusting the pro-tools in their moms' basement hoping to one day have his name grace the inside cover of their cd jacket and kids who are shooting 500 jumpers a day on the city playgrounds looking to one day grace the cover of SLAM magazine. I believe that one day his portraits will hang over the fireplace and mantels in the homes throughout our generation. But only is Mr. Mannion credited for hip-hop portraits, he is also a video director (which most of you don't know...lol) shooting for more of your favorites like Jasmine Sullivan (I Need You), J Holiday (Suffocate), The Game (One Blood), and more.

Jonathan Mannion in conjunction with The Dean's List blog and Dean Brand Marketing, LLC. will be looking to bring you a cutting edge and creative outlook on the imagery of Advertising. With Mannions' eye and Dean Brand Marketings' left field approach to the Marketing and Advertising, we look to provide readers with one of a kind attractive but yet informational content for the continuation of advancing the industry.

Go to http://www.jonathanmannion.com/ to see his legendary work.

COMING SOON... DEAN BRAND MARKETING CORPORATE OFFICES

In the future as Dean Brand Marketing, LLC. expands I would love to ideally create a professional, fun and interactive work enviornment for a staff that will work in an initimate setting and share creative minds on how to continue the evolution of the branding and advertising culture.

FLASHING LIGHTS: NIKON D700 GUERILLA STYLE BILLBOARD

Nikon took its cue from our celebrity-obsessed paparazzi culture to launch the brand's D700 model in Korea.

At a busy Seoul subway station, Nikon mounted a huge interactive, light-box billboard displaying life-like images of paparazzi. Huddled together as if at a premiere, the "paps" appear to be jostling and competing for the best celebrity snap. The celebrities in this case were the passersby, who automatically triggered a deluge of flashing camera lights as they walked past the billboard. The accidental superstars then followed the red carpet all the way out of the station and into a mall - directly into the store where they could purchase the new D700. Mission accomplished.

STEVE STOUTE ADVERTISING HALL OF ACHIEVEMENT® INDUCTION VIDEO

MAKING AN AGENCY DIGITAL TO THE CORE

I continue to be fascinated by how agencies change and how extraordinarily hard this can be to accomplish. Regardless of the difficulty, it's an essential agency survival skill. Great agencies learn how to continually reinvent themselves to the core, while merely good agencies often only change their outward structure. In some ways this pursuit of change, particularly as agencies define their relevance in the digital world, has been the great advertising drama of the last two years.

Hard to believe, but two years ago people were debating the merits between traditional and digital agencies, as if they had to choose between blue states and red states. Jump ahead to today, and most small agencies have carved out their own path. They have found a way to be true to their roots and have also made huge strides in their commitment to digital marketing. Digital vs. traditional no longer seems like a religious war.

PJA Advertising has made this journey along with the rest, and what I've learned is that change does not come from one defining choice. You need a commitment from the top. You need to redefine processes and roles. You need to bring in new resources and talent. More than anything, if you want to make changes that go beneath the surface to the core, you need to introduce a foreign agent that will chemically alter the composition of the agency. In our case, we didn't experience this degree of change until we opened our doors to the new breed of "digital natives" and gave them the freedom to introduce their digital DNA into the agency.

Specifically, digital natives are people who have spent their entire lives using the internet as an extension of themselves, and there are some good descriptions of the attributes that these people possess. Jeremiah Owyang wrote a nice post about digital natives on his blog, Web Strategy. Without the influence of these native speakers, most of us are doomed to clumsily translate conventional ideas into a digital format, rather than creating original ideas unique to the digital medium. We may master the outward forms but not the soul of the digital world.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not advocating hiring some kid that spends 80 hours a week leveling his "World of Warcraft" character. I'm talking about a specific set of traits and insights that help transform an agency into an innovative digital marketing organization. Here's why every agency needs these people on staff.

They understand what happens under the digital hood. They see beneath the user interface to the underlying technologies. This gives them the ability to assess the true capabilities of a tool or platform and often manipulate it to their own purposes. They can define the digital experience on their own terms and not let it define them.

Digital natives have the skills to conduct their digital lives across many digital platforms with the ease with which an international traveler moves across continents. They can jump from platform to platform depending on its utility. This means that when planning marketing campaigns they can leave the beaten path to create more highly customized online experiences for consumers.

Digital natives treat their identity in the physical world and online as one entity. This makes their online personalities multidimensional and gives them better communications skills than the occasional visitor to Facebook and Twitter.

Because they conduct so much of their lives online, digital natives have a rich collection of experiences with brands in the digital world and a solid understanding about what kinds of communications are effective. With this fluency, they can expand an agency's vision for what is possible when developing strategies and campaigns.

Above all, digital natives get gaming. It's in their blood. As advertising and marketing agencies continue to adopt more of the principles and psychology of online gaming, all of us will need digital natives to help lead us through the maze of opportunities.

Agencies don't just need digital natives working in technical functions. We need them working throughout the agency in planning, media, account, and creative. They need to be allowed to experiment and explore and not be forced to work within old job titles and structures. If you're really serious about a digital transformation, these are the people who can shake up the organizational structure and push senior management to see the world in a fresh way. We're in a business that encourages clients to take big risks on change. We should be willing to do the same for ourselves.

CHEVY USES SXSW AS A PLATFORM TO KICK-OFF SOCIAL MEDIA, TECHNOLOGY PUSH

Program Is Part of Automaker's Plan to Spend 30% of Marketing Money on Digital in 2010

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Chevrolet's making a big splash at South by Southwest Interactive this year, and it's just the beginning of the automaker's planned 30% commitment to digital this year.

"This is not a nine-day one-off," said Christopher Barger, General Motor's director of social media. "Everything we're doing here needs to have applications we can build on beyond Austin."

Returning from nosedive

This program is one of the first major social-media and technology campaigns from a Big Three automaker other than Ford Motor since the industry took a nosedive in 2008. But Mr. Barger said Chevy's social media, augmented reality and mobile programs at SXSW are not intended to steal the digital-savvy spotlight from Ford. Instead, they're test pilots for the embattled automaker, which Mr. Barger said plans to commit about 30% of its marketing money to digital this year.

Chevrolet is launching an extensive digital campaign at the music, film and interactive festival, including a tie-in with Austin, Texas-based Gowalla, where users check in from their phones around the city to get messages and SXSW offers from the General Motors brand. For example, those flying into Austin can check in at the airport for a free ride downtown in an Equinox.

"The reason we're doing this here is so really smart tech people can make suggestions," Mr. Barger said of the swarms of digital agency and technology people that descend on Austin every March. "This is a place for us to learn. How do we apply this to the rest of the marketing we'll be doing moving forward?"

Strides in digital innovation

Chevrolet has also affixed QR codes on the hoods of cars that, when photographed with a camera phone, will launch microsites with features info. Chevy's also released the iReveal app to view three-dimensional, augmented reality models of cars on the streets of Austin. While none of these programs -- save free rides from the airport, of course -- sound revolutionary, it's a good start for an automaker that has fallen behind Ford on digital innovation. Mr. Barger said that while GM has kept its eye on Ford like any company does with a competitor, it's not looking to emulate what Ford has done in social or digital media.

"If really all you're doing when building a strategy is looking to what others have done, you're not going to be successful," he said of GM's plans for digital vis-a-vis Ford. "You need to draw attention to your own brand and find something unique to you."

Chevy has also handed out eight cars for teams to road trip to Austin from all corners of the country, while completing missions determined by Twitter followers along the way and tracking their progress through OnStar and Facebook, though the idea to put people in a car and have them document their experience through social media bears some resemblance to Ford's Fiesta Movement.

SUCCESSFUL BRANDS DO A GOOD JOB OF SATISFYING PEOPLE'S 10 BASIC DESIRES

Brands spend more than $450 billion each year to influence us. They wouldn't spend that kind of money unless they knew something we didn't know.

The most-successful brands don't focus on what we need; they focus on what we want. We need a credit card; we want an American Express Black card. We need a cellphone; we want the yet-to-be-released iPhone 4G.

Fortunately for brands, when it comes to identifying what people want, we aren't particularly complex. The human mind seeks to satisfy 10 primary wants. Direct your actions toward meeting as many as possible, and your brand will grow exponentially.

So what do people want, exactly?

1. To feel safe and secure.This is reinforced through both the physical structure of the brain and our physical environment, making it one of the strongest motivating forces in our lives. The amygdale is an area of the brain whose primary purpose is to protect us. Whenever we sense fear or danger, or that things are not safe or secure, it fires. This works in conjunction with our long-term memory, which continuously references and longs for the safety and security we received as children. When Allstate tells us we're in good hands with them, it appeals to this desire for safety and security. Who else? Volvo, OnStar, ADP, Geico, Johnson & Johnson.

2. To feel comfortable.We all want to feel comfortable. We want to feel good, relaxed, we want it to be easy. Our brains are constantly asking, if I do this, how will I feel? We are attracted to what makes us feel good, and this is often what is most comfortable and easy -- brands such as Cracker Barrel, Rockport, Godiva and Dole (what's easier than bagged lettuce?).

3. To be cared for and connected to others.It is human nature to want to feel that someone cares for us, that we have friends and that people enjoy our company. Humans are genetically predisposed to want to be together and to be connected. It is one of our evolutionary traits. And by observing, interacting and engaging with others, our mirror neurons allow us to learn from one another and feel what others are feeling. Think about recent communication campaigns from Olive Garden, Budweiser, Pizza Hut and Mitsubishi's Eclipse. Further, this is one of the key wants social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace meet.

4. To be desired by others.Some believe that all human motivation comes down to wanting to be desired by others. Freud popularized this concept pitting the id against the superego and ego. And even though brands have been targeting this want since the beginning -- and people are aware of brands' efforts in this area -- it has not lost any of its effectiveness. Axe can't make their message to guys any clearer: use our products and you'll be irresistible. And how about Michelob Ultra, Viagra, Cadillac, Old Spice and Victoria's Secret?

5. To be free to do what we want.The desire to be free has been a guiding principal of humankind for the past 200,000 years. Throughout history, societies have banded together to fight for their freedom, from early civilizations in Greece, through the dark ages and Renaissance, the French and American Revolutions, and the abolition of slavery and both world wars. The desire to be free is such a dominant human want that, time after time, we have given our lives to satisfy it. Financial brands such as Fidelity, Citi and Mastercard were built by focusing on this want, as were brands such as Harley-Davidson, Southwest, Nutrisystem and even Norwegian Cruise Lines.

6. To grow and become more.Humans, unlike animals, do not come programmed with the skills we need. We begin as blank slates, yet within the first five years of our lives, we learn to perform many of the skills we will use throughout our lifetime. But then what happens? Is there ever another five-year period where we grow as much? Most would say no, and yet our brains are conditioned from childhood to grow and learn. Because of this, our mind is constantly striving to satisfy the function it has been conditioned to perform: to grow and become more. When you think of Monster, Kindle, Bally and Kaplan, don't they all brilliantly leverage this want to their advantage?

7. To serve others and give back.More than 60 million people performed more than 8 billion hours of service last year. Why? As children we are fully dependent on our parents. Those early memories of our mothers and fathers serving our every need, unselfishly giving to protect, care and nurture, are deeply ingrained in our minds and condition us to want to serve others and give back. Therefore, we tend to feel good when we are making others feel good, unselfishly focusing on others. This want competes against many of our other more self-focused wants, causing an unsettling feeling when we too frequently focus on ourselves. What comes to mind when you think about Prius, Livestrong, Timberland, Newman's Own, Make-a-Wish Foundation and Susan G. Komen for the Cure?

8. To be surprised and excited.The amount of stimuli that our senses can process throughout the course of a day is remarkable. While our perceptual register filters the vast majority of these stimuli, what almost always gets through is what surprises and excites us. Stimuli that could potentially cause ecstasy or anxiety are the first things to grab our attention -- Red Bull, Las Vegas tourism, Disney, De Beers.

9. To believe there is a higher purpose.Most people identify with a particular religion, believe in a god in some form and believe that when we die, there is something more. We deeply want to believe there is a higher purpose. There is not a single more important belief that has such universal acceptance yet completely lacks any form of scientific evidence. But because we so deeply want to believe, anything that can possibly support this belief is powerfully motivating. When the Marines show us a wall of soldiers standing guard over our country and ask us if we have what it takes to be among the few and the proud, they are offering us a higher purpose.

10. To feel that they matter.This is humankind's greatest want -- that they matter. That they are worthy of attention, affection and love. It is an evolutionary trait. Released in large amounts during labor, oxytocin, a neurotransmitter, bonds the mother to a child, making it nearly impossible not to want to care for the newborn. Infants who do not receive this attention can succumb to failure-to-thrive syndrome, causing premature death. So the fact that we matter is essential to our survival. We have been conditioned from birth to believe that we matter. But as we get older, the oxytocin wears off and we feel less and less that we matter. We then spend the rest of our lives trying to get back this feeling that we once felt in such abundance, and brands such as American Express, Lexus, Rolex and Starbucks help us remember that we matter.