The most exciting trend I see in advertising today is the shift of the relationship between the agency and the client. The days of traditional advertising are coming to an end, especially with the economic state we are in. Companies are tightening their belts and spending their money more judiciously. Many brands today, and the organizations that market them, are in a state of fear and confusion that impedes their growth. This puts agencies in a position of choice–either get squeezed out of the bigger process and become just the doers or become even more valuable by inspiring those clients with bigger thinking. An advertising agency’s real value comes from inspiring much more than just advertising.
You won’t get inspiring advertising until there are inspired marketers behind the advertising. And more often than not, marketing organizations and the companies they operate within aren’t aligned behind their brand messaging. Which is also why, more often than not, those brand initiatives fail because the company/product/brand aren’t committed or able to deliver on that promise.
That is why it is so important to rally the organization internally before you can even think about communicating to the clients audience.
The higher an advertising agency can reach and inspire in an organization, the more powerful the message (and thus the brand) will be as it moves down the chain of the organization. (From president/CEO to the marketers to sales staff and product developers, and in the end this snowball-effect of inspiration will have a higher impact once it reaches the consumer.) And they will see the authentically inspired brand and gravitate towards it.
The inspiration should always precede the insight, which should always precede the idea, which should always precede the communication.
These days, we tend to see ads based on ideas which rely on insights that simply lack inspiration.
With this inspired mindset, agencies can reinvent their involvement in a client’s business, no longer being specialists, instead being generalists at inspiration. We must think beyond just online, print and TV. There are so many other ways to reach consumers. Events, “Tryvertising” (product sampling), New Product Development, Product Extensions, Packaging Design, Entertainment, WOM, Interior Design. The list goes on. All these skills are impacting a brand’s growth and clients are looking for more help in these areas. There are no longer any rules or boundaries that define what an agency can do for its clients.
When all is said and done, advertising to consumers may lead to sales, but an inspired message from an inspired brand through an inspired medium will then lead to an inspired consumer. An inspired consumer will do more than buy; they will join the brand and function as brand evangelists.
Inspired consumers will feel a sense of ownership of the brand, giving it a life of its own.
Tom Lyons is creative director/designer at San Francisco-based advertising, design, digital and media agency BuderEngel. Among his most recent efforts at the shop was designing a retro-styled, high-end electric football game for the S.F. 49ers. Lyons came to BuderEngel from Leagas-Delaney.
