Video and animation will always be at the heart of Proctors Motion Department. And that’s why we’ve been hard at work continually refining our general expertise. But, over the past year we’ve also expanded our offering, to deliver interactive 3D experiences too.
watch the interactive model video here.
Overview
Panasonic challenged us to visualise how their extensive portfolio of hardware and software could be combined to create highly-specialised, complete, and integrated solutions.
So we proposed an interactive piece (making use of Babylon.js) that allowed users to explore sectors and areas for themselves – rather than a typical static image that acts as a clickable menu.
This all sat in an angular app, offering up relevant information in the form of whitepapers, product links, tech specs, video and imagery.
We developed a solid workflow that allowed us to: quickly design scenes for sign off; optimise geometry by hand and using AI tools (so the 3D rooms downloaded quickly without putting pressure on end users’ devices); create libraries of Babyblon.js code that could efficiently be repurposed for building out interactivity and the look; deliver a front end where content could be loaded in a simple JSON file, rather than buried away in complex code.
View gif in blog here.
Three dioramas for two sectors – manufacturing and education
Explore Panasonic Connect’s solutions in the Manufacturing sector.
Explore Panasonic Connect’s solutions in the Education sector.
With an average dwell time of 5 minutes for education and nearly 3.30 for manufacturing, our interactive models have proven to be a great way of grabbing (and keeping!) potential customers’ attention.
Watch the TOUGHBOOK 40 here.
Delivering a high-octane, high-end product shoot… without the high costs
Panasonic and Proctors go back a very long way, so when the time came to launch their latest flagship device, the Panasonic TOUGHBOOK 40, they knew who to call.
We crafted a concept based around a fast-paced edit of the conditions a truly rugged laptop needs to stand up to. The final film was a mix of 3D, shot footage and visual effects (VFX), recreating the demanding environments where TOUGHBOOK is most at home.
The project could easily have become a very costly multi-location shoot. But we made use of minimal locations, lots of 3D expertise and some heavy post-production work to deliver even more, for a fraction of the time, cost… and carbon.
We demonstrated the TOUGHBOOK 40’s unique features – what sets it apart from the competition – wrapped up in a tight action-packed film.
View the gif in the blog here.
One launch film
Four teasers
All part of a suite of marketing materials.
Watch the TOUGHBOOK 40 video here.
Having worked on the numerous Panasonic product launches, Proctors has become the go-to-agency for new TOUGHBOOK launch films and collateral.
Watch the CSR journey video here.
Fun animation and stop-motion…for good
2022 saw the launch of the first series in ‘P+S Unlocked’ – a new major initiative, designed to help audiences to tap into their full marketing potential with our latest insights, strategies and thought leadership content.
Series 1 took on Corporate Social Responsibility, specifically, how to communicate your progress and demonstrate your accountability.
We riffed on a Terry Gilliam style of animation, using a stop-motion collage approach to demystify explainers, illustrate some easy to implement CSR tips and generally add some humour and fun.
The P+S Motion Department went on a whistle-stop tour of Bristol to see our friends at Calibro and Burges Salmon to find out what CSR meant to them and document their progress in becoming the best citizens they can be.
Read about how businesses can make sure their CSR claims are honest and authentic.
Three videos
A host of ads, gifs and lotties (think responsive vector images that move)
An interactive online model of our offices, highlighting some of our own CSR initiatives.
Watch the sustainability marketing video here.
Lots of shares, new business enquiries and email signups. Now, time to start preparing Series 2 – Branding marketing.
Watch the Thrio brand video here.
Creating a toolkit that allows the client to produce their own slick videos
Meet Thrio. From voice to chat to email, bots and beyond, Thrio’s cloud-based, AI-powered tech helps take the customer experience to a whole new level.
This film was the brand’s first foray into the world of motion design, and we wanted to showcase it simply but powerfully – conveying how Thrio’s offering enables seamless interaction using a calm and collected visual style, communicating clarity in a noisy market.
We developed a graceful motion language to complement their new brand. We conveyed a sense of measured confidence, showing how Thrio’s all-under-one-roof solution simplifies the complex by avoiding the use of multiple vendors. This was elevated with delicate sound design, adding timbre to Thrio’s message in a confident but considered voice.
But this wasn’t their only step into the world of motion. Using the style of the brand film as a guide, we’ve since worked on multiple video projects with Thrio, including a video toolkit – a cost-effective tool that allows the client to produce their own slick branded and social media videos.
Brand film
Video toolkit
LinkedIn adverts
Website
ABM campaigns
Watch the Thrio LinkedIn ads video here.
The full campaign received:
5+ million impressions
300+ thousand clicks
85% website acquisition from paid media
196+ thousand new users on the website
231+ thousand website sessions
Watch the Trelleborg Capital Markets Day video here.
Illustrating highly technical processes… without overcomplicating them
Trelleborg is an engineering company specialising in polymer solutions that seal, damp and protect. From smart anti-slip mattress covers to trenchless pipe lining, it was our job to create several animations, displaying how various Trelleborg engineering solutions work – all in time for their annual Capital Markets Day.
Trelleborg’s products are often hidden within industrial equipment and machinery, so we needed to deconstruct them to showcase each in action.
Because these animations were to be presented at an event, it was vital to ensure the design and animation was effective and easy to follow. It was a great opportunity to explain and illustrate highly technical processes without overcomplicating them, with clear supporting copy.
Five technical animations
The project began with two animations to cover a couple of products, Trelleborg were so happy with the results that the final project was extended to five.
…And that’s just the beginning.
Our team of videographers, animators, motion designers and scriptwriters have been making award-winning, show-stopping video for decades.
We believe each of our clients has something really important to say – from tech behemoths and multi-national market leaders, right down to local, grassroots charities. Whatever story you want to tell, we’ll help you share it with the world. Talk to Proctors today.
We all know that the shorter working week has had proven success in other countries. 86% of Iceland’s workforce, for example, have either moved to a shorter working week or have the right to request shorter hours. So as Bristol tentatively dips its toe into the sea of change with a pilot scheme rolling out across businesses in the city, here we are five years into our four-day working week with some (hopefully) helpful reflections.
Why did we do it?
Life is short and we want it to be excellent. Every bit of it. We’ve found that since allowing more space for our brains to process, stray, absorb and even rest (what a thought, we know) this has enabled better ideas to flow, calmer attitudes to influence the team and ultimately a higher level of productivity during the time spent at our desks. Don’t get us wrong, we believe in working hard to deliver excellent, refined work – the only difference is that we think it can be achieved successfully within four days. No extra hours, just four normal days.
How does it work for our clients?
From a client’s perspective, you wouldn’t know any different. At the start of every project we create a timeline that our clients are happy with and that’s the timeline that we work to. Emails are answered from Monday to Thursday and we’re here to chat over the phone on any of those days too!
How does it work for the team?
Every team member works the same four days which allows for collaboration and efficiency. What each team member does on Fridays is completely up to them. And then after a year of working for Studio Floc, all staff get paid the equivalent of a five-day working week for just four days. It’s our way of saying thank you for the hard work that everyone puts in.
A win-win
Excellence can be achieved in so many ways. For us, a four-day working week helps us accomplish this – and we don’t just mean in the workplace – but in every aspect of our lives. we would consider that a win-win.
Driven by purpose, we use creativity to enable the makers, equip the innovators and empower the world-changers. We specialise in branding, print and digital design.
Have questions about our four-day working week? Looking for help with branding, print or digital design work? Let’s chat! Get in touch at [email protected]
As more and more businesses shift towards digital platforms, data analytics is becoming increasingly vital for ensuring customer retention through a smooth and effective onboarding process.
A well-designed onboarding process, optimised through careful planning, testing, and data analysis, helps customers quickly understand your product or service, leading to long-term success with your business.
How do I begin?
Data analytics can seem scary at first. But it’s one of the most powerful tools in marketing and will help you generate a strategy that works and keeps on working.
So, here are five brief tips (see our website for them in full) for using data analytics to improve your onboarding process while enhancing your customer retention:
It’s all well and good saying analyse your data… But if you haven’t got any to start with, that’s going to be hard.
To begin with, identify which metrics are most important to track, these will be your KPIs (key performance indicators).
A/B testing is vital to help you refine your process by allowing you to test different approaches and identify which ones lead to higher conversion rates and engagement.
Using Google Analytics, you will gain insights into which areas may be causing confusion or frustration, which may lead customers to drop off.
With this knowledge, you’ll find ways to improve the process and make it more user-friendly.
While looking at your numbers is beneficial, so is hearing directly from your customers about their experience. Gathering qualitative feedback, such as customer comments or surveys, gives you insights into specific pain points or areas for improvement.
It’s important to continuously iterate and improve to keep your customers engaged and satisfied. Keep analysing data and gathering feedback to identify areas that need refining.
If you’d like to see our tips in more detail with examples, head over to our website.
Using data analytics to refine your onboarding process is essential to keep your customers happy and coming back. So be sure to keep improving to ensure a smooth onboarding experience that sets you and your customers up for success.
At Bopgun, customer retention is our bread and butter! If you’re feeling stuck and need some expert guidance, don’t hesitate to reach out to us.
You know everything there is to know about your area of expertise. Fantastic! Congratulations! But how useful is that if no-one knows that you’re a fountain of knowledge? Part of being an expert in any given field is making that knowledge available and accessible to those who need it. Writing business blogs is a great way to do this, but there’s more to it than that.
Be consistent
You could argue that if you download all the information in your head into one lengthy article, or one comprehensive website, you have demonstrated your knowledge and proven your expertise. I’m afraid it’s not quite that simple. Firstly, how many people will read one long piece of text in one go? Most of us are time poor and when searching for information we need, we want quick answers to specific questions. And even if we did stop and read all of that information in one go, we’re unlikely to remember it, or where it came from, for very long. By publishing content regularly, it keeps you top of mind. The more often people see your name pop up, the more often they will be reminded you know your onions!
Be seen
To position yourself as an expert you need to be seen. This means the more places you can publish content demonstrating your expertise the better. This may sound daunting, but for example if you write a business blog just once a month, you can likely the use the content of that to create several social media posts to dot post periodically each week. If you can secure positions in relevant trade magazines or local publications relevant to your audience, with feature articles about your areas of expertise (not a sales pitch for your business) people are more likely to perceive you as an expert.
Stay relevant
When you know everything there is to know about a particular topic, you might take this knowledge for granted. Don’t! Things change quickly, so make sure you keep up to date with changing technology, systems, suppliers, and trends. If the rest of the market has moved on and you’re still talking about an out of date process or service, your audience will quickly tune out and find another more reliable source of information.
Answer questions people want answered!
Sounds obvious, right? But when you have all the answers, you might assume prior knowledge in your audience that simply isn’t there. It’s often useful to go back to basics, as well as covering more advanced topics and ideas within your field of expertise. To make sure you’re hitting the right note with your audience, ask them what they’d like to find out more about. Or think about what questions you get asked on a regular basis – if a few people have asked you about a certain topic, there are probably many more people looking for the same answers online. If they can find the answers from you when they need them, it helps to build your reputation as an expert.
Ditch the technical jargon
There’s nothing worse than needing to find out more about a subject, landing on a website or finding an article in a magazine on that very topic, and not being able to understand a word it says because it is full of technical jargon. There is always a temptation to prove how much you know by using industry specific terms, technical abbreviations, and acronyms. But trust me, not only is it not necessary, but it will put far more people off than it will ever impress. Perhaps you want to talk in depth about legislation in your field, or the technical aspects of a new product launch. That’s fine to do, as long as you’re explaining it in a way your readers will understand, not just a way that you understand.
Don’t be too pushy
To position yourself as an expert, it’s best to separate the sales pitch from the informative resource as much as possible. if you are constantly trying to push your product or service on people, while answering their questions, they’ll start to wonder about your credibility. For example, if you’re a home improvement company writing a blog about different types of front doors and you only cover the benefits of the products you sell, visitors may not feel you’re offering them an honest, balanced view. If, however you talk about the pros and cons of every available door, whether you sell it or not, they’re far more likely to trust you and eventually buy from you for your expertise.
In conclusion: Generate the right content – generate trust
It’s not an easy balance to strike, to generate content that demonstrates your expertise, without appearing too pushy and without assuming too much prior knowledge from your audience. But when done well, positioning yourself as an expert in your field can generate a level of trust among your existing and potential customers that is truly valuable.
Think of your ideal client? How would the relationship be? Simple and easy? Low maintenance? Drama-free? When you’re juggling a million and one other things, smooth and breezy interactions seem incredibly appealing. But to build long-lasting and fruitful relationships with clients, our interactions need to be honest, and we need to create a genuine connection with them.
So how can we go from transaction to connection?
Be there in the storm and the calm
How do your clients see you? Are you the saviour who sweeps in to save the day in their time of need? Or are you the quiet confident, ready to lend an ear at any time? If you can be both, you’ll be in a good place.
It’s something David Ogilvy talks about in Confessions of an Ad Man:
“The head of an agency has so much on his plate that he is apt to see his clients only in time of crisis. This is a mistake. If you can get into the habit of seeing clients when the weather is calm, you will establish an easy relationship which may save your life when a storm blows up.”
To be able to help solve clients’ problems and challenges you need to be armed with the insight into what works for them, how they see success and what their goals are. To get an understanding of this goes beyond their top-level strategy, it’s what makes them tick on a day-to-day basis, and the more interaction you have the deeper your understanding will be.
Don’t flatter to deceive
Think your client’s product or service is flawless? Brilliant, be sure to tell them. But if it’s not, don’t flatter to deceive – there’s a strong chance it will come back to bite you.
Ogilvy has words of wisdom on this too:
“It is difficult for a doctor to tell a patient he is suffering from a serious disease, and equally difficult to tell a client his product has a serious fault. But the time comes in the life of every advertising agent when he must grasp this nettle. When I told one client that I had doubts about the consistency of his spaghetti, his reaction was to question whether I could do a good job for any product I disliked… On the whole, however, I have observed an increasing tendency on the part of clients to welcome candour.”
Tell people their offer is flawless, and they will expect immediate outstanding results. And if those results don’t materialise? It’s likely you’ll be in the firing line. Tell clients where you think their strengths and challenges lie and you can focus on amplifying the strengths and together you can work on the challenges.
For a well-functioning relationship, both parties need to feel free to speak their minds. It takes time to build trust but inviting honest feedback from clients from the off and accepting this without pride and hostility will set the tone for open communication as the relationship progresses. Sometimes the client will know their industry and market the best and sometimes you will have the expertise and ideas to change their perspective. But when you have established honesty and openness in the relationship, these discussions become constructive rather than destructive.
Build deeper relationships
Deeper, more honest and connected relationships with clients take time. But the investment is worth it. It will allow you to set realistic goals, expectations, and deliverables – and meet them. You’ll be better positioned to address bottlenecks and potential challenges. And you’ll be armed with all the information and insight you need to better report on your success.
Every relationship is different, but have a think about your current clients – do you really know what their motivations are? Have you a firm grasp of what success looks like for them? Are you investing the right kind of time with them? Do you need more face-to-face meetings and less reporting? Could they benefit from networking in your circle?
The easy client relationship might on the surface free your time up to concentrate on other things. But you might be missing opportunities to foster a deeper and longer-lasting connection.
If creative businesses and organisations are not made central to the government’s economic plans, the UK’s creative industries risk falling behind international competitors.
That’s the conclusion of a report by the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee.
Following an inquiry into the future of the UK’s creative sector amid increasing global competition and technology-related disruption, the committee said the government’s approach can be categorised as complacent, missing opportunities and failing to recognise the sector’s commercial potential.
All this, the report said, is despite the following statistics:
The UK is world leading in many specialisms within the creative industries, the committee said, but rapid technological advances are changing the nature of the sector, and international competition is rising.
“We heard mounting concern that the UK’s success was being taken for granted, and increasingly at risk,” the report warned.
Among the committee’s key concerns were the government allowing other countries to create more competitive tax incentives, proposals to relax intellectual property law which threaten creative sector business models and a “perception in government that DCMS [Department for Culture, Media and Sport] is the ‘ministry of fun’ rather than a key driver of economic growth”.
Julia Lopez MP, media and data minister within DCMS, referenced the “ministry of fun” description during the inquiry. She said:
“I want it to be understood as the ministry of a major economic growth area, future technologies … it is incredibly important that we do not try to diminish the public perception of what are fundamentally important industries and ones where the UK has a real competitive advantage.”
📢Out now: our report on the UK’s creative industries, covering
👉How technology is disrupting the sector
👉How the UK’s world-leading position is at risk
👉How Government policy can harness the sector’s potential to turn it into an engine of growth📰:https://t.co/14Z8PfkQzO pic.twitter.com/S5GZu9CSdj
— Lords Communications and Digital Committee (@LordsCommsCom) January 17, 2023
The committee made several recommendations including:
The recommendations mirror a report released last September by Bristol Creative Industries which also called for action on R&D tax relief and skills.
Baroness Stowell of Beeston, chair of the Communications and Digital Committee, said:
“The UK’s creative industries are an economic powerhouse and have been a huge success story. But the fundamentals that underpin our success are changing, and rivals are catching up. The government’s failure to grasp both the opportunities and risks is baffling.
“International competitors are championing their creative industries and seizing the opportunities of new technology. But in the UK we’re seeing muddled policies, barriers to success, and indifference to the sector’s potential. We acknowledge the government has introduced important programmes in recent years, but we are concerned past success has bred complacency.
“Our report sets out some immediate challenges that the government can address now.
“These include improving R&D tax policy to stop excluding innovation in the creative sector; abandoning plans to relax intellectual property rules which would undercut our creative businesses; making the Department for Education wake up to the reality that the future lies in blending creative and digital skills rather than perpetuating silos; and urging senior figures across government to take the creative sector’s economic potential more seriously.”
A creative force: Unleashing the power of Bristol’s creative industries
What the government should do to support the creative industries
A guide to funding for creative businesses
Getting traction online can be tricky without the right approach, but with a bit of creative thinking, generating online awareness can be done for even the most seemingly ‘stuffy’ brands.
Digital PR is very important when it comes to SEO, links are crucial to the algorithm for Google, and other metrics like social mentions and branded mentions are great for building your brand online.
Digital PR and creative content outreach is one of the key pillars of Varn’s full service approach to SEO, and covers a wide range of tactics and strategies around research and competitor analysis, content creation, and digital PR/link building.
Here we take a closer look at digital PR and why it is crucial if you weren’t your business to succeed online and your website to rank well in search engines.
There are a few key differences between digital PR and traditional PR even though they are often two complimentary channels.
Digital PR is a term which typically applies to more online activities and covers but is not limited to the following:
Traditional PR can often work as a stand-alone push and in many instances targets traditional media like print and television advertisements and placements. The ways that you measure success are also more apparent than with traditional PR.
Whereas a television campaign or print media advert may have reached a certain target demographic, tracking the actual numbers of people that saw it can be difficult and tracking the revenue impact is often even more challenging.
Whilst the tracking and right KPIs need to be set up in advance, measuring success is often easier with digital PR.
Brand mentions social media interactions and link coverage are all easier to track and set key performance indicators against. Other follow-on metrics can also be used like ranking increases when looking at SEO and the potential increased revenue impact from these increases in SERP performance.
Once you have content to reach out with (be it survey data, products, commentary or infographics) it is time to put together the target publication list. We work with the client to understand their ideal placements and tie it in with data on sites that we know move the needle when it comes to SEO value.
Before we start with the outreach, we ensure we have a list of ideal target rankings that we want to improve. You need to drive the right keywords to the right pages, which is why developing a proper keyword map is crucial, this is typically done as part of the Technical SEO onboarding process in the form of an audit.
Once we have developed the list we work through it in our quality control process then start with the outreach. Leveraging a tool like Buzzstream is great as you can scale the outreach and gain better insights into how each campaign is performing.
After that comes the outreach, email scheduling software helps you greatly scale up the efforts, from that we can then get a more targeted plan together to get placements on sites depending on the individual publications content guidelines and tone of writing.
After the outreach, we report on the links attained and over time are able to measure the impact on rankings. If we are working on an ongoing campaign, then these reports are more regular and can help build up a better picture when it comes to the digital PR impact on SEO in terms of rankings.
The diagram below shows one of the key differences in the method of outreach for digital and traditional PR. Whereas with traditional PR you want to get the content in front of the right audience straight away, with digital PR you are just as concerned with getting coverage on high-authority websites and increasing your rankings within Google. This way you are able to interact with potential customers when they are browsing content, but more importantly when they are seeking out relevant services that you want to rank for.
When it comes to measuring success with digital PR, the following metrics are great to have within your reporting toolkit:
All of the above are great ways to measure the success of campaigns, of course the ultimate aim is to build revenue and grow the business in a profitable way, but with more top of the funnel activities like digital PR having the above metrics to benchmark against is a great way to show the value of campaigns to clients and senior management.
Digital PR is a great way to create noise in your industry whilst also benefiting your SEO, at Varn our approach to digital PR is as transparent as it is effective. We always report on campaigns, and some get amazing results, others a slightly more muted, but we are always up front with performance.
Some of our favourite case studies include the Thought Clothing Black Friday survey push and the Festival Bag from Paper Bag Co. These are examples of two great digital PR tactics:
The above tactics are great for getting a large hit of links from news relevant sites and also consistent links to support your SEO over the long run.
Digital PR is a growing industry and is a very important part of a strong ongoing SEO strategy. If you would like to learn more about digital PR and the benefits it could bring to your business then get in touch with a member of the Varn team.
We have put together campaigns in the past which have driven great results for clients both in terms of coverage and impact on SEO. Our campaigns are set up with performance in mind, which is why we are trusted to deliver on our promises.
As 2022 draws to a close we’re delighted to be ending the year with top-line growth of +40%. We’ve welcomed major new clients and projects including, Bristol Innovations, Loughborough School of Business & Economics, premium plant-based nutrition brand Vivo Life, Made Smarter Innovation, Medi-Tech innovator Radii Devices and law firm TLT.
We moved to a new home in Engine Shed in March, the natural location for our focus on scaling innovative organisations. From here we continue to support leadership teams in this enterprising region which recorded an investment flow of £1.1bn in 2021 – putting it into the top 20 in Europe.
Moving into 2023, we’ll continue to work alongside The University of Bristol, developing its commercial quantum offering, The Enterprise Sessions and other projects.
And our ongoing relationship with Vittoria, the world’s most advanced bicycle tyre company, has also flourished and we’ll continue to support the leadership team on global brand development. Notable achievements this year include supporting the launch of the 5-hectare Vittoria Park next to the brand’s HQ in Brembate Italy and advertising projects including the benchmark-busting OWN THE UNKNOWN campaign which brought about a collaboration with the Velosolutions team and percussionist Ian Chang.
We also captured the spirit of the brand for internal and external audiences with their Manifesto film.
“It’s been a fantastic year for Firehaus. We’ve worked with some inspirational people throughout 2022 who have maintained a visionary approach to the role of their organisation – even in these difficult times. Each of them is changing the world for the better and it’s great supporting them in that endeavour. We’re super-excited about what’s to come!”
Ian Bates – Founder and Creative Partner
Your brand – you’ve spent years getting it to the exact place you want it to be in and now it’s there, in that perfect position in your market. Your audience can now make an informed, rational decision on your brand. Everything’s perfect.
Except, it isn’t perfect. And your audience won’t make a rational decision.
Let’s take a step back for a minute. It has become increasingly accepted that your brand is no longer simply your logo, or visual identity, but is more about the experience or environment linked to your business, product or service. Your brand can no longer be considered a vehicle through which to facilitate a desired transaction, from business to consumer. It shouldn’t even be considered the sole property of the business it is associated with.
Your brand is shaped by the relationships formed in that space in-between business and people, and importantly between people themselves. It is in this acknowledgement of brand being about relationships that we must appreciate two key points:
no relationship remains the same – relationships always evolve
no-one wants to be in a relationship with someone perfect
In order to have healthy relationships you need to appreciate that people will not seek to understand your brand intellectually. Decisions are very often not made intellectually but intuitively. What is important isn’t what people know about a brand, but what they feel about a brand.
Evolution
Consider a personal relationship that may well be close to your heart – you and your mum. In one way your relationship with your mum will always remain the same, she is your mum and you are her child. That will never change. However, is that really your relationship, or is that simply a label?
Let’s consider the actual relationship you have with your mum over a lifetime. If we think about the relationship rather than the label we can see how our roles and expectations are constantly evolving. At birth we are totally dependent on our mum, without her we would die. As we grow into childhood we are nurtured by mum, but we are becoming less dependent. As older children / young adults we challenge mum, pushing for independence. Entering adulthood we become friends and equals with mum, still getting support and guidance but being able to share some of our own guidance. As mum ages we find that the dependency role switches, with mum becoming reliant on us and relying on our support. Throughout our life we remain mum and child, but the relationship is constantly evolving.
When considering your brand be aware that your relationship with people will evolve. Be open to changing roles and expectations.
Perfection
So what about perfection? Well, how would you like to be in a relationship with someone who is perfect? Someone who never does anything wrong, is always right, always the best, infallible. Sounds pretty awful right? Of course it does because we know that no-one is perfect, we all make mistakes and bad decisions. That’s not a bad thing though, it is what makes us likeable. It’s what builds relationships as everyone is fallible, we are all prone to mistakes. ‘To err is human’.
So if you are hoping to build a relationship with people through brand then forget about trying to seem perfect. We are all fallible and prone to mistakes, but what that gives is the opportunity to show growth, improvement, self-awareness. Perfection leaves no room for improvement – it is a dead state. Forget perfection.
The Space In-Between
When considering your brand, consider it the ‘space in-between’. Your brand is the space in-between numerous contributing factors, such as your business, staff, product, visual identity, customers, detractors, the current environment.
This ‘space in-between’ must be a space of vitality, of evolution, of imperfection, if you want people to relate to the brand and the brand to remain relevant. This ‘space in-between’ is not static or stagnant, it is always in-process. It should be considered temporally rather than spacially. It will most often be appreciated and experienced intuitively not intellectually. When considering your brand – the ‘space in-between’ – it’s not rational, it’s emotional.
Contributed by Paul Bailey Strategy Director Halo
For over 20 years, I’ve been working in or running my own branding agency. First design side, and then moving strategy side, I’ve learned a thing or two in my time. However, there is one thing which I seem to learn but then need to relearn again and again, and that is the need for and the role of transparency.
Now, what has led me to relearning the need for transparency you might ask? Well, in my current role I am Brand Strategy Director. This means I’m not only responsible for the brand strategy work with clients, nor does it mean I’m only responsible for the rest of our strategy team. No, what I take this role to mean is that I am responsible for the understanding and application of brand strategy from the whole of the agency.
As a full-service agency, we have people doing all sorts of roles, from design, to development, to client partnerships. Everyone will, at some point, work with the strategy team on projects, and so I believe that the more they can understand strategy the better and more effective our agency’s work will be. Now, of course, in meetings people get a little window into what we do in strategy, but I realized that in order to really make the strategy teams work transparent I needed to find ways to open up our working. So, I decided that I would decorate the walls with some of the models and frameworks that we might use in a project. (See above)
Models and frameworks seem to be either loved or loathed by strategists, but the use of a good one can create much needed focus at a critical point in a project.
The thing about them is, they’re not intended to give you an answer. In fact, even the best use of the smartest model only ever gives you an approximation of the answer. But for me, that is fine, because in strategy there is never really an answer, there’s just one of a number of answers.
So, I looked through the models I’ve used over the years, printed out some of the best and most used ones, and stuck them on the wall. This immediately led to some great feedback and some very interested people passing our strategy area. Conversations about models, their uses and application, and what they would be useful for, flowed freely. You see, once you put your ways of working out there, people are invested and interested.
In a project, models should be used as your hidden secret. We use them to create focus from a wide range of inputs, but we rarely show them to clients. They’re not really the best way to present work, so we use them as a tool for focusing our work, not presenting it. Good models should be used to cut, to hone, to give you less and not more.
Now there are many models I no longer use, they no longer meet my standards and have been dropped. As I said previously, I’ve spent over 20 years doing this, and one of the things I have learned is what models work, and which ones don’t. So, here’s a short list of a few of the models I still use, and what I use them for.
1. PESTLE
This model is old, and many people knock it, but I still use it. Why I use it is I find it a simple and helpful structure to work through one of the aspects of the context within which our brand exists – market forces. The six areas the PESTLE name stands for (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Environmental) are still a good way to break down the market forces at play on a business and its associated brand. I find that they help me focus, but also they give an indication as to the areas in which a business has more to think about.
2. SWOT
Yet again, another old model that doesn’t get much love these days. Well, I still love it. When we are researching a brand project there are two key areas we need to find out about – the context (market forces, audience, competition) but also the business itself. The SWOT gives us a very simple model to learn something of what the business is good and bad at, and where they see opportunities and threats. Now, the slight variation in my model is that I use a grid which sets out the strengths and weaknesses, and the opportunities and threats on the outer edges, but on the inside where they cross over there are four panels where you can start to set out strategies for improvement (S-O, S-T, W-O, W-T).
3. Brand Pyramid
Now I don’t think I’ve ever shown this as a pyramid to a client. The reason I find the pyramid useful is that it mirrors the process I go through mentally to try and reach a core brand proposition. At the base of the pyramid is the context within which the brand exists (market forces, audience, competitors). The wider this base is (the more research we can do at this stage) then the more stable the pyramid will be. Diagnosis of the context of a brand is the foundation of a good brand proposition. At the other end of the pyramid is the point, the tip, the core proposition that encapsulates the core value of the brand to its audience. You might manage to get this down to only a few words, or at most a sentence or two, because this should be the distillation of all of your work so far.
4. Evolutionary Brand Cycle
There are many models like this, but this is the one I use. It is a simple breakdown of a never ending process of evolution which every brand should constantly go through. Because, although we’ve just written a distillation of the brand, in reality the brand is always changing and shifting to a point. A brand is a dynamic entity which evolves over time. So, this model has four stages; Understanding, Clarifying, Communication, and Evolution. Understanding is your research phase. Clarifying is your distillation phase. Communication is your communicating phase. And Evolution is your listening phase. Keep doing these phases, over time, and your brand can shift and move at the right place and the right times.
5. Marketing Sales Funnel
The Marketing sales funnel is yet another old and supposedly broken model. Not as far as I am concerned it isn’t. Now, my approach to the marketing sales funnel is quite loose, and we don’t put strict rules on how we use it. What we do find it useful for is assessing what marketing touchpoint should be used for which part of the journey through the funnel. At the top of the funnel we are looking at Awareness, and so touchpoints such as OOH and TVC will feature heavily. At the bottom of our funnel we have Advocacy, so Google Reviews or user reviews may feature here. Really, we find the funnel a helpful tool to give our touchpoints a role and responsibility.
6. Experience Ecosystem
Finally, we move into the Experience ecosystem. What is this you might ask? Well, it is something that we do to give a function to every ‘moment’ a person comes into contact with our brand. A ‘moment’ is an audience-centered view of a touchpoint. Brands are shaped through ‘Associated Memorable Moments’, and every one of these moments in time should be used to encourage a desired action or reaction. Whether that action or reaction is just awareness of your brand, or is a driver to purchase, if you attribute a behavior you would like to encourage from that ‘moment’ you are creating a focus for everything you do. Make sure every moment is clearly identifiable as you, and is remembered for something you would like.
BJ Fogg’s Behavior Model is also useful here – motivation + ability + prompt = behavior.
So, there are six models I use pretty often. Of course, there are many more worth using. From Kapferer’s Brand Identity Prism to Keller’s Brand pyramid, Stephen King’s Planning Cycle to Kotler & Armstrong’s 3 Product Levels. But remember, a model is only there to help you cut and refine. It will never give you the answer, and what you get out is only ever as good as the quality of research you put into it. As I said at the beginning, there is a value in and a need for structure.
Contributed by: Paul Bailey, Strategy Director at Halo