How Agencies Can Help Brands Succeed

Over the course of my 15+ year career as a creative agency owner, there have been times where I’ve had to realign our company positioning and goals. It can happen at any time but it’s always best to be thinking about it when things are going well. So while we were in the midst of a growth phase last year, I was excited (and a little scared) to start sketching out the next chapter of our agency.

Step-one was brand positioning. Luckily I’m the kind of person that enjoys living and breathing my work and finds it energizing to be thinking and working independently at any given hour of the day. While I could have reached out to a brand consultant or agency to help me with this part of the process, I knew it was something I wanted to do on my own, and something I would enjoy. Immersing myself in the endless amounts of resources and information available through podcasts, books, blog posts, articles, and videos, I culled a wide range of insights that I stacked up against my own experiences learned over the years.

While positioning is something that should continuously be monitored and refined, I felt I had a pretty good handle on what I needed to do after spending many months researching and planning. What I then wanted to focus on was an update to our visual identity; while bringing my insights about positioning with me. The question was, where should I go to begin the process? A branding agency? A design firm? A freelancer? I had some existing assets including a logo and a brand book, so it was more of a brand refresh than a launch, but still, as an agency owner with a brand that needed work, I was having trouble finding the right fit.

What I found were a lot of smaller agencies (much like ours) that could do the tactical work, but none that were offering the strategic thinking that would give purpose and relevance to our brand identity. None were ready to pull back and challenge us to define our larger vision and mission before diving into the design work. And that’s when it hit me. Being on the other side as a client revealed what it was that my agency was missing. I was in need of something that I was having trouble finding. There was an opportunity there for the agencies I was speaking with that they weren’t exploring. So, I decided to explore it for myself.

I started my company in 2002, making cold calls and emails. With no clients, I was basically a full-time sales guy who would edit videos on the side when someone was in need of something fast and cheap. Very quickly though I realized providing one service — video editing — was not going to cut it for the few clients that were giving me a chance. At the very least I needed to produce the videos too. I needed to help guide the clients through their decisions and make sure everything had intention and purpose, in addition to being visually dynamic and engaging. So I started to edit, produce, and advise, and the clients valued that tremendously. As my sales work finally started to pay off and word of mouth started to spread, I was able to expand and step back even more.

Over the years we’ve worked with hundreds of brands. Most times there were opportunities to go further into the development process to understand the bigger picture before we jumped into producing the work. With the best client relationships, we’d work together, sharing information and goals at the start of the process in service of helping the brand succeed. This was and always has been the guiding principle of my professional career. I just didn’t define it that way, until now. Through this process, I was finally able to identify our larger purpose; We’re a creative agency that helps brands succeed with video. That’s why we exist.

We’re all searching for expert partners that can help guide us. Whether it’s strategy, design, marketing, or something else, we need partners that can help us translate our purpose through the medium they excel at. And not only do we want that, but we also want these partners to open the next door for us and say, “did you think about how it’s connected to this part of your brand too?”

Finding purpose is a fundamental human experience. In addition to emotion and aspiration, it’s also what drives the connection between brands and audiences. Before you can advise clients on defining their purpose, you have to know your own. Find partners that understand this and you’ll be on your way.