Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

I went to lunch with Heidi the other day and we started talking about the new year and healthy resolutions that people make at the beginning of the year.

Working at an agency can sometimes be hard on your diet. We frequently get food treats as motivators and are always looking for ways to take a break and eat some sugar. In fact, that same day we called out Chief Creative Officer and asked him to stop by Whole Foods and buy a cake on his way back from a meeting. He is a super busy executive and he did it. We loved every bite.

Despite this demand for cake, we have turned over a healthier leaf at Capstrat. A few years ago we had chocolate every day of the week. Our health premiums went up, and now we only have it on Fridays. Last year, we made some even bigger changes. We introduced fitness clubs to help us stay active. We now have yoga at the office every Friday, a walking club, a running club and a biking club. We also evaluated our lunch menus and make a more concerted effort to bring in healthier lunches. We still have pizza. We still have cake. We just don't have it every day (or at least we try not to).

Ideas. Stories.  Relationships.  All elements of what we do at multi-dimensional marketing agencies like Capstrat.   But the objective that unites us, defines us and may make us the agency of the future is persuasion.  We persuade consumers, influencers, employees, business leaders, kids, grown-ups etc. etc.
 
A good agency always has been and always will be a partner in persuasion.  What we offer now more than ever is persuasion with precision and persuasion without prejudice.
 
‘With precision’ addresses modern research and ‘long tail’ targeting.  Only a select group of clients in the world really need a mass blast to the entire population.  Most are better off aiming at specific groups.  ‘Without prejudice’ refers to a relatively new willingness to look for the right mix of tools.  Advertising isn’t the absolute answer, and neither is media relations or public affairs or social media.  
 
Maybe ‘precision persuasion’ neatly covers it all. To me anyway, it’s a succinct way of summing up the strategy of finding the right solutions in a strange and wonderful era of fragmentation and infinite possibilities. 

A while back we were asked by Lenovo to design an ad banner and landing page/microsite campaign.

What we learned was how flexible and adaptable our Interactive team can become to meet deadlines. While it is not how we "love" to work, we learn a lot about each other and our abilities when our clients ask us to do the extraordinary. Let's face it, clients we want to work with want an agency that gets them but almost more importantly they want an agency that feels like they're down the hall.

We operate in a competitive field and there are many firms that would really like to have the opportunities that we earn. How quickly we adapt has impressed me since I started working here.

I have also learned that adaptability is synonymous with abilty to produce a lot of quality in a short amount of time. We have learned that it also means being able to execute changes in real time to react to how A/B tests serve us results. Long gone are the days where agencies like ours have the courage to say, "we'll get to it..."

I think adaptability defines us. We measure our value by how "down the hall" our clients feel we are. In reality, some of our clients aren't in our time zone. We also measure our value in terms of how quickly our working relationship spreads from one business unit to another like wildfire within big corporations. We attribute this to being adaptive.

I think a big challenge in trying to communicate precisely what an integrated communications firm like ours can do for our clients is helping our clients and prospects see themselves in a different light. I know, I know, its not really about who we are as an agency. Its far more important that we adapt to our clients communications challenges and craft solutions or stories that work. I had an idea about how this can be done in a light-hearted, fun and informative way.  

Produce a fun and engaging online video game of Capstrat working for clients. People who believe we may be the right communications partner come to the Capstrat site, click on "game" sign in- or not sign in, get a brief on one of a handful of projects that we make up yet are characteristic of our skills and industry concentrations. Think Sims for an integrated communications agency.

They then try to solve unique communications problems using combinations of Positioning, Branding, PR, Public Affairs, Government Relations, Web, Dynamic  Media, Social Media, Viral and Design. Each game session is successive. You win points and go on to lead the score. Every few weeks we add another scenario and the high score gets something neat like a new iPod.

Here is a scenario: "Welcome, Sandy. Your objective is to boost the national rating of the local university's school of medicine. You have 5 years to make a difference but only 6 months to demonstrate initial progress. How do you plan to start?" A) Positioning B) Media Blitz C) Press Release(s) D) Rebranding E) Bottle of Whiskey

Essentially it is a model of our office and an integrated working methodology. It is an interactive means to show our next generation clients what we can do and why they ought to choose us. It could also integrate examples of a lot of our work including creative, interactive, dynamic media, media buying, advertising, our awards, our space, our strategic and articulate staff and our superb ideas well executed.

Think this could fly?