Is Your Advertising Brave Enough?

Posted by sschaeffer On April 16, 2014 at 10:51 am | 0 Comments

Rebranding Creative Dimensions

Posted by sschaeffer On November 4, 2013 at 8:48 pm | 0 Comments

Advertising agencies are notorious for putting their own brand on the backburner while they focus on their clients’ brands. It’s the old case of the cobbler’s children going without shoes. That’s probably because ad agency branding is an incredibly difficult undertaking. Not only is finding the time to work on your own brand an issue – when you’re busy with paying clients – but feeling satisfied with the work is another huge obstacle. The work not only has to be effective at capturing the essence of the agency and its people, but we hold our own branding up as an example of the quality and attention to detail our clients could, and should, give to their own brands.

So when is the right time to rebrand? For us, the time was now because we’ve realized fundamental changes in our company, mainly in experience and capabilities. Taking a page from our name, we truly are much more dimensional than ever before. With the hiring of some key new people, we have combined experience that’s now broader and deeper. We’ve always excelled at traditional advertising and media planning and buying, but now we also boast expertise in strategic planning, digital marketing and brand development, among other things.

To give you a brief glimpse behind the green curtain, here are the highlights of our rebranding process:

1. The Discovery Process

We began by having an honest conversation with ourselves and asking a lot of questions. Some easy…some not so easy. What do we stand for as an agency? What do we want to say about ourselves? What do others think about us? What is our competition doing and saying about themselves? What do potential clients look for in an agency? And so on, and so on, and so on…

2. What We Believe

After spending a considerable amount of time hammering out step one, we ultimately decided to hang our collective branding hats on What We Believe – personifying our business philosophy you might say. We boiled it down to nine “beliefs” that state who we are as an agency, and what our current and future marketing partners can expect from us.

3. Brand Look & Feel

Finally, the fun part! We moved onto designing a new agency logo, business cards, stationery, agency brochure and ultimately a new web site. We decided to go bold, colorful, and slightly irreverent, while providing enough – but hopefully not too much – information about our agency.

4. Execution

With the new site up and running and our identity package complete, now it’s time to practice what we preach through shameless self-promotion. We are dedicated to continually updating the site and posting to social media, while always looking for new ways to improve our agency and bring better results to our clients.

This is a simplified snapshot of what we’ve been up to the past few months. If you’d like additional information about our process, or how the process might apply to your company, please give us a call or send us an email. Until then, we hope you appreciate the outcome of the Creative Dimensions’ rebranding process. It’s been a labor of love. (With great emphasis on the word “labor”).

– Steve Schaeffer, Creative Director/CEO @ Creative Dimensions

The Rise of the In-House Frankenstein

Posted by sschaeffer On September 6, 2013 at 2:14 pm | 0 Comments

When Doctor Frankenstein first saw his creation come to life, he exulted, “It’s alive!” While he had brought to life a thing that could shuffle slowly, make guttural intonations and throw children down wells, he couldn’t see what his animated miracle really was.

An ugly baby.

Of course, when I talk about Frankenstein, I’m really talking about the new trend for companies to do all of their advertising in house. While they might save money and even enjoy the convenience of throttling their creatives and brand strategists without having to leave the building, they’re missing something that will remain the ultimate value of the external ad agency: Objectivity.

No matter on what side of the operation table you stand, you’ve seen this happen. A client has a grand vision. They share the vision with the agency. The agency comes back with materials to communicate the vision and *gasp* have leavened it with reality. The client claims the original vision came in a dream—and from what the sales force, distributors, retailers, PR staff and teenage daughter in her first year as a communications major had to say.

Bottom line: “We aren’t changing my vision.”

I recall from my own experience, after presenting an engaging campaign that played to the product’s assets and was loved by the whole agency and the client’s own marketing people AND a round of focus grouping, the client said this—and you’ll notice I’m not naming names here—“Our product has a story to tell. You fear that it might be dull, but…if dull is what it takes, we must dare to be dull.” We stood our baby up, rearranged its arms and legs, put electrical bolts on its neck and dared to make it dull.

The ensuing multi-media campaign was seen and recalled by one and a half consumers. The client apologized and gave us free rein to guide the marketing. Sales spiked.

Clients with real vision (Mr. Jobs, anyone?) seek out agencies (say, Chiat Day) who will give them not only great ideas, but a solid-gold, third-party view point. Objectivity interprets research with more accuracy, sees the weaknesses and strengths of brand offerings more clearly and will lean farther out to nab the golden ring.

In-house agencies do have their merits, but what kind of objectivity can they achieve by living in the belly of the beast and seeing the marketplace through its navel? Perhaps great things will be achieved by companies taking this route.

Then again, maybe their marketing creations will lurch to life, shamble off a castle parapet and plunge into a mob of, not angry, but disinterested villagers.

– John Graham, Copy Director @ Creative Dimensions

Vendor vs. Pander

Posted by sschaeffer On March 17, 2013 at 12:59 pm | 0 Comments