How We Do It
Before we describe "how we do it", it might be an idea to tell you what the "it" is. The "it" is the creative generation and execution of ideas that change the way people think about brands. Sounds simple, right? At the core it is, because marketing and communications always ask three key questions:
- What do we have that is unique?
- Who specifically would be interested in it?
- What are the most effective ways of getting our story to that specific audience?
These questions have guided the majority of marketing decisions and will continue to. But this tidy situation has been complicated by big changes we are seeing in communications. Some of these include:
- More power to consumers as they become more sophisticated and use the latest advances in communication technology
- Something known as 'media fragmentation' but can more simply be described as increased consumer choice for how to receive and interact with information
- Brand as a total experience versus brand as a narrowly defined product or service
- Positioning brands to compete by engaging the consumer emotionally instead of talking only about tangible benefits
- Questioning the need to be 100% consistent with a brand when the consumers who buy it are so diverse
- How and what to measure to make sure that communications are paying off
All of this represents an aggressive evolution in marketing (note that we fall short of calling it a "revolution").
This now leads us to the point of this whole section on our fabulous website: How We Do It. And we do not want to shock you here, so prepare yourself. The simple fact is - there is no one way to do it. How can you template a process when no two brands are alike, no two clients are alike, and no two consumers are alike?
At DDB we are guided by playbooks, not rule books. Rigid methodologies minimize creativity. Paint-by-numbers gets you the same painting every time.
That is not to say we do not have tried and true approaches to building and growing world class brands - we do. We must have them to have been in the business this long, to be recognized so much for our work, to have had such an impact on our clients' businesses, and to have made so many contributions to the industry.
Usually at this point, a company like ours would try to impress you with neat words, awe-inspiring acronyms, and complicated, colorful, circular graphics to describe the proprietary way we work. Well, we are sorry to disappoint. We would rather you cruise the rest of this site and take a look at examples of our work, peruse some of our thinking, participate in our debates and discussions - basically get to know who we are.
If you feel comfortable with us - get in touch. Nine times out of ten, companies like ours are chosen as partners based on chemistry. So we should meet and see how the first date goes. Tell us your challenges and opportunities: we love to solve complex business problems, take away your worries, and have a lot of fun doing it. And we guarantee, at some point, you will be shown our complicated, colorful, circular graphics.
