The Future is Relevant
You’ve probably all seen stats about the number of commercial messages we are exposed to every day. Whether the real figure is 3,000 or 20,000, the point is that it’s a lot more than anyone would ever want to consider. So the answer must be to focus on stand out? As Bill Bernbach (or one of the many others to whom this quote has been attributed) said, ‘if you don’t get noticed, everything else is academic’. So let’s just use the proverbial fish on a bicycle creative and watch the clicks come in and tills kerching. If only it were that simple. Today’s consumers – in every sector – are far more discerning and will tune out from anything they don’t feel they need or want to engage with. Why should they? They’re thinking about how they are going to get to school in time for pick up, what that rude man said to them at the garage earlier, clouds, holidays, hair cuts, nose jobs, a new job or no job. Even the most outrageous, disruptive, stand-out-like-the-dog’s campaign is going to get short shrift from consumers if they don’t feel it’s relevant.
You know what it’s like yourself when you shift through the post at home or at work – anything that looks like you don’t have to open, however bright and colourful, you gleefully rip up and chuck in the recycling drawer. Yes, I meant bin.
There’s definitely been a slurry of campaigns over the last couple of years that have deliberately gone all out for stand-out. They probably thought ‘that’s what the Meerkat’s did, or ALDI’. And that would be where they are very wrong. Whilst both of these campaigns had more than their fair share of stand out. It was not for the sake of it. Both were firmly built upon simple but powerful and well documented insight. That’s what made them relevant. That’s why we all noticed them. And that’s why so many were compelled by them.
Same goes for agencies. Being relevant is more important now than at any time since we first opened the IF doors nearly 10 years ago. Our clients have to consider a far broader media landscape and come into contact with a far more diverse agency range. We have to make sure we are best placed to add value. And we have to make that clear in the way we present ourselves and our services.
These days clients want experts in their agency team, not generalists. Whilst we absolutely believe in the power of a core idea, we also know our clients need us to be agile – with the ability to develop strategy, promotion and/or tactics on demand. To deliver against this, the relevant creative agency cannot be an amorphous entity. If it doesn’t stand for anything, then it stands for nothing.
It was this insight that led us to review our current set up and look for ways to develop our expertise. Not in a general way, but focussed, so that clients could buy into a specific area, or multiple areas, depending on their challenge.
And so, whilst we are still very much an insight-focussed, independent creative agency, we now have 3 areas of expertise to offer
We’ve developed this solution with one purpose in mind; to be as relevant to our clients over the next 10 years as we have been over the last 10. After all, if you’re not relevant then everything else is….yep, irrelevant.