People are scaling back. Those who bought premium dog formulas are researching CostCo diets. People who bought CostCo diets are looking into autoshipping retail brands online to cash in on that extra 5%. No surprise to anyone, these shopping behaviors directly impact brand budgets and even agency performance and structure. As marketers, we all are subject to the organic volatility of the marketplace we call home.
Even if the pet industry is recession-proof (Nasdaq, 2023), the effects are compounding and very real.
As advertisers, we have no choice but to empathize with the tension this places on a brand manager who is charged with often-unrealistic performance objectives at the start of the year, only to realize their resources are once again depleting before their eyes. More than empathize, we must re-organize. Because it’s the great oath we so solemnly (though silently) take as their partners that we make them look dang good.
If there truly was an oath to swear us in, I could only hope it would be something like:
I so solemnly swear to uphold and honor that sacred promise demonstrated by the greats before me (see, Brawny Man, Mr. Whipple that crazy cat, and all those Old Spice weirdos) to respect and carry forward the highest standard of strategic precision and creative excellence, come hell or low budgets as a faithful steward of our brand partners – to make their brand successful and the manager of the brand aforementioned look *damn good* in front of their bosses and executive teams.
Where was I? Ahh yes.
Be agile or be replaced.
Great stories will always be necessary. But what we do is not inherently tell stories. We answer to business objectives through the vehicle that is marketing. And if that is our “problem to solve,” then we must constantly be willing to rethink “how” we solve it. Take the brand anthem video for example. A single piece of content that captures the brand’s UVP and tone in a beautifully architected expression of the brand.
The anthem will always have it’s place and belong in a content ecosystem. But alone, it will never be enough.
What brand managers need (and it is our responsibility to drive them to this realization, not wait for them to arrive at it on their own) is efficiency in every angle of what they do. The ask: We need an anthem. The answer: We can do that. But let’s not stop there. Let’s create a fat anthem. One that tells the whole story, drives their UVP and tone – annnndddweaves in the reasons to look, believe, consider and purchase. So that the brand manager has one single receptacle from which they can pull and spread across their tactics.
The agency’s dilemma.
You have overhead, employees. You have costs and efficiency doesn’t seem equitable to anyone at face value. But there’s danger in them there hills. That’s the kind of thinking that leads one to forget our role…that sacred oath you never actually took… Our job is to make our brand partners look damn good. That’s “what success looks like.” And if you’re a partner that brings value, you’ll remain a valued partner. That is, do the right thing and you’ll be all right.
It’s not the videos. It’s the logic.
I’ve shamefully pigeonholed this philosophical shift to be all about video efficiency. But this same logic can and should be applied to how we serve our partners every day in every way. Yes, the tactics change. Reels that didn’t exist years ago, exist now. And everyone will remain adaptable in this way. BUT. The agility must run deeper in the philosophical inner-workings of your organization. Or to use a term of an old mentor of mine: You must “operationalize” agility into your relationship to ensure you’re bringing the most value possible as our brand managers continue to endure the uncontrollable variability in the marketplace.
So (and I promise I only say things 3x when I really mean them or forteg to porof my wurk) they look *damn* good.
