What We Write About.

This month marks another anniver­sary for Tac­tic. As a sea­soned brand­ing firm, we enjoy look­ing back at our body of work. It’s reward­ing to revisit the projects that pro­duced results and impact for our clients. Dig­ging a bit deeper, it’s no coin­ci­dence that our best work occurs for our best clients.

So, the obvi­ous ques­tion is, what makes a “best” client?

In a word: trust. It’s the com­mon denom­i­na­tor in our most effec­tive work. Whether it’s devel­op­ing a cor­po­rate iden­tity or a brand­ing cam­paign, redesign­ing a web­site or cor­po­rate brand, our level of work is ele­vated when we’re used as experts (and not as vendors).

Let me explain. Com­pa­nies come to us because they’re famil­iar with our work. They’ve seen our prod­uct and hope to attain the same level of suc­cess with their brand. How­ever, what’s not seen in a port­fo­lio is the under­ly­ing rela­tion­ship within a project. Iron­i­cally, it’s the client’s involve­ment, atti­tude, and approach that dic­tate success.

In our expe­ri­ence, there are five key dri­vers to a suc­cess­ful brand­ing relationship.

Exper­tise — The real­ity is that we’re hired to do some­thing that a client either can’t or doesn’t want to do. This exper­tise shouldn’t be for­got­ten in the process. After all, you (hope­fully) wouldn’t visit a restau­rant and instruct the chef on how to pre­pare their specialty.

Committee-free — Rebrand­ing is a crit­i­cal ini­tia­tive that’s tempt­ing to involve mul­ti­ple lev­els and depart­ments. Feed­back is great (we need it through­out the process), but “designing-by-committee” will water down the prod­uct, cre­ate inef­fi­ciency and delay influ­en­tial work.

Design, not dec­o­rate — Hav­ing a “good eye” or “great taste” is com­mended. Yet, nei­ther qual­i­fies some­one to brand a com­pany, select pho­tog­ra­phy or rec­om­mend typo­graphic elements.

Cus­tomers mat­ter — Rebrand­ing is designed to con­nect with a buy­ing audi­ence; why not take their side? Key brand­ing deci­sions often hinge on inter­nal (and not cus­tomer) pref­er­ences. The process should con­tin­u­ously remind the team why (and for who) a com­pany is rebranding.

Race for sec­ond — Under­stand­ing the com­pet­i­tive land­scape is nec­es­sary; want­ing to repli­cate their every move is not. Instead of direct­ing an agency to “be more like” a com­pet­ing com­pany, a client com­pany should trust the exper­tise an agency has gained from other indus­tries and trends. This knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence can make a com­pany a fore­run­ner in their space.

Trust is a long-standing con­cept in busi­ness. No mat­ter at which side of the table you’re sit­ting, the client-agency part­ner­ship is a key tenet of the brand­ing cam­paign. Effec­tive brand devel­op­ment is as much about the work­ing rela­tion­ship, as it is the cre­ative mus­cle behind the work.

“Mar­ket­ing” and “brand­ing” have become ubiq­ui­tous. Even Google can’t define them: there are over 500 mil­lion search results for the com­mon terms. Is this a symp­tom of a larger prob­lem in the brand­ing indus­try? Let’s take a closer look.

In recent years, agen­cies have become all things mar­ket­ing. Changes in media, do-it-yourself tools, and indus­try con­sol­i­da­tion have dis­rupted things. Pick any met­ro­pol­i­tan mar­ket and you’ll find count­less “mar­ket­ing” firms. Some are design shops. Oth­ers are pub­lic rela­tions agen­cies. You might even find an event plan­ning com­pany in your broad “mar­ket­ing” search.

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