Indianapolis Ad Agency

Many talented marketers wonder why the work they get from their design firms and ad agency partners doesn't stack up to their expectations, both creatively and strategically. One place to start if you want to build powerful, focused brand communications, is with your creative brief. At Element Three, we have developed a thorough creative brief format that assures that the fundamental questions of WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY and HOW get answered. It's true that most Indianapolis ad agencies have a creative job starter form of some kind. And the form alone won't assure that you get great work. The focus and finesse of the people who work with the form, however, will.

Some tips:

Demand focus in the objective for the communications.

Demand that a specific audience be outlined in the brief. You cannot speak effectively to everyone.

Expect to see specific, salient insights into that audience's lifestyle, values and demographics outlined in the brief.

Insist on a single-minded, unique main message. You cannot make great brand communications without it.

We like to agree on where and how the communications will show up. We also like to assure that there will be a specific call to action for the audience to make sure your brand communications get a real response. Contact Tiffany Sauder at tiffany@discoverelementthree if you'd like us to craft a powerful creative brief for your brand communications! It will make all the difference in the creative you hold in your hand in the end.

As our company gathered for our holiday party, we toasted the season. We also toasted the end of 2009...and it can't come too soon. It's been a tough year for so many in and out of our industry. Indianapolis ad agencies larger and more established than ours threw in the towel this past year. We've seen an unprecedented number of resumes making their rounds and many friends contacting us asking if we have work. We've felt the tight budgets our clients must live by as a result of the uber recession. We feel very fortunate to still be in business, working with a wonderful, diverse mix of clients. Our team is strong and we enjoy working together.

So here's to a better year for all in 2010. May it leave us all more prosperous and able to support ourselves and our families.

... was the title in an article today on Adage.com by local Ad Agency president, Tom Denari.

His focus was on the importance of getting past the rational feedback target audiences give you when conducting research and getting to a place where they are giving you their emotional reasons for making (or not making) a product or service selection.

"Isn't it common knowledge that consumers are motivated more by emotion than reason? Isn't that why brands exist? And, if we can agree that brands work on an emotional level, then why are we asking consumers to make rational judgments in testing scenarios? As soon as we ask consumers what they think of something, they stop being consumers and start becoming evaluators. They are now put in a position to think, to give rational feedback to something that is largely trying to affect their emotional or -- more accurately -- their irrational instincts. We've effectively made my mom the marketing director.

Even if a research methodology is trying to measure an emotional response, attempting to glean a valid, accurate response is almost impossible. The vast majority of this research requires consumers to use language to describe emotional responses. Unfortunately, humans have a very difficult time doing this. And even when they do, verbalizing emotion actually brings that emotion to a cognitive level. If it's cognitive, it's now rational and no longer emotional."

At our Indianapolis marketing firm, Element Three, we have long subscribed to this line of thinking. That customers use rational reasons to justify their emotional impulse.  Our Creative Advisor, Marcia Stone has created a proprietary research methodology, the Deep Dive or Brand Chemistry process, that gets to the emotional drivers behind a purchase decision.

The Deep Dive process is our most comprehensive approach to gathering customer feedback. Based on the work of Harvard Professor; Dr. Gerald Zaltman, Element Three has customized his approach to make the methodology available to small and mid-sized companies. This proprietary process captures the customer’s gut-level response to why they have chosen a specific product or service. This process can also be used to gather feedback to campaigns and creative approaches.

Through an experiential focus group, customers go through exercises and creative outlets to express their reasons for selecting a company's product or service. Coming out of this session, organizations will better understand how to focus their brand message towards the customer’s needs and how to quickly connect what you have to what they get.

For more information on our Deep Dive process, click here.

I hope this doesn't make me sound like a curmudgeon. But sometimes I do feel like one. I love technology. It lets me get so much more work done, consider so many options, and communicate effortlessly with people around the country and the world. Today, I spent the day working on brand communications on my laptop –  from bed with a cold. Working in an ad agency or a  brand consulting group can be very time sensitive. So hooray! I can still be productive, even when I'm sick. And boo... I can still be productive when I'm sick.

My husband works every evening and weekend on his laptop. I can check my e-mail, voicemail and text messages from my iPhone...and so can he. All this constant communication can be a life saver. It can also cut into, well, life. This Thanksgiving weekend, I plan to cut off that constant communication and work for at least one day so that I can give thanks for all the other things I have in my life. So join me in taking a low tech holiday!

I'm going to tell you a dirty little secret. Creative people hang on to work that doesn't sell. They also hang on to work that doesn't make it to the presentation or ideas that led to the development of the final idea. OK, so far that doesn't sound very surprising, right? The surprising part is that sometimes, that work eventually gets presented as a solution for someone else's project. Is this bad? Not necessarily.

Sometimes, completely retrofitted creative is obvious because it hasn't been retasked properly. Rarely does a solution work just as well as is the second time around. But there might be a core idea that, with a few slight revisions or with some customization, works very well.

If you're a client and your brand consulting group or ad agency seems to do a lot of repurposing, you may have cause for concern. Every client deserves fresh thought; challenge the creative team if it seems as if the work isn't directed at your brand communication goals as directly as you would like. Ask to see their sketches; get involved in the tissue stage. And don't tell them you know about the secret.

After decades working in Minneapolis, Detroit brand consulting groups–and now working in  an Indianapolis ad agency, I've seen a wide range of working styles. Here's a description of a work group I recently experienced. Do you recognize it? It's made up of cliques.

One clique is The A Team. They lead and do most of the work. Another clique is The B Team. They are jealous of The A Team and talk about them when they're not around. They also counter The A Team's arguments in group discussions. Yet another clique is The Hiders. They don't engage in discussion and don't step up to do work.

What caused this? Undefined roles within the team. The A Team assumed leadership without discussion. The B Team was angry about that. The Hiders were afraid of the conflict going on in the team.

The solution? The entire team met to clear up the assumptions and bad feelings in the team. Then they decided to redistribute leadership based on individual expertise. They established ground rules of operations too. These included the need for every person on the team to take a leadership role of some kind and to take on personal responsibility for doing their fair share of the work. Consequences for non-compliance were also established.

Today, the team is operating at top levels. The members trust each other. They feel like they are part of a united team that supports each other and is honest with each other. Can you say that for your team?

We use Compendium for our blogging partner. Of course, the purpose of (most) blogs is to let people know a little bit about the "real" you, whether an individual or company. In many instances, the way bloggers are found is through online search for a particular subject or item. For instance, maybe you're a fan of the "Arizona Cardinals" (hey, why not?) or "Native Americans living in Cleveland", or "talentless unemployed actors" (to save time, one could also type in "Carrot Top").

On to my point: when writing in Compendium, they provide targeted keywords, which help the bloggers (moi) keep on track. The more keywords used, the stronger the post. In true 21st century coolness, there's even a keyword strength indicator, where red means "Steve, stop writing about the Arizona Cardinals" and green indicates "you're the best blogger, ever."

Today, I'm going for the green. This will be the strongest, keyword-heaviest, blog post. Ever... So, if you were looking for any (or all) of the following, sit back and enjoy (alpha order for your viewing pleasure):

Best Marketing Plans, Brand Chemistry, Brand Communication, Brand Consulting Companies, Brand Consulting Group, Brand Development Services, Brand Development Strategies, Brand Identity Development, Brand Marketing Consultants, Brand Positioning Strategy, Brand Strategy Agency, Brand Strategy Company, Brand Strategy Consultants, Brand Strategy Firm, Branding Consultancy, Business Communications Indianapolis, Business Logo Creation, Certified Brand Strategist, Corporate Brand Strategy, Creative Brand Development, Develop Brand Identity, Developing Brand Strategy, Indianapolis Ad Agency, Indianapolis Advertising Marketing, Indianapolis Brand Consultants, Indianapolis Brand Development, Indianapolis Brand Management, Indianapolis Brand Marketing, Indianapolis Business Marketing, Indianapolis Corporate Branding, Indianapolis Marketing Agency, Indianapolis Marketing Communications, Indianapolis Marketing Consultants, Indianapolis Marketing Firms, Indianapolis Marketing Plans, Indianapolis Marketing Strategy, Indianapolis Marketing Tools, Indianapolis Strategic Marketing, Logo Creation Services, Marketing Brand Development, Marketing Integration, Marketing Launch Strategy, Midwest Marketing Partner, Online Brand Strategy, Return on Marketing Investment, Strategic Brand Consulting, Strategic Brand Development, Strategic Marketing Planning, Successful Marketing Plans

There. I've officially made Code Green with the strongest blog post, ever! Call Element Three today if any of that interests you. Or, if you'd rather talk NFL football (especially the Arizona Cardinals) or wish to debate who the best hair metal bands from the eighties are, I'm ready.

Min Basadur, author of The Power of Innovation and founder of Applied Creativity, has created the Min Basadur Creative Problem Solving Profile. In it, you rate a number of descriptors about yourself. The results help you to chart out your strengths and weaknesses as they relate to the four parts of the creative process (discover the problem/develop ideas/optimize solutions/implement solutions). If you think you're not a creative thinker, think again. There are parts of the creative process that require rational, critical thinking. As part of an Indianapolis ad agency, I can vouch for that. When we develop brand communications for our clients, we need the foundational elements of the marketing plan and brand brief to keep us on track. The sexy part of the process, developing ideas and optimizing solutions, is just the part that gets all the press.

At Element Three, we welcome all creative thinkers, whether they are discoverers, developers, optimizers or implementors. If you want to learn more about the Min Basadur Profile, go to http://www.basadurprofile.com/

Have you ever started working with a personal trainer? What are the first few things they ask you?

1) What are your goals
2) What is your reason/ motivation?
3) What resources are you willing to commit? (time, money)

After a line of questioning similar to the one above, they will generally move into scheduling your physical  assessment. Right? They're not just going to give you the workout program they gave the guy who trained before you; the trainer is going to customize it to fit your unique body and health situation.

Think about this exact scenario, but instead of it being your body you want to get healthy - insert your company that you want to grow. It's the exact same process, isn't it?

Any marketing partner or ad agency in Indianapolis or elsewhere should begin with your goals and objectives. And, in order to understand scope and size - your resource limitations need to be known as well. Everyone has time and money constraints.

Then, they need to understand your unique situation through an assessment. Assessments help marketing partners better be able to track return on marketing investment, to ensure marketing integration and proper prioritization of marketing communications implementation.

So, next time you bring in a new partner or begin planning for 2010 - be sure you have a thorough understanding of the environment you're working within.

So many of our clients at Element Three, an Indianapolis Ad Agency, ask us how they can learn about what makes their customers tick. Because we've seen focus groups get swayed by one or two vocal participants, we know they can lead marketers astray. Mall intercepts and interviews also focus on verbal feedback, usually in response to something.

At Element Three, we've learned that a far more powerful way to get past the surface of what your customers care about (and how they connect to your brand) is to find out these four things, in order of priority:

What Customers Feel: are they comfortable with your brand? do they align themselves with it publicly and proudly? do they feel emotional resonance with your brand? or do they feel disconnection?

What Customers Create: when given the opportunity, what would your customers create for your brand that would best serve their needs? what brand communications would they imagine to represent your brand?

What Customers Do: what actions do your customers most frequently take while interacting with your brand? what actions do they avoid? what actions do they associate with your brand?

What Customers Say: the last and probably least accurate/predictable source of client information

Through Element Three's proprietary Brand Chemistry Process, we can answer these questions, giving you far more meaningful and actionable information than you're likely to get from most qualitative research techniques. Contact Tiffany Sauder at tiffany@discoverelementthree.com to learn more about Brand Chemistry.

As an Indianapolis Ad Agency serving as a marketing partner to clients in today's tough business economy, we help our clients think about their businesses in innovative ways. One way to do this is to observe those outside your industry. If you're trying to think of innovative ways of servicing client work or developing new products, rather than looking to direct competition, find inspiration in organizations that are far afield from your own.

I've focused here on examples of 'smallsizing' only to demonstrate how you might find inspiration from various industries if you were considering service or product size/amount issues. From these examples, you might develop like ideas in your own industry that set your offering apart from the competition.

Often these examples can bring you fresher thinking than merely 'staying between the lines' of your own industry. It's freeing to let the content area go and just think big picture.

Understanding your creative process is very helpful in making you a truly productive creative person. As a brand communicator, I recognize the importance of creativity (the moment an idea is conceived) yet much of the creative process is actually what I would call 'the heavy lifting'.

1. Research the issue
2. Define the problem to be solved
3. Confirm research
4. Redefine problem
5. Get inspiration for creative solutions
6. Generate ideas (this is the part everyone focuses on)
7. Select best idea to develop further
8. Optimize final idea
9. Get buy-in for the idea
10. Implement idea

At most ad agencies and design firms, number 6 is typically the focus. At Element Three, we try to give all ten steps of the creative process their full due so that, as your Midwest marketing partner, we develop creative solutions that truly solve your problem.

According to Jonathan Plucker, an educational psychologist at Indiana University who studies creativity, there are many myths about creativity. One of them is that you cannot learn to be more creative. In fact, Plucker teaches courses in creativity. I have had him speak to my students at Herron School of Art and Design and to the staff at an Indianapolis Ad Agency where I worked as creative director. Plucker says that there are many methods currently in use to help boost creativity and they tend to work if you believe they do. I've used deBono's Creative Thinking Hats, Monahan's 100 MPH Thinking and even developed my own idea generation called Smashing.

The reason these techniques seem to work is that they give structure to the creative process so that, as a brand communicator, I'm not starting with a completely blank piece of paper and the leap to get to ideas is not so far. The best marketing partners include their clients as part of the process instead of holding them at arms length at the moment of creation. At Element Three, we like to show rough ideas and have formative discussions with our clients rather than springing final looking ideas on them. This helps everyone understand the creative process, building comfort with the team, the process and the work.

If you are looking for an Indianapolis Ad Agency, I highly recommend that you find one that understands and can articulate its processes (especially its creative processes) clearly. I also recommend finding one that will build comfort with the creative process.

Ever heard of Ken Fisher?

Ken Fisher is the CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Fisher Investments, a multi-billion dollar independent money management firm. He has also written the monthly "Portfolio Strategy" column in Forbes for the last 25 years, has authored 6 books and is a globally recognized market forecaster.

You could say "he's smarter than the average bear."

In the August 3rd, 2009 edition of Forbes magazine they highlighted Mr. Fisher's 25 year contribution to their magazine and highlighted the philosophies that have made him so successful.

1) "Unusual profitability can rarely be sustained, because it attracts competitors like honey draws bears. This is why I believe price/sales ratio is far more important that a company's P/E ratio."

2) "A company's marketing ability is usually far more important that it's ability to invent something. It's not the hot gadget that puts small companies over the top but hot marketing... So I [Ken Fisher] like companies run by a top-notch marketing person or companies with one close to the boss' ear"

If you've never listened to your ad agency, marketing partner or marketing firm about how important marketing is... listen to this guy.

Relevant products are certainly important, but without a proper brand positioning strategy, marketing integration into product launch and a successful marketing plan, that product will never reach your target customers.

If you know you have a hot gadget, but not the hot marketing, partner with an Indianapolis ad agency like Element Three or find a marketing partner in your city.

Can you think of products that you know were not superior in a category but ended up being the consumer preference because it was marketed so well? I can.

Marketers today have more tools available to them than ever before. Tools to raise awareness, generate leads, communicate with clients and support the selling process. Email, text messaging, Twitter, blogs, direct mail, billboards, websites, micro-sites, Facebook, LinkedIn, just to name a few.  With all of these tools, are we actually BETTER marketers?

Are we more relevant with our online brand strategy? Are we executing successful marketing plans? Are brands stronger than ever before? Are our brand communications 1:1?

I think there are a couple of challenges that we have today as ad agencies, marketing firms and brand consultants that we didn't before these tools were available.

1) Managing the Message. With all of the various applications that can now be used to interface with potential and current customers, companies must keep control of their brand message and ensure a focus on their key Unique Selling Points. There is more opportunity than ever for brand blur to occur. Consistently remind your employees of your brand message; and, periodically check in with customers to ensure your Unique Selling Points are being communicated clearly.

2) Content, Content, Content. If you decide to engage in social media or digital media, ensure you are organizationally prepared to supply the content necessary to make the tactic successful. The key to a successful email campaign or a successful blog is a consistent flow of relevant content. If you do not have the capacity to provide this in-house, partner with an ad agency, marketing firm or freelance partner to supplement.

These are just two areas to consider. What do you think - have the tools available today made us better marketers?

I was reflecting on the past few conversations with clients and prospects and realized a theme - content. They are struggling with understanding exactly what to write about in their newsletter, post on their blog or speak about at an industry conference.

Intuitively, they know they have key pieces of meaningful information, but are having a hard time capturing and communicating it.

As a reminder, it does little good to have the tools to effectively execute on a successful marketing plan, but to not have the compelling message in place to get people engaged. You can't have a blog and never post, you can't send out one newsletter a year. You have to offer the market a constant stream of content to elevate your position in their hearts and minds.

Before you begin executing a marketing tactic, or sign another contract with a marketing vendor - stop and determine your content strategy first. If you're not comfortable, partner with an Indianapolis marketing firm or ad agency to supplement your content. This can be an effective way of ensuring your brand positioning strategy is interwoven with executing your strategic marketing plan.

In production right now at our Indianapolis marketing firm is a naming project for a company in the financial sector. Generally a crowded, conservative, 'blue color palette' industry not known for it's marketing risk taking.

The name(s) we are proposing are mostly evocative names. Names that are not usual to the industry and require leadership to ensure the brand positioning strategy is not lost. The upside of evocative names is they are a launch pad to tell customers, prospects, partners and competitors your brand story. To explain what you do, why you do it and how you do it better than everyone else in your industry.

As their Indianapolis ad agency, we believe the evocative names have 'legs'. Meaning there are ways to make the brand story live through their online brand strategy, marketing plan and corporate identity.

But, evocative names also take guts. There is a lot of fear associated with stepping out from the crowd and the potential criticism that could initially come from employees.

The verdict is not yet in on this client. But, looks like Google, Yahoo, and Apple have had some success with evocative names...

As a creative director at an ad agency, I once told a senior copywriter that most of her headlines were leaning on play on words...and that wasn't good. She was appalled. No one had ever given this feedback before. In fact, she asked me if I was kidding.

I wasn't.

Luke Sullivan, a copywriter I knew in my youth back in Minneapolis and author of "Hey Whipple, Squeeze This", says, "Get puns and word play out of your system right away. They’re just overused and the sign of lazy writing. It’s okay to think them. Just make sure you toss them." Right on, brother. Amen. Cue the choir.

Puns are bad enough in brand communications. But even worse, I've recently noticed an overuse of puns in local and national television news copy. When that happens, it just seems like a sign of disrespect for the seriousness of the news stories. Nothing like an elbow to the ribs right after a story about out of work auto workers or falling home prices, right? It's as if the writer doesn't think anyone's listening. Or just wants to add, "Get it?" to the end of the copy.

Don't do puns – in your online brand communications or your printed communications. Your readers will get it without them. Period.

We receive many RFPs (Request For Proposal) here at our Indianapolis Ad Agency. Some requesting integrated marketing plans, our brand chemistry process, idendity development, a new website or other creative services. I must confess a love/ hate relationship with these RFPs. On the one hand, it's great to have a chance to create marketing strategies and materials for a new client. On the other hand, they are a ton of work that may or may not pay off in the end.

I just read this article on AdAge.com this morning - Cattle Fetch Higher Prices and Suffer Less Humilation by Jennifer Modarelli. You should really read it. It talks about an RFP that was all submitted electronically with no human contact. And to make it worse, they were not asked to propose for a project, just hourly rates by role. I think it's sad that creativity and strategic thinking have been reduced to commodities that can be churned out at bargain basement prices. Unfortunately for the client, they are probably getting what they pay for in terms of quality. We like to say, "you can have it fast, good or cheap - pick two." If someone tells you they can give you all three, buyer beware.

Furthermore, in my experience, who you work with is so important! Good chemistry between the client and the agency produce the best work. If you enjoy working together, chances are you will be more collaborative and get to a better end product. Creatives get inspired by conversations with their clients and clients (and your customers) respond to inspired work. So, if you chose fast, good and cheap from Rick's Discount Ad House, best of luck...