A few years back, we did for ourselves what we do for our clients every day and turned our brand strategy process inward. We asked ourselves “Why do marketers come to Tailfin for help – often over and over?” After a lot of whiteboarding and lively debate, we came to a simple realization. We help brands that are stuck.
And that stuckness takes on a lot of shapes and forms. Like start-ups just getting by with “fake it til they make it” brand assets. Or established brands stuck with boring, tired out messages and looks. Or challenger brands stuck in the leader’s rearview mirror. Or expanding brands with no clue how to get from A to B.
They were all different, but in many ways the same. They were all stuck, and we got them unstuck.
Unstuck is what we do. We give companies the brand fuel they need to get where they need to go. So, in our silver anniversary year, we thought it made sense to look at how brands get stuck in the first place and give some tips for how to wiggle free. Hope you enjoy it, and hope it helps. If it doesn’t, give us a call – we’ll get you unstuck.
UNSTUCK #1: Everyone Wants to Be Daring (Until They Don’t)
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in 30+ years in this business, it’s that everyone wants to be some form or fashion of “a daring marketer”. Clients use the “d-word” a lot. Creative teams beg for license to try something different and new. Account teams urge creative teams to come up with something that will “wow ‘em”.
It makes sense. This is a business of all too frequent copycat behavior, that every now and then occasionally gets upended by an honest-to-goodness, genuinely, new idea. And that’s the stuff that makes people sit up and take notice.
Daring work is the work they make movies and TV shows like Mad Men about. It’s the visuals, the snappy lines, the unforgettable characters, and the jingles that stick with us for a very long time (see also: Budweiser’s “Wasssup”, Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef” and Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World”).
But daring doesn’t have to be shocking or taboo. Was getting a field full of people from all walks of life together to sing “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” in perfect harmony daring? Damn right it was – just imagine being in that pitch meeting with the top brass at Coke.
It’s safe to say that most people in this biz want to be a daredevil to some degree. Until, that is, they’re faced with the darning, bold, and different work they requested. Then, things can get sticky.
Because change – real change – is hard. Even daredevils have bosses and consumers and peers, and since advertising is essentially a business of subjectivity, convincing someone that something wildly different than what they expected (consciously or not) is the right way to go, is tough. We all default to comfortable, known, and familiar. So when faced with the unfamiliar, our daredevil selves may beat a retreat, or nip, tuck, and neuter a daring idea into something more…expected. An old idea with a cool new hat.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Here are four tips to protect and embrace that inner daredevil in the face of a boss / client / colleague who says “I just don’t get it”.
Build Your Case on Facts: A lawyer whose key argument is “trust me” is doomed. Opinions are great, facts are armor. Data, research, references – they’re agents of persuasion, and for good reason. Data isn’t subjective, it’s factual. It’s objective – though the skilled daredevil can bend data to their argument to a degree. So one way to quell that fight or flight instinct when you present a new and daring idea to a doubter is to back it with facts. But you have to make sure people really listen to those facts – it’s easy to be taken aback when the answers we expect don’t match what the data is telling us.
Learn From Other Daredevils: Brands that dare get lauded all the time in ad media and at countless agency watercoolers. There are shining examples to look to – think of Domino’s classic Oh Yes We Did campaign that basically apologized for making cruddy pizza for years. The definition of daring built on honesty, transparency, and a healthy dose of owning up for mistakes (something in short supply). It revolutionized the brand and sped a turnaround transformation. There is a TON to learn there, and even if you grab just one lesson, at least you have a case to back you up. Or take a page from Jeep, Liquid Death + elf, or Marty Supreme to see what daring can look like today (a lot of really funny, self-aware parody, as it turns out).
Daring Isn’t a Binary Choice: It’s important to realize that daring isn’t a yes / no, pass / fail test. It’s a scale, and you don’t always have to take it to eleven. There is the rare occasion that going for broke is the right choice, but a lot of times, it’s about the stretch. See if you can step outside your comfort zone – at least with one foot. The more times you stretch, the easier it feels, so don’t be afraid to try some microdaring here and there.
Go All In: Of course, sometimes, going for broke is the only path (or at least you might believe that). If that’s the case, make your argument and push all your chips in. “If I’m wrong, fire me.” I’ve only had to do this (or something similar) a handful of times and every single time, the client / colleague has said “I’ll take that bet.” I guess there’s something collective about the daredevil DNA – when someone sees you’re all in, they are too. (For the record, I went 4-5 on daring ideas that actually paid off – and didn’t get fired for the one dud).
At the end of the day, the truth is we live in an Ad world of endless algorithms and analytics that seem to push every message to the middle. I’d love to see the real deal, big-bet, daring make a comeback. It’d sure make things a lot more interesting. At least that’s the world we like to work in. Join us…I dare you.
