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Agency Brand Development Program

Designed to help your firm create a more clearly defined focus – a differentiating business strategy that will give you a stronger competitive advantage in the marketplace and an improved ability to attract new clients.

This program is founded on the belief that agencies can do a much better job of doing for themselves what they do for their clients: build a strong, distinctive, memorable brand. A great agency brand is built like a great building. It starts with a strong foundation, which are your purpose, principles, and positioning. The process of branding your agency starts with purpose – the agency’s reason for being. Forget about the conventional “mission statement” and look deeply at the question, “Why did you choose to spend your life in this business?” (The real answer has nothing to do with money.)

Principles

Next comes defining your principles, the strongly held values that guide your business decisions. Principles give meaning to our otherwise commercial existence. They are like a compass that gives us direction. The litmus test is to ask the question, “Would we stick to these principles no matter what?” If you can answer yes, even when that means a missed financial opportunity, you’ve found your principles.

Positioning

Just like any other successful product or service, agencies need a meaningful and distinctive position in the marketplace. Defining a position is difficult for agencies because it involves sacrifice. It means not only deciding what you are, but what you are not. You don’t define your agency brand as much as you discover it. It’s already there, deep inside your agency soul, in the form of your natural strengths and core competencies.

The definition of an agency brand can be found by applying some creative thinking to the intersection ofthree areas:

What are the agency’s most outstanding services and capabilities? What do you do better than most other agencies?

Who does the agency know well in terms of categories or audiences? What specialized areas of knowledge do you have in particular businesses or industries?
How can your agency be distinguished by the way it thinks? What are the agency’s unique philosophies, methods or approaches?

Once your positioning has been defined, you must then ask the soul-searching question, “What needs to change in our organization in order for us to bring our positioning to life in everything we do?” It’s not just a matter of producing a new agency brochure, ordering new letterhead, and revising the Web site. An agency brand is developed from the inside out, and must be reflected in five important areas of your business:

Your product
Your people
Your promotion
Your process
Your place of business

By identifying key initiatives in each of these areas – and then executing on these initiatives – you bring the agency’s business practices into alignment with the agency positioning.

Agencies that have completed the Agency Brand Development program are focused on what they do best. They put their time and resources behind what they can do instead of what they can’t do, and direct the energies of their staff in supporting a business strategy that makes the agency not only different, but better.

Questions? Contact Tim Williams at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or 801.582.7297.

“Tim Williams brings smart and creative thinking to the challenges of organizing a dynamic agency during these fast-changing times. His wisdom has made us stronger. And his thoughtful personal style makes working with him thoroughly enjoyable.”

David Rawle, Chairman, RawleMurdy

“Tim Williams has an exceptional ability to uncover an agency’s strengths and turn them into business opportunities.”

Alan Bonine, General Manager, VitroRobertson

“Our work with Ignition has been different from other consultancies. Most of the work we have done together has stuck, has become part of our culture, and is being practiced regularly. There are a couple of reasons why that’s true. First, what you say makes an enormous amount of sense. Second, the way you say it has immense credibility. Your trust factor with our staff was almost immediate.”

Joe Norris, President, Sullivan Higdon & Sink