Recently our shop went through a rebranding process because we reached a point where our service offerings had greatly expanded and our marketing efforts and client base had grown outside of the Southeast. What’s more when our founder, Larry Jackson, started this place back in ’87 he opened the doors with the name Jackson-Dawson so he could leverage a little equity from the very successful Detroit-headquartered company he co-owned with his partner Sam. Over the years, the name served us well. But now that we had our own very strong legs in Greenville, SC, it was time to rethink our brand.
In his great book Taking a Stand for Your Brand, Tim Williams wrote, "Advertising agencies, like everything else, are brands. Yet as a group, agencies are as undifferentiated as cows on a hillside. Of the 12,000 firms in America that call themselves “advertising agencies, painfully few of them have a unique reputation of any kind.
Got it Tim. You’re so right. This is especially true for the thousands of mid-sized shops like ours that are fighting tooth and nail to get notoriety through various means. Yet on the client side there’s got to be some major numbness going on. Because the more agencies try to be different, the more they look…and sound the same.
Using our Brand Value Workshop model (the same process we use for our clients in helping them optimize their brands) we began our rebranding process by digging with internal associate research and department management team sessions. On the outside we reviewed market trends, conducted comprehensive competitor evaluations and gained valuable insight from clients, new business consultants and, yes, even target prospects. The ultimate goal was not to do an extreme makeover, but to build on our strengths and more sharply define our vision, mission, values, and positioning, right down to a clearly articulated set of what we call brand behaviors (because we’re firm believers in branding from the inside out).
Our management team was steadfast in the conviction that simplicity, focus and relevancy was a must, not only in the final set of words that articulate who we are and what we stand for, but how all that is projected in the new brand look and feel…the words, the fonts, the symbols and the colors.
After all the research, we concluded that the key differentiators for our brand were:
- Our passion and success for helping clients build value for their brands
- Our breadth of integrated services, the combination of which is unlike any other marketing communications company in the Southeast
- Our solutions-neutral approach to providing effective marcom programs
- The fact that we really have fun working together with our clients
These key facts drove the new brand name: Jackson Marketing Group. They also influenced the new distinctive look that used a series of icons or colored discs to reinforce the breadth of in-house resources and expertise we have to help clients solve their marketing challenges. We believe our rebranding initiative has effectively captured what sets us apart. This business is most always a blast, but this is an especially exciting time for us because we have just scratched the surface of really bringing the rebrand to life in the way we serve our clients and market ourselves. Toward that end, all departments have been charged with developing plans to help drive us toward our vision of becoming the leading integrated marketing communications brand in the Southeast.
A tall order? Yes. But nothing good happens fast. Stay tuned.