We would hope that any agency would take great pains to pore over a client's existing advertising and collateral materials as well as those of its competitors, search the web and review trade publications to identify market trends, and talk to the client's customers to get first-hand insight into the consumer's mind.
What an agency does next makes the difference between acceptable work and exceptional work. The steps that Woodbury & Morse takes next bring us to that place where the message resonates with the reader, listener, or viewer — where the positioning, messaging, design, writing, and the images shown have the greatest impact on the carefully targeted audience. That place — that resonance place — is where the brand is. That's where a great client with a great product makes a magical connection with a customer. And that magical connection can mean that the customer becomes a lifelong customer — a brand customer — a customer for whom the client's product or service becomes a touchstone of that customer's identity.
Resonance. Emotion. Meaning. Fulfillment. We challenge ourselves to find ways to touch our audience so that they become our client's forever — they become our client's family.
For example, a campaign we created for the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development had the objective of targeting people who had left the state and calling them home. Move back to Maine. This isn't about Maine needing them, which it does. This isn't about a throwaway line like "Isn't it time you moved back to Maine?" We wanted them to ache to move back. We showed them the life and life experiences they were missing — they were cheating themselves out of — by not being here. We showed the quality of life their children could be enjoying, just as they had as children. We asked them to wonder, "Why not?"
We always believe that there's a magic button, a silver bullet that will emerge from the study and the research and the time we spend to know our client's business and their brand. That's always the key to effective communication and advertising that pays its own way and then some.
