All day long at our agency, and pretty much at every other marketing agency like Bailey Gardiner around the world, we strive to be the most creative we can with what we have to work with.  Our advertising, public relations and interactive clients hire us because of our creativity — and believe me — that doesn’t always come easily.

So what fuels our creative process?  Information.  Tons of it.  Call it what you like — data, statistics, consumer input, scientific studies, audience analysis, facts and figures — we will take it all.  You see, really good marketing comes from an exhaustive amount of background information.   We research it, compile it, analyze it, deconstruct it, study it, learn it and consume it.  Then finally the creative process can begin.

It’s the same for any marketing discipline — public relations, social media, advertising, design, interactive — they all need good information before they can become great programs.

Take for example our upcoming pitch to a natural foods company. Before our first conversation with them, we poured over their website to glean each and every detail (and there was a LOT of it) and tried to become experts on their business. From there, we followed these steps:

• Researched the category in depth, learning everything we could about the products and how they are grown, harvested, manufactured, distributed and marketed.
• Uncovered consumer information so we could understand their customer and what drives them to purchase these products.
• Researched what people were saying about their products, through social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, blogs and more. The good, the bad and the ugly.
• Visited stores where the products are sold, noted how they are displayed on the shelf, how their competitors measure up and how well the salespeople understood the competitive differences.
• Purchased the products, both in-store and online, to witness the sales process and experience their customer service.
• Tasted the various offerings, flavors and forms their products take. (Some we liked a lot and some, well, not so much).
• Experimented with using their products in recipes and as ingredients in other mash-ups.
• Distilled all of this research and study into several key bullet points that encapsulated the essence of the opportunity for this product and client.
• Brainstormed with the entire team – from receptionist to CEO – to capture a wide variety of ideas, points of view, possible programs, approaches, partnerships.

And that is before a single creative idea is developed.

So you ask, did it work?  I dunno know yet.  Check back in a few weeks and I’ll drop you an update.  One thing for sure – we are now experts in this client’s business.  And that’s why we love what we do — because once we prove we understand a client’s business well enough to make relevant marketing recommendations, THEY LISTEN.

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