Don’t you just love an egotistical self-indulgent opening title? But bear with me a moment, as it’s YOU that is about to become the lead role in this article!

So, it’s Wednesday the 24th of February 2021, and today is very much a GOOD day – because today is the day we launch our much-anticipated new business venture. Yes, much anticipated by an audience who doesn’t even know it’s coming (there’s that ego making an appearance again). It’s over 9 months in the making, yet somehow, we’ve managed to keep our new project under wraps. Now, the covers are off and we formally present to the world our brand-new sister agency, Marketing Elect (me.).

“Wait, hold on a minute”, I hear you say, “a new marketing agency, in the middle of a global pandemic – surely that’s the sign of madness… or maybe it’s genius”. Obviously, time will be the ultimate judge of our decision, but the timing itself is very deliberate and undeniably symbolic.

Why Marketing Elect? Perhaps not the most imaginative of company names but following the success of our Brand Agency; Brand Elect (be.), we wanted to provide our customers with the ultimate ‘immersive agency’ experience, and felt the best way to achieve this was to make it all about ME.

Placing these 2 agencies side by side has been carefully considered. In fact, we’re actually trying to make an unapologetic point. So important in fact, we’ve built a whole new business to support our cause. So, what is your point then Lee? Well, in a sentence; I think we need to press the ‘reset’ button on the current agency model and revert back to some of the core principles of marketing. Basically, it’s my belief that we need to recognise, and therefore re-imagine the relationship between ‘Purpose’ and ‘Perspective’. You see, Purpose helps create the story, and Perspective allows us to become the audience to engage with that story. “Eh voila”, Brand Elect = Purpose, and Marketing Elect = Perspective. Our ‘be.me.’ kinship is born.

The fundamental reason for this new kinship is to maximise the opportunity for our clients to gain better results from their marketing spend. Being anchored at brand provides us with a more informed starting point and enables us to become fully immersed in an organisation, assisting with any further marketing communications from the inside out. It is by first fulfilling the foundations of your brand identity that your voice truly becomes heard. In other words, if you begin your marketing journey with a well-defined brand and have identified key audiences in which you wish to target, the returns you will reap from your marketing investment will be tenfold of those who do not have the aforementioned already in place. At a time where consumers’ attention has become increasingly difficult to fight for, we go one step further, ensuring our clients voice is not only heard, but felt. Making your audience feel a desired emotion is the inception of your marketing efforts adapting to your business goals, rather than vice-versa. The initial spark that is created is a direct result of igniting your story from within. It is these sparks that collectively connect across your audience to form a strong affinity, ensuring you are thought of in the future, as well as in the moment. By brand and marketing working together, returns on efforts become clearer, and business objectives exceeded.

And why do this now Lee? Well, in my opinion, for over the last 5 years or so, marketing’s got quite lazy. You know the story, with our modern day living and the growth of digital exploration, marketing has become more ‘transactional’. This by definition has bred a more transactional approach from agencies themselves. But crucially, it’s been forgotten that at the heart of these transactions are people – and as we all know, us people are very curious and emotional animals. Data and analytics have become the main driver of engagement, but at the detriment of emotion and creative expression.

So, our solution is to first ‘bring it all back to ME’. To have a full understanding of the ‘Perspective’, we first need to wear the shoes of our audiences (this is a lot of shoes to wear, but wear them, we must). Whether it be Consumer Behaviour or Business Performance, the ability to become ‘the audience’ is absolutely everything. When you strip all of the tangible elements away from any activity, you’re left with an emotional ripple effect. These emotions are experiences we transform into memories – and it’s these memories that are lasting and personal. No amount of data can relay or even measure this. And as people, our experiences and memories influence our future expectations. So, by provoking the right emotions through purposeful storytelling, we’ll hold a deeper connection with our audiences.

It’s also important to note that the ME. machine is much more than the ability to understand the ‘end’ audience. Moreover, it’s our crusade to build a more meaningful and fulfilling relationship with our customers. We want our clients to feel loved and invested in, and if this last 12 months has shown us anything, feeling valued is something we’ve forgotten we’ve missed. ‘Agency Fatigue’ and ‘Agency Churn’ have become everyday parlance in our sector – it’s now quite normal to see clients and agencies part company after a relatively short amount of time. Ultimately, this perpetual behaviour means agencies never really get to know their clients, and vice versa. Don’t get me wrong, being friendly isn’t a guarantee to make the ‘Till Ring’, but if everyone is invested, we’re literally in it together from the outset.

At ME, we will be treating our clients as we wish to be treated ourselves, so we’ve placed customer service excellence at the epicentre of our philosophy. We’ll swap ‘transaction’ for ‘interaction’ every single time. Let’s be frank, this approach won’t suit everybody – there will still be clients that favour data over creative, and in truth, that suits us perfectly. We’re less interested in clients that value short-term ‘conversions’ over long-term ‘conversations’, or the volume of ‘clicks’ over the effectiveness of ‘creativity’.

So, I finish ME’s first article with a recognition of our courageous venture. As we sit here now in the midst of arguably the most challenging environment of our lifetime, we’re hoping that our seed of optimism produces a tree of opportunity, for everybody involved – which beautifully brings us back to ME, (and remember, that’s actually YOU).

Launch.me