The Weekly Wrap: Claire Rigby, strategic development director, True North
“It’s all about confidence” he said, as I found myself dangling over the side of a very high bridge, in the pitch black, in the early hours of the morning, attached only by a rope and disturbingly small piece of metal to terra firma.
This advice was given to me over 10 years ago in a situation, to be frank I’d rather not place myself in again, but I’ve recently begun to think back on this statement and can’t help but feel it’s equally applicable to the current state of affairs the world finds itself in, as it was to a rather ill thought through middle of the night abseil.
I’m not going to bang on about the current global economic crisis, or the spiralling debt we’re increasingly racking up as a nation because quite frankly I’ve had enough of the doom and gloom and equally, the seemingly ubiquitous Robert Peston does it far better than I ever could anyway.
However I do think that the current crisis we all find ourselves facing is a perfect opportunity to re-focus and try to find the confidence from within.
Any expert worth their salt working in the world of Marketing, Communications and Design will be well versed in helping their clients, ‘identify the organisation’s usp or essence’, ‘find the brand truth or product promise’ or ‘identify and focus on the core business values and attributes’ in order to create a true and distinctive place in the world for said brand/organisation. By finding this inner strength, focusing communications on bringing it to life in an engaging way and winning the confidence of everyone in the organisation to stand behind it, we say, you’ll have a head start in attracting potential customers and winning the commercial battle for share of mind, pound, leisure time or whatever else said client is competing for.
However as an industry I sometimes wonder how good we are at doing the same thing when it comes to our own businesses?
How good are we at applying the same strategic rigour to our own agency offer? Identifying and focusing on what we’re brilliant at, what our core strengths and experience are, articulating what our brand of creativity can offer potential clients, and focusing on this.
So often now, agencies seem to increasingly feel the need to offer themselves up as full-service, multi-disciplinary, 360°, open source, all singing, all dancing jack of all trades in order to be attractive to as many clients as possible, for as much business as possible.
However, surely now, when the world faces uncertain times and everyone is competing in increasingly competitive marketplaces for ever shrinking budgets, clients need proven expertise, from agency’s that can deliver what they say they will, when they will, because they’ve got the depth of experience and focus to do just that.
Evolution and development are always going to be critical to commercial survival but without a clear understanding of what the core offer and competencies are and a belief and confidence in these, any reactive, scattergun, ‘be everything to everyone ‘ business development, is doomed to end in ‘meaning nothing to no-one’. Take Woolies as a prime example.
But focus, requires confidence. And that’s in short supply at the moment.
But if we don’t believe in ourselves and have confidence in the expertise and value we can bring to our clients then how can we expect them to believe us either?
And while I’m on the subject, as a slight aside, if we do believe in the commercial value of our creative ‘product’ then how on earth can any agency justify giving it away for free?
Maybe I’m naïve but I’m sure I’m not the only one that, noticing the worrying trend over the last few weeks of agencies who are prepared to give their creative product away for ‘free’ as a way of seducing new clients and attracting new business, can’t help thinking that they mustn’t have such a brilliant ‘product’ in the first place. Or maybe it’s just that they don’t have sufficient confidence in that product after all, to demand a fair price.
But back to the point. If we do have faith in ourselves and we are confident, let’s not underestimate how contagious that can be.
Look at what happened this week when Citigroup announced pre-tax profits for the first two months of the year. This positive news story created confidence, which spread throughout the financial markets and re-energized the entire financial sector with the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq ending the day up rather than down for once.
So maybe my erstwhile abseiling instructor was right after all, it really is all about confidence.
Claire Rigby is Strategic Development Director at True North, specialists in Brand Identity and Graphic Design.