Comfort and Mediocrity

One of the things we’re asked most often is, “So, how many other clients do you have in (our exact field)? How many rebrandings/websites/collateral systems have you done for them?”

And yeah, we get it. When you go in front of the board, you don’t want to say, “Yeah, we chose these doodz out of a hat, they got no credentials, but we liked ‘em.” But, you know what? The doodz might’ve given you better creative.

Because you don’t get an iPhone by benchmarking the Blackberry.

You don’t get a masterpiece with paint by numbers.

And you don’t get brilliance when you’re “just one of the crowd.”

Which is why, when we’re asked how many clients we have in a particular industry, or how many rebrandings we’ve done for clients just like them, we like to turn it around and say:

“Why don’t you ask us about the number of first-in-category clients we’ve had, and how we’ve invariably brought insights from outside their category—insights that helped companies like Grateful Harvest go from ‘the grateful dead’ to the number two brand at their billion-dollar parent.”

Because marketing isn’t paint by numbers, or a formula you apply to every client in industry “X.” You aren’t just like your competitor. And if your prospective agency sees it that way, you might as well throw in the towel now.

Posted by July 10th, 2010 | by Jason | Permalink