In conversation about new business and growth with Deepthi Prakash, Global Director of Product and Marketing at TBWA\Worldwide, we uncover key insights on navigating today's marketing economy and why handling all aspects of the brand experience can be beneficial for growth.
When searching for growth opportunities, how do you determine what is the right fit for the agency?
Our culture, mission, and methodology are all about developing unconventional creative solutions for business problems. The clients best fit for this proposition are those who are looking for a creative business partner who can help them tackle serious problems or take advantage of opportunities. These are companies with an ambition to outperform, and who are comfortable doing something that hasn’t been done before – of course, with sound rationale to support the proposed actions.
What does exponential growth look like for your agency? For example, project work vs AOR pitches, geographic, interdisciplinary, etc.
Exponential growth for us comes from developing a brand platform that truly influences all aspects of a business. In these instances, we help client across the total brand experience – not just advertising, which has advantages for our clients and for us – they more effectively build their brand because everything from growth strategy to product innovation, design, marketing, customer experience, loyalty, employee experience, and events is tied together under one platform idea. The advantage for us is that we really get to know a company, and can bring innovative ideas proactively, and we have the kind of lasting relationship that helps us attract and commit to the best talent.
What are the key challenges and / or opportunities for brands in today’s marketing economy?
Companies seem to continue to struggle with a few things.
One is that building a brand requires more than communications. Few CMOs are empowered to impact all touchpoints where employees and consumers interact with the company. The opportunity here is for CEOs to understand and embrace the value of brand and to drive it through every part of an organization – it’s how the best brands have been built.
The second challenge is balancing long term vs short term. We believe that companies can’t focus solely on capturing existing demand to meet short term goals through disposable campaigns, they must also generate new demand by building from an enduring brand platform. In a year of economic uncertainty, the marketers who can strike the balance between these two demands will be more successful over the long term.
While other companies have been focused on managing and responding to evolving conditions, we’ve continued to expand the problems we can solve which has only brought us closer to our clients. From our innovation practice NEXT to our cultural intelligence unit Backslash, we’re continually investing in understanding culture and consumer behaviors while expanding our offerings across the total brand experience.
Given the uncertainty of the past couple of years, are there any trend predictions you have about where the ad and media industries are headed?
Uncertainty is our prediction. It’s been a constant for a decade now, and the pace of modern life means that it will continue. Our industry needs to stop using it as an excuse for poor performance, skepticism, or inertia. We need to prepare for it, and develop ways for our clients to grow despite it.