A Message from our founder ; Paul Saunders
I don’t think there are many people out there who would disagree when I say, a lot has changed over the past 18 months, and much of it has been challenging”. With the coronavirus pandemic squeezing marketing budgets, in-office work risky, and new ways of reaching and communicating with customers popping up every day, marketing executives everywhere are adopting new strategies to cope. The question Brand Budda’s executive team has been asking is: Has the relationship companies have with creative agencies fundamentally changed? The answer is an unequivocal yes.
Of these, probably the one I’ve noticed most profoundly is the change in how tighter budgets forced companies to do more with less. More members of the traditional marketing department were asked to fill other marketing roles. Work that might have, pre-pandemic, been outsourced is kept in-house. And, for larger projects companies are more frequently looking for a DWY (done with you) approach where the agency fills particular roles for a marketing department when a particular skill set is absent.
We spent quite a bit of time with our clients determined to understand how they viewed their marketing departments and what roles the agency would play in their marketing mix today and going forward. The research clearly showed that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach.
Answers fell into one of three buckets:
- “We are doing the majority of the work in-house, but we need to level up our team’s skills.”
- “We are going to take a more hands-on collaborative approach with our agency and lean into a DWY approach where we collaborate more deeply on most projects.”
- “We will continue to rely heavily on our agency to do most, if not all, of our project work.”
Brand Buddha has changed.
After listening to what our clients are saying we adapted to meet these evolving needs with the creation of three innovative engagement models that meet companies exactly where they are.
First, we have created a workshop platform that allows our team to conduct topical workshops that rapidly level up your team’s skill sets, creates roadmaps for marketing and campaign deployment, and solve virtually any problem with a blend of tech know-how and creativity that is unparalleled in the industry.
Second, we have created a “done-with-you” (DWY) model that leverages the skills and talents of your marketing team and pairs them with our creative and strategy groups to create a complete, wall-to-wall department capable of the full range of strategic, creative, and execution needs your company has.
Lastly, we have upgraded and refined our traditional model of “done-for-you” (DFY). We do a thorough discovery process to understand your ideas and goals and we shoulder the responsibility for planning, concepting, design, execution, and deployment making us partners in your success.
While the world of work has changed, and some of that might be permanent, we’re all adjusting to our positions in society a little differently. We’re appreciating our colleagues, our loved ones, the people that have guided us through this challenging time, and just the little things in the world around us.
And, as 2022 unfolds in front of us all, we continue to believe that building our agency that focuses on meeting our clients where they are and filling very specific roles to move their efforts forward is not only a smart thing to do but also what is best for our business.
