Three ways you can deploy agile in branding.
The agile methodology is everywhere.
It’s moved from your dev/tech teams, to your marketing teams, and is now established in your special projects group. The benefits are plentiful. A faster ROI, lower risk and the ability to test and fail are among the highest advantages.
But branding and rebranding can still be an arduous process. So much investment in time and money, paired with increased risk. It is a daunting task that’s undertaken only as a last resort. Deploying the agile methodology to solve your brand’s challenges is the solution to the dreaded rebrand.
The Agile Methodology is directly translatable to a rebrand process, and it covers all its different needs. During our experience in installing agile marketing with American Express, we developed a process we call Real-Time Branding.
Here are three ways we do it:
1. We co-locate
We’ve come out pretty strongly against in-house teams leading a rebrand in the past, as your brand is about how your customers, both present and future see you, not how you see yourself.
However, the efficiency of being able to work with internal teams is not to be taken for granted. That's why we show up. Our project teams are on site each week of the project, working at 100% allocation to the project and presenting for feedback in real-time. We’re able to interview key stakeholders, and receive vital company intricacies and information more easily then working remotely. Speaking of stakeholders:
2. We put all decision makers in a room together.
Not only applying to creative, when was the last time you worked on anything you were passionate about only to have the kibosh put on it five steps down the road.
Agile fixes that. At the beginning of each project we find out from the organization who the decision makers are for the project. Does the CEO need to sign off? Fine, we'll schedule creative reviews around his or her schedule. Will the director of sales in Australia be upset if he or she were not included? We’ll remote them in at an off-hour for all of us, so that we're all looking at the same thing at the same time and having one discussion where concerns from legal can be heard, and compliance isn't just a box to check off before we go live. Agile is meant to minimize yield loss, and that is the primary downside of the waterfall method.
3. For crying out loud, of course we have to test.
A few times a year, a brand is launched and it is so jaw-droppingly egregious that you have to wonder a) who has seen this outside of the design team and b) who's going to lose their job.
A key feature of agile is testing during every sprint. In Real-Time Branding the point of the creative review isn't approval to launch, it's approval to test. We test the concepts with representative customers, and let their behavior and opinions decide.
This testing funnels the creative process towards a final concept, and are able to launch with confidence that the creative will be well received by its intended audience.
These three things drive far more effective results.
The speed of Real-Time Branding makes the rebrand process, normally measured in half years and years, can now be accomplished within a quarter. This means your new brand can debut at the next most convenient inflection point, like an annual meeting or trade show.
With speed, comes flexibility. If you aim to relaunch your brand on January 1st and the Real-Time Branding project only takes 6 to 8 weeks, you can choose the period most convenient to work. If Summers are slow and your organization can devote the attention, start in July. If the decision makers are going to be on vacation in August, start after labor day. Either way you'll hit your deadline
Speed and flexibility increases the likelihood of hitting the mark. Real-Time Branding enables you to launch with confidence, ensuring creative decisions are driven by data. Now you can let customers know that these changes are primarily for them, and not for the company.
I'll be the first to admit it, branding is never going to be easy. Real-Time Branding’s goal is to create a structure that is less daunting, more engaging, and extremely effective.
I encourage you to stay tuned to the results of Real-Time Branding by engaging with us.