Have a Message - Deliver it - Be Consistent

Have a Message – Deliver it – Be Consistent

Over the life of any campaign or strategic push, there should be one underlying theme. Although many messages can weave in and out of that theme and support it, in any one communication, it is easier and more beneficial to deliver one important thought. If you think about the way companies communicate today, they rarely rely on one way of disseminating a message. Perhaps more important is that all of the means of communication speak with one voice. If your company brochure says one thing, your quarterly report says another, your latest television commercial says another, your Web site says something else, and then your company’s CEO is saying something completely different, you have a serious issue. One of the most valuable services any agency can provide to a client is to make sure the company is speaking with one voice across all these platforms. This goes by many names – communications audit, message audit – but it is designed to make sure you are saying the same thing to all your constituents.

Sometimes people outside the industry think ad agencies simply create messages, positions or clever pictures for clients or companies. If you only create a message or a position for a company, and they are not equipped or willing to live up to it, then you are doing more harm than good. It would be harmful to create something they can’t live up to. The ideal is to help them discover what and who they are, then sell that to the world in the best possible way.

Can brands survive forever? They can’t without nurturing and evolving. People change. They get older. Tastes change. Needs change. At some point, the brand might need to reinvent itself. As a brand company or an agency that has the responsibility of shepherding a brand for the client, you have to stay aware of the changing competitive environment. If you are working for a client, it is your responsibility to help the client stay on top of this need.