Taking a calculated risk to move from vertical to horizontal thinking can make a big difference, says Alok Gadkar
A story in a book is very different from a story on the screen. What is read is different from what is seen. What is heard varies from what is felt. This was the turning point. This is when I realised the difference came not in the art of story telling but in the science of story telling.
Consumers don’t buy brands. They subscribe to stories.
It was in early 2014 when I was put at the helm of managing creativity and business. I knew the dual role would be challenging but the thought of elevating the creative ‘cool’ whilst keeping the business objectives and growth was something I was prepared for.
During this period, the industry was resonating with several buzzwords: digital, social, data, mobile. One word was being swept by the undercurrent: vertical. Almost all agencies were engaging around this philosophy.
Looking closely at this word got me thinking. If all the fish in the ocean, big and small, are being swept by this undercurrent, shouldn’t we be swimming in the same direction too? So we took the plunge and got into the vertical flow. Six months down the line something in me prompted me to re-look at our journey. Maybe, just maybe, we should go against the tide. And that was what we exactly did. Gutsy move, as we weren’t sure what the outcome would be. But then again, the future favours the brave.
Our game plan for the battle ahead was simple: break down the walls and defy convention. So instead of going vertical, we redirected our movement to follow the horizontal wave. We did this by creating an incubator that filters and organises our clients’ requests into the right pool. This creation helped us tell the story in the most compelling way. It may sound complicated and laborious but the reality was far from it.
Our three-step approach simplified things. We asked ourselves:
1. Have we got the insight right?
2. Have we evaluated the insight vs the dynamics of the market?
3. Have we placed the idea in the right slot to capitalise on it rather than copying it?
Very often, we have clients come to us with requests like: “Can we go viral?” “We need to own a brand property,” “We need to do something with a CSR angle,” or “Let’s just focus on radio.”
We’re cool with this but wait a second: “Would this work?” we asked ourselves. Of course, we want to make a difference and naturally I wanted us to do well. But then there was also the fear that a wrong move could lead to us being served as an exotic seafood dish on the table.
There was also another side to our incubator, which required our talents to operate seamlessly. So the usual cries of, “I don’t do posts,” “How can I do something on Instagram?” “Why should I come up with PR ideas?” or “Activation is something I’m not familiar with,” had to stop. Either you swim or you will sink was how the newly designed incubator functioned. Safe to say, our talents adapted relatively quickly to the change
in environment.
Nearly all horizontal marketing campaigns begin with a realisation. One discipline recognises there is an opportunity to partner with another discipline. The practices that form the partnership must each bring an enhancement in some way to the process of marketing the product and presenting it to a larger audience. Once the partnership is formed, the focus becomes the communication effort by itself.
We have to always choose to be optimistic in our approach because that will certainly have a positive pay off, both in terms of business objectives and on creativity levels. By simply bringing down the walls
of each discipline, we can build a
commendable portfolio of good, collaborative work.
I was once told by a client that he wanted to go digital because that was what every business is doing. Ironically, a huge portion of his business inflow came through the efforts of traditional advertising.
After asking ourselves and evaluating the dynamics, and putting the incubator to work, we arrived at a solution: activation. And yes, it worked very well for our client and validated the power of identifying the right channel.
In a nutshell, the journey was
quite simple: plot your client’s objectives; plan within the incubator; bring down the walls; and procreate, as you never know how far off the horizon is.
This brings me to the thought on why the horizon is often referred to for any positive outcomes. Perhaps it’s a sign. Perhaps it’s something worth discussing. Who knows what we may discover.
Sleep on it; or, in other words, go horizontal.
Alok Gadkar – General manager and executive creative director of The Classic Partnership