An agency can’t give you a brand that you don’t already have.
There may have been a time when a brand was mostly defined by its marketing communications. If so, that time is long past. Advances in media savvy, information transparency, and brand choice have forced brands to live in the real world.
Underlying the social media push is the larger issue of transparency. Trends in culture and technology have made it impossible for companies to have an artificial brand image that exists separately from everything else they do. A brand today is more defined by the quality and design of its products, how it’s sold, how well it interacts with its customers, and the type of people who manage it. Marketing messages are just one aspect of that larger brand behavior. How a brand acts has more long-term impact than what it says. And a brand cannot act consistently in a way that is inconsistent with the actual culture of the organization.
The true brand is defined by all the real stuff behind it. When people talk about great brands, the usual suspects include companies like Nike, Apple, or Southwest Airlines. There have been some great advertising campaigns associated with each of them. But the best of them only crystallized what was already inherent in their brands. Do you think that Phil Knight, Steve Jobs or Herb Kelleher needed their agency to define what they were about?
The best agencies are like skilled jewelers who design a setting to show off a stone to its best effect. They can’t create the stone, but they can bring out the best features. A company that comes to an agency and expects them to create who they are lacks a basic understanding of where a brand comes from. Great communications can bring that true brand to life in ways that clarify or enhance it, but unless you are willing to turn over the management of your company to the agency, they can’t create something that isn’t there already.
The Ryan Report 