Rupture Studio

You drive consumption by transcending it.

“The marketing world often forgets we’re in the people business,” says Rupture’s Chuck Welch. “They confuse the means with the ends. The means are technology, the end is people. The biggest brands on the planet can have all the tech and data they want and still not know how to talk to their audience. It doesn’t mean you know, understand, or address the wants and needs of the audience you’re trying to connect with.” Dove understands what business they are in and that's why they consistently win. https://lnkd.in/emdsSJse

This is a great piece by?Arwa Mahdawi?on a trust as a critical factor in fueling great work through the client/agency relationship. The inverse of that is often the case. On its face it seems obvious, but is is so obvious that both parties often take trust for granted, and don't spend enough time building it. Trusted relationships don't just happen. In the age of fast turnaround projects it is often even harder to build. After spending a career in agencies, I've been on both sides of the relationship when clients trusted us, and felt the unhealthy tension when they didn't. Now as a strategy consultant leading?Rupture Studio, my partner?Nandi Welch, who was a client side marketer, and I help clients build cohesion and unity between clients and agencies. They often share differing viewpoints on the world and the role of business and creativity. There is nothing wrong with that, but those visions can often get in the way and cause gaps in a strategic alignment and creative expectation. Finding common ground, and getting clarity is critical in order to create the desired impact in this time of chaos.

I've worked on many world-class lifestyle brands and entertainment properties for decades. In it its simplest form a lifestyle brand creates its meaning and magic past the point of consumption, while a traditional brand creates meaning to get people to consume. Now at?Rupture Studio?my partner?Nandi Welch?and I leverage insights, strategy, understanding and collaboration to help launch, reposition and fuel them. We've put together some high level thoughts on the differences between legacy brands and modern lifestyle brands. Please reach out if you need help building one or want to learn more.

Permission is granted. You do have to ask. Show up in the community with the best intentions. Do not be the white night. Don't be fly by night. Seek out people need who are already doing the work. Work with them to understand what they need. Seek their counsel to understand their problems. Aim your resources, scale and power at the problems to solve them. Look at them as people, not pockets. Think about the value exchange not the extraction. Keep showing up. Focus on making the space better for you having been there. Build something sustainable. Deepen the relationship. Rinse and repeat. You do not need permission. Just show up and continue to do so, until you become part of the fabric of the space.

What if we removed Black people and culture from marketing communications? Where would the 'inspiration' come from? What insights would we glean? What trends would we 'tap into.' Where would the edge come from? What messages would we communicate? What would the 'look & feel' and 'tone' be? What music would be playing? What would the dances look like? How would the sports, auto, insurance, soft drink, fashion & apparel, streaming, technology, social media, food, fast food, home, CPG, beauty, hair categories be impacted? What would they look like? What would they feature? What would they have to say? What if we did the polar opposite? Now imagine that.

It is more valuable than data. It is more important than a creative campaign. It carries more weight than an armful of awards. It is vastly more impactful than whatever the shiny new object is. It is not based on scale. Scale often weighs it down, and sends it crashing earthbound. It comes from you seeing what they can’t, and then helping them see it too. Great ones understand the value it holds. They openly receive it. Tyrants squeeze the life out of it, and choke themselves off from its gifts. It is evergreen in the great ones. With the mediocre ones, it comes and goes with the tides. The more you exercise it the stronger you get. The opposite holds true. The best ones come from outside of the buildings, are expressed within client walls, smash their windows and create value wherever they are expressed in the world. What I’m talking about is an agency point of view. Today, an objective point of view is the only thing that clients can’t in-house or replicate. It is the last, most powerful thing that an agency possesses. It fuels an agencies’ competitive advantage, and does the same for their clients. Great agencies chase a sharper point of view and become more like themselves. The rest chase whatever ‘is hot’ becoming more like each other. Which one would you rather be?

The quest for ‘authenticity’ is damaging brands. I’ve seen brands lose meaning because they stand for nothing, and will jump on everything. You see them, because they are usually all about the packaging, and focused on appearances. The brands that we have all seen in case study after case study for the last umpteen years, are ones that you hear about. People talk about them and what they did, whether they like them or not. They made a shift beyond trying to appear ‘authentic’, many years ago. Patagonia fights the law to save the home planet when nobody is watching. Nike supported and promoted Kap, knowing their shoes would go up in flames, as would many of their relationships. Red Bull has served and provided extreme value to musicians and alternative athletes to outer space and back. It may not make finance happy, but they do it anyway. Nordstrom takes shit back that has been run over by a bus. Their bar is collectively higher than most, because it comes from a conviction, not an appearance to have one. These brands aren’t perfect. No brands are. They actually believe in something, not whatever the latest trend du jour is. They have integrity and they play the long game in building it up. They have a deep held belief, and practice it day in day out, year in year out. They build behaviors from practicing their beliefs, and they make us believe. That is why they win consistently. What do you believe in?

Thanks Fast Company for including my perspective in this article: “I don’t like [that word] because you can feign authenticity,” Welch continued. “But Deion’s different because . . . he has integrity. Because he can show up as himself. Very few Black people, let alone Black?men, can show up as themselves on a national stage. But Deion’s one of one. He’s a?star. He’s not tucking his lip. He’s not speaking in a corporate way. He’s fucking?Deion Sanders. He’s talking his shit, and he’s winning, and he’s taking his losses, and he’s being himself.” https://lnkd.in/gR2k-V_W