The Corporate Fear Factor: Ready for Open Seas?

[Co-authored by Darcy Flanders of BaselineGroupNY and Eileen Sutton of Sutton Creative]

The global business world is “going human.” And lots of companies are listening. Maybe even yours. The idea of more authenticity, greater relevance, and creating genuine dialogue with your audiences is appealing.

You want to participate in our brave new marketing world. You crave “fresh, innovative, different.” You decide to reinvent your story, content strategies, and your look and feel.

The good news? You have a desire to turn the ship. With good intention, you hire creative partners who can help you navigate new seas. But is there genuine internal support and a real tolerance for change? How do you avoid a mutiny?

 All Hands Not On Deck

You have internal consensus (or so you think). You hire a creative agency for a soup-to-nuts evolution (like PayPal). Yet, as work proceeds, change starts to feel scary. Senior management knows the firm must evolve. It can’t market the same way as it did 10 years ago. But the company has been profitable (super-creaky web site notwithstanding). In a conservative CEO’s mind, why fix something that’s not broke?

It's easy to predict the next stage. Internal consensus starts to fray. The process slows down, decisions debated, launch dates extended, the CMO’s authority gutted.

Be A Thoughtful Captain

If you're a CMO trying to enter the 21st century, consider a few simple guidelines to make sure a handful of voices (or even one) don’t hold the process hostage.

• Timing Brand evolution is like searching for buried treasure. Corporate teams are energized at the start. Once you're on the high seas, a terrific case of nerves can set in. What if you find a sandy chest and it's empty? Gauge internal temperatures accurately before you set sail.

• Comfort Change can be superficial—logo, brand colors, templates—or move deeper, like story exploration. In the end, you don’t have to do it all at once. And you don’t have to do anything radical (think quiet fisherman vs. swashbuckling pirate). Many subtle brand evolutions accomplish a great deal. 
•  Yardsticks Get consensus about creative and marketing goals before spends are made. Every agency loves to make money (when that sandy chest is brimming). But if work sits in a drawer as a result of fear and indecision, no one wins. Creatives don’t love words like “metrics,” but measuring what’s been done by some standard can assuage trepidation after implementation.

• Respect In older firms, more set in their ways, engage senior management earlier in the process. Show degrees of creative departure. Share iterations to get buy-in as you go. A big creative presentation at the end of the process may not be ideal.

• Leaders Always know who makes final decisions. This can be one person or several. But there must be a chain of command.

Technology makes the idea of change seductive. Endless platforms, social media, all the chatter about reaching targets in clever, innovative ways. But deep change may not be what you need. Avoid tribal behavior and implementing “change” for its own sake, or because a competitor has taken a leap.

Authentic brands know themselves. They pay attention to what clients need, they market outward, and they present a suite of trusted products and services. Pretty old school after all. Yet, if you do make change, launch with courage, and let your creative instincts run full steam ahead.