The Art and Science of Brand Building: Secrets from an Agency Veteran

Hey, hi everyone. Welcome to the show, E-coffee with experts. This is your host, Ranmay here. Today we have Duane, who is the partner of Atomic Idea. Hey, Duane.

Hi, how are you, Ranmay? Thanks for having me today.

Great. Duane, before we move forward, let’s get to know the human behind the mic. Talk us through your journey. How did you start your career in the marketing space? Then obviously, your agency, how has been the journey so far, the challenges, the success through some light there?

Really, for me, it goes back to college. Coming into college, I thought I was going to be a lawyer, was going to pursue corporate law, very analytical, love to communicate, and love to talk and pitch. That all changed. Really, after my first year, I saw that I had a balance between this analytical side and this creative side. I had always done a lot of art as well as photography in high school. I I wanted to pursue a path, really, in marketing. Through college, I came out with a dual major, really, from the university. I had mass communications as well as studio art with a focus on photography. After talking to a lot of mentors, I decided marketing would be the path that would make me feel fulfilled. That’s what I pursued. I went into corporate marketing right out of school and worked for a really large company, TCI. It was the largest cable TV company at the time. It was great because we had a small team. I got to do a lot of different things and wear hats, different hats. We worked on a lot of big campaigns, three, four, and $5 million campaigns with a big ad agency in Denver.

That was great. Then from there, I jumped over to Showtime Networks, ‘ channel. As a national account manager, was continued to work on marketing and campaigns, a lot of analysis, and a lot of creativity. It was just great. But then things changed. Unexpectedly, a lot of consolidation in the market. I was offered a different position, which I didn’t want. I took a severance package. At that point, I landed on the agency side. When I went there, I thought, Ranmay, that I would spend two, or three years on the agency side, and then I’d jump back to corporate, and I’d be this well-rounded corporate marketing guy. That was in 1999, I never left the agency side. Have enjoyed the path. I’ve worked for a small agency. I’ve worked for a large ad agency. I’ve consulted with different agencies as a fractional employee. Then finally, in 2018, a very good friend of mine whom I’ve known since college, and I started Atomic Idea. The whole thought there was to bring an agency to companies that could compress the layers, and bring high-level strategy, and powerful creativity, at a more reasonable cost. We could maximize their budgets and try to also be a little more agile in terms of the ways that we could deliver quickly.

Thus, the Tauviq idea was formed and we survived COVID, which was a little crazy. And have come out of COVID we slingshotted out of COVID with a lot of growth. So we’re pretty excited about where we are and where we’re headed.

Lovely. Like you mentioned, You mentioned, Duane, you have been on both sides of it, the client and the agency side. Let us know, how is it different. How are both sides of the game different? Which one do you feel is more challenging?

Wow, That’s a great question. I think both sides have advantages and disadvantages. People ask me all the time, What career should I pursue if they’re young? I say there are differences. The corporate side, sure. Bigger company, you might get different types of and more stability, perhaps, where the agency side is a little different as well. But for me it’s just a different perspective. When you’re on the corporate side, You’re balancing a lot of people internally. You have a lot of different people weighing in on what they want to see and what they want to do. Then on the agency side, you are there to serve the client. We have to balance being a good partner. We need to push when it’s right. We need to challenge the client when it’s proper but always remember that we’re a partner. At the end of the day, we’re all after the same goal, and that is to have success in their marketing, to drive leads, to drive revenue, whatever that might be. I don’t know if there’s a better side, but the challenges exist on both sides. Myself, having been on both sides, I think it does bring a little advantage when we’re meeting with our clients because I understand what it’s like to be in their seat.

I know what it’s like to be a marketing person and balance those challenges. We can be more empathetic to that. I think that helps. My partner, Keith, who is the co-owner of Atomic Idea, also spent several years on the corporate side as well, so the client side. I think that helps us, right? We can look at it holistically.

A deadly combination, I must say.

Yeah.

Right. And then Duane an atomic idea, what do you feel is the unique value proposition of your USP as an agency that sets you apart from all the players out there?

Yeah, that’s a great question. And there’s a lot of competition. We compete with larger agencies and small agencies. We compete with the freelancers that are out there doing what we do, the one and two-man bands, we call them. At the end of the day, what we’re trying to do is differentiate in a couple of ways. One is, again, being brand first. Whether we work on the brand or inherit the brand, we do want to honor it. Anything we do, we use that as a litmus test. We’re developing creative, a video, website, whatever. Does it represent the brand? We try to keep it throughout anything we do. The second thing is customer service. I know everyone says that, but we truly do value that. We look forward to being a partner. I always say to my team, that if our client starts to refer to us or treat us or look at us like a vendor, we have a problem. I never want us to be seen as the vendor because then you’re a commodity. I want us to be seen as a true partner. We try to immerse ourselves in their brand, Ranmay, immerse ourselves in their process, and their team, so that they see us as an extension of the team.

I think we’ve done that well. The feedback we get from our clients is that we do. We treat them like part of our team, and we’re part of their team, and we’re a true partner at the end of the day.

Absolutely. I completely agree with that when you say they should treat you as the extension of their team versus the vendors. Then they would be discussing their problems versus complaining about what has happened, and what has not. On top of it, as a strategy or as a process for what we follow, we do not say that a client is onboarded to our system. The first email that goes out says, Thank you for onboarding us, so that we get onboarded to their systems, whatever, project management, and communication channels that they might be using. We get onboarded to their system so that they feel that they do not have to do anything differently for us than what they are doing currently for their existing team members. That is the experience that you want to give to your client.

Exactly.

Duane, being constantly plugged and can be counterproductive? What strategies do you use to disconnect from work and truly recharge during your downtime? Because as an agency owner, and a partner, we know how draining it can be. What is your strategy?

I think that’s important, Ranmay, is work-life balance. I think that a lot of people do get caught up, and they get so focused on the work side of things and getting ahead that you forget that. It’s something that I’ve always valued from early in my career to make sure that I’m giving to myself. I love the saying that if you don’t put gas in your tank, you can’t give. We have to make sure that we’re staying fresh. For me, if you could see behind me, you’d see golf and golf balls on the wall. The master here is coming up. I love golf. That’s one of the key ways I love to unplug. I like to get out there and just enjoy a round of golf. I can separate. It’s a nice walk. It’s a nice challenge. I have some other things, too. I still enjoy photography and doing that, travel as well. But for our teams, I do stress that work-life balance is important. I just posted something on LinkedIn about a week or so ago about this, talking about the need for work-life balance and that you have to do that.

Making sure that you stay healthy as it were so that you can give back to your team. It is important.

Lovely. I really can relate to that when you say it, The process which is there has to flow down to the team to ensure that the productivity is not hit. That is a culture that you would want to get into the systems of your agency or as a business.

Well, I have to take the lead. As one of the owners of the agency, if my team sees me always working nonstop, with no balance, then they’re going to feel the pressure to say, If we can lead by example and show that work-life balance is important, then the team gets that, too. We just took the whole team last week. We took an afternoon off. We took the whole team. We went axe throwing. I don’t know if you’ve ever done that, but it’s a lot of fun. We went ax throwing, and then we went to lunch, and no one was under pressure to be looking at their emails, making sure the work was getting done. We just took a few hours to reset and enjoy some downtime.

Oh, that is lovely. Great. Then in terms of you have been into brand strategy and positioning for quite some time now, how do you approach the process of brand differentiation in a crowded market or space? What are those strategies that you would have found during this journey of yours that would have proven to be effective?

Yeah, that’s been a long evolution. Based upon my education, my experience with different agencies, the corporate side, I’ve been able to take a lot of what I’ve learned along the way, and I’ve learned from some of the agencies I work with and some of the mentors, and I’ve taken the best the best, right? And then take that and put it together into a process. I went out formally and also got some certifications with Level C, which is led by Marty Neumier, an amazing brand guy, very well-known. He’s written several books like The Brand Gap. I was certified there. I got both the brand specialist and then the brand strategist certification. Great master classes. Again, taking all that and creating our process at Atomic Idea. We have a brand workshop process that we take clients through. There are four key areas. It’s discovered. It starts with a discovery session, a workshop. Then it’s about differentiation, validation, and cultivating. What we try to do is come in and lead them through that process, and I always say we let the process evolve, too. Every client is We’re searching for the DNA of the brand.

It’s our job to pull it out, refine it, polish it, and then deliver it back. We have some guides, and some guidelines in the process, but each process is different. This is a little different as it evolves, but it all starts with alignment. One of the very first things we do in the brand workshop is align on what is a brand because a lot of clients have different views on that. We want to make sure that we’re aligned on what a brand is, and that helps us to then build a brand. Very important. That’s how we do it. The process has worked. We’ve refined it a little bit over the last couple of years, but it’s one that we find is very productive and efficient. We just led a new client, Simple Subwater, I think you mentioned them earlier. Just led them through a brand workshop last week, and we’re going to present that brand strategy and summary this week to them.

Lovely. That is great. You’re talking about branding as a brand strategy. What do you feel are some of the common mistakes that businesses make when it comes to branding? Or you’re setting that message out.

Yeah, that’s a great question, too. I think there are a few things that we see over and over that are more common. The first is that a lot of companies, especially if they’re a startup, maybe a small media company They’ve been growing. They don’t pay attention to the brand’s needs. They skil it. They just throw some things together because they’re focused, perhaps on R&D. They’re focused on growth, revenue, sales, Maybe it’s product development. The brand gets ignored. We see that a lot. One of the things we always say is don’t ignore the brand. It’s never too early to start. People ask us, When should I look at the brand? Well, it’s never really too early because we always look at it as a good brand strategy. Having a brand in place is the foundation. Just like a building, if you have a foundation and you continue to build upon that foundation, the bigger that building gets, the more critical it is that the foundation is solid. If the foundation isn’t solid, and maybe it was just an afterthought, the weaknesses will get exposed and magnified as you build up. It’s the same with a company.

If you haven’t identified and created a strong brand strategy, the bigger the company gets, the more those weaknesses are exposed. That’s one of the things we see. The other is just alignment. One of the first things we ask Ranmay in a brand workshop is, What is a brand? We go around and ask the client, and you’d be surprised at how many different brands we get within the same company. It’s even understanding, first and foremost, what is a brand. That’s so. e thing we also see is a mistake. For us, what we say is even if you can just do some of that brand at a smaller scale, it’s important. Then make sure, just like you carve out a budget for other things, make sure you carve out a budget for the brand and marketing. It’s very important.

Yeah. Great. Well said, Duane. Then I also want to understand your take on AI and machine learning in general. We got hit with this storm. It’s been more than a year now. It went through it. Now it has gotten into our system in terms of how we operate on a day-to-day basis. But what do you think in terms of where are we heading with all this AI and machine learning evolution?

It’s a question we’re getting asked over and over. Even when we’re pitching new clients, they’re asking us, How are you using it? It is one that I think needs to be addressed because it’s getting more and more powerful. A lot of people are putting a lot of stock into it. For us, what we’ve determined as an agency is that like any tool, any tool can be used the right way or it can be misused. What we’re trying to identify is how we use this tool with AI and machine learning in the right way that can enhance what we do for our clients. Let me give you an example. What we’ll do, several of our team members, is they may use AI to look over something we’ve done. Maybe we’ve written a piece or we’re working on a new process, and then we can feed it into the AI and see what it spits back. What we’re finding is that it is useful, and some things do or that it suggests that are good, things we didn’t think of. We’re using it more like that, a review tool to refine what we do or what we create, rather than just letting it, do it from scratch, that’s our job.

We’re the experts, we understand the client. We have the expertise and the experience. We take the first stab, as it were, and then we’re using AI to help refine We’re looking at it closely. It definitely can help us to speed up some of our processes, some of the graphic design, and some of the creative side. But again, I want to make sure our team never loses sight of the fact that we’re still the experts. I want to make sure that we get to lead and use that tool effectively.

I just loved it when you said that your team should not forget the fact that you guys are the experts. At the end of the day, it has been made by the human side.

You have to know how to use the tool effectively, and we’ve seen it. We can identify a piece of collateral or something that was purely done by AI. You see the patterns or the way the language is used. Again, if we use that tool the right way and properly and continue to watch how it evolves, it’s a great tool.

Lovely. Great, Duane. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this with us. I’m sure our audiences would have loved the insights that you shared. But yes, if they want to reach out to you, how do they do that?

Yeah, we’d love to talk to anybody. You can reach us Our website is atomicidea.com. So easy for you to find us there. We have a contact form. Reach out to me on LinkedIn as well. I’m there. Again, it’s Duane Ciacco at Atomicidea, and we’d love to talk with you and just see how we can help you. We offer free consultations. We don’t charge anything to chat with you and just hear what you’re facing and maybe what needs you have. We love to work in a consultative way with you.

Lovely, Dwayne. Now, thank you so much once again. I appreciate it.

I enjoyed being on. Thanks for having me, and I hope you have a great week.

You do. Cheers, man.

Take care.