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IF a picture paints a thousand words...why can’t I paint you?
6th April 2023
Those immortal words from the rock band, BREAD…. pose a conundrum.
The reason might be that the author understood how complex humans are…or he simply couldn’t paint…but he did start with that very personal admission.
IF is a marketing agency working across several areas…in a services sense everything from design to scripting videos, running special events and helping with marketing strategy.
We need to join all the dots including the ethical sourcing of collateral along with a 100% commitment to sustainability.
IF helps paint and put words together but we need a great relationship with our customers to understand their customers.
IF is handily short for Imaginarium Future.
It sets up a world we call the imaginarium and then projects some positive change or influence in the future.
The imaginarium is letting your mind run free to create some quality cut-through in communication. The F is the future and a reminder to think long-term in all plans….not every marketing strategy yields its benefits immediately. Like any worthwhile story, you have to consider the chapters carefully and build. We need to also consider ‘quality output’ in every sense.
ChatGPT for us isn’t ‘quality’. It is an exercise in creating a juxtaposition of words and concepts using machine learning. It has no soul/humanity.
IF challenge all to look at those marketing crossroad decisions and see if an alternative might suit the purpose better.
Everyone is under time pressure and increasingly we see how the workplace has changed. The world appears wracked with one crisis after the next and we are more interconnected. Information and misinformation can travel fast. Nonsense can be promulgated…meaningless communication that dulls creativity and ‘thinking’.
Over the years we have had to create several new brand names in various sectors of the pharma industry. Those names need to be defensible legally as well as work for the long-term ‘image’ and description of the business or service on offer. We had to do this work FAST and think of digital and web names. It is multivariate and multi-discipline. It’s important for all the stakeholders because you don’t change ‘names’ so easily…especially in highly regulated markets like pharmaceuticals.
Trade market lawyers are engaged and hey presto you can talk to the market re-imagined. You need pragmatism matched to creativity to make this real-world ideation tick all the boxes.
At IF you get a blend of ‘out of the box thinking’ allied to practicality. I have always wondered about Leonardo’s wooden helicopter ideas. IF only he had access to some of the innovations in metals and computing. Science fiction often has many merits in terms of its foundations for an imagined future…the three important rules for robot’s precursor the machines by over fifty years.
IF is also about thinking more clearly about lessening the impact of humans when we engage in marketing.
We cannot ignore the fact that ideas have been marketed through human existence. Classical history has shown us IF effective communication is harnessed you can influence humans to do good and bad in equal measure. Julius Caesar is a forerunner of Kaiser or Czar….Caesar was famous but as great a scourge on humanity as Hitler. Most major religions depend on communication that gives some meaning or guidelines for human existence.
Back to those two letters.
IF we all thought a little bit more it would help. The IF agency has to bring breadth to the table and take from many disciplines.
Still in our business with clients IF has to be about successful marketing against a background of sustainability. Success has to be pre-defined in an area which is often subjective but you can measure ‘reactions’ with ‘hits’ in digital campaigns. What you have to assume is that more is better, which we know runs contrary to less is more.
IF is about new ideas.
Or using the palette of ideas reworked so they are better for the client and the public and the planet.
IF often contends economy /brevity against complexity.
Sometimes those ideas are a stepping stone leading you in a different strategic direction.
IF can recycle/upscale…..but not plagiarise.
IF has to get you enthused/excited about the possibility.
IF has to be useful and valued giving that edge to marketing.
IF has to be clever.
IF has to work.
Those that ask questions will have use for an agency like ‘IF’.
Those that don’t will stay as they are. There is no right and wrong in this because marketing requires multiple flows which suit different groups of customers.
We will talk about ‘opportunity cost’ and IF in the future.
‘IF only I had backed that horse and not the other…and so on’.
IF is about implementing the right ideas for a new future. To do that you need the right partners who can listen and pose the IF question. This helps evolve your marketing strategy.
David Jackson
Creative Director
