Branding with adobo Masterclass 2019

There are plenty of apps and outsourced services that individuals and organizations can leverage to make a mark in the digital space. But this democratization of tools and services to gain an online presence can lead to oversaturation. Messages get buried in the newsfeed every five seconds. To make your messaging stick, return to the basics of branding.

Branding started as the practice of marking animals to identify the farms or ranches they belonged to. Today, it defines how a name, term, or symbol represents a business or group.

While large enterprises can rely on decades of history to build a brand, small to medium businesses often need to outsource the brand development process because customers and non-employees can provide an outsider's view of the emotional reactions associated with the business. Outsourcing brings the added benefit of allowing the majority of your internal team to focus on sales, operations, and administration.

On Branding at adobo Masterclass 2019

adobo Magazine is a publication that features the Philippine advertising industry and the many world-class Filipino creative talents. They hosted adobo Masterclass 2019, which focused on creativity and its role in building a brand, establishing a brand’s purpose, getting a return on investment, and finding a place in the greater community.

Marketers and creatives from StraightArrow’s team attended the master class that featured a panel of speakers composed of leaders in advertising in the Asia Pacific.

Ronald Ng of Isobar spoke about going back to the problems that technology is supposed to solve in the first place in “Forget Augmenting Reality if you are not Augmenting Humanity”. 

Eric Cruz, formerly of AKQA China discussed “Creativity in the Age of Data”, providing case studies on integrating apps and data into creating immersive customer experiences.

Anne Rayner of Kantar offered data and insights on the nuances of consumers on a local and global level in “Purpose in Asia: What People Want”.

David Porter of Unilever did a talk on the return on investment of having a purpose called “Purpose Pays”.

Paolo Mercado of Nestlé Philippines challenged the notion of creative agencies in a talk called “Ad Agency? Creative Agency? An Identity Crisis”

And finally, Josy Paul of BBDOIndia engaged the attendees with case studies on “How to Start a Movement”.

Some Lessons for Outsourced Branding

From the many insights from the speakers, we can zero in on a few takeaways that can be applied to outsourced graphic design and digital marketing.

1. Make automation human again.
   

   It’s true that outsourced digital marketing services for building automation programs can help small businesses set up processes like sending confirmation emails or SMS. But we need to veer our innovations towards easing the user experiences of human customers.

   Ronald Ng of Isobar cited robotics that can recognize regional accents and take fast food orders for people from different provinces in China. This made the experience of ordering food more welcome for the people ordering at fast-food chains.

2. Set up your brand for a purpose.
   

   According to Anne Rayner, not every brand should be an activist but every brand is expected to do good. While having a purpose makes you profitable, brands need to be authentic about both their purpose and the issues in the local community.

   If your brand is an advocate for solving any global issues, consider: how does this issue translate in the local community? It's definitely easier to strategize and outsource your social media, search and content marketing when you've identified your business' cause/purpose/passion, and how this relates to the local community or communities you serve. (You can read more about finding your cause/purpose/passion from EOS).
   
   

3. Using creativity to persuade.
   

   Paolo Mercado challenged that creativity is a means of achieving an objective and not the objective itself. He cited that the objective of advertising is to persuade. Following that same train of thought, the objective of marketing is to build and satisfy the transactions in relationships.

   Outsourced branding or digital marketing services should go beyond the creative output that pops. You need to focus on persuading customers or on creating satisfying relationships with them. Mercado even cited StraightArrow as a disruptor in the agency model, providing consistent work in the different types of agency-client relationships (project-based work similar to freelancers or offshore teams)

On Outsourced Digital Marketing & Graphic Design

You can work with a graphic designer to develop your branding style guide to establish not just your logo but the typeface, colors, and imagery you'd like to associate with your brand. 

This can then extend to creating templates and rules for visual imagery on social media pages for your business. 

Similarly, an outsourced content marketing team can work with you on building a boilerplate for your business’ content style guide.

Once you have your branding down pat, outsourced teams can help you run campaigns that stay true to your purpose and that connect with your local or global community.

If you’re curious to see how outsourcing your digital marketing creative work would reflect your operational costs or expenses, you can try our outsourcing calculator.

You can determine how much you can save by outsourcing your digital marketing and branding requirements.