My desire to treat all things in an agile way is creating internal discomfort. Over the weekend I was reflecting on how to develop a new or refreshed brand using an agile approach. Given the need for consistency and repetition in building a brand, it seems that this may be one part of the marketing universe that that truly needs a waterfall approach.
So how can we make the brand development process more agile? Here are some ideas.
- Start with a straw list of ideas to test
- Dedicate one wall in your office to post these ideas and your competitive landscape
- Use less expensive, faster-to-deploy exploratory research techniques like online focus groups to supplement your traditional customer outreach
- Continuously adapt, test and kill concepts as you acquire data from the market
- Get your team to use Digg or Delicious to share competitive marketing
- Brainstorm frequently to make sure you are innovating and expanding your list
- Share the ideas with your team on a regular basis
- Concept test final idea using email surveys as a sanity check
- And last but not least, trust your gut as this a creative process not a geometric proof
Did I miss anything? I would welcome your thoughts and experiences.
Brand depends on repetition and consistency while Agile depends on iteration and flexibility. How do you square this? I’d worry that your agile branding might be a recipe for “meh” rather than “aha!”