Our Approach

Our Philosophy

The Truth Matters Most

In 1912, Henry McCann registered the world’s first advertising trademark. Its genius is its simplicity, universality and eternal inspiration. We have admired it for decades and agree with the agency’s belief  “Truth Well Told” is both a creative philosophy and a collaborative vision.

Truth well told is always authentic.

The process of discovering authentic truth is often arduous. We say this because a brand’s empirical truth has to include as many perspectives, experiences and expectations as possible. But once revealed, truth becomes a brand asset of infinite worth. Just like McCann’s trademark states.

To give our branding philosophy direct real-world applicability, we’ve developed this simple algebraic formula for your consideration:

Message

Message is what we intend to communicate, along with what the target audience sees, hears and retains.

Media

Media includes any means we use to
distribute messages, aka omnichannel.

Results

Results are the metrics we use to determine success, and ideally ROI. Just like every other business discipline.

In algebra, zero times anything always equals zero.

Based on our experience and the research we’ve seen, a surprising majority of messaging is suboptimal, thereby producing suboptimal results. Not enough people know this.

That’s why we claim suboptimal messaging is a stewardship issue. Particularly for the 90 percent of brands that don’t have enough marketing money to begin with.

It doesn’t have to be that way. That’s why our strategic process begins with brand discovery, and a deliberate focus on identifying messaging that is both relevant and motivating to the target audience(s).

Our Process

Brand Discovery

Brand Alignment

Brand Expression

As you will see, there is nothing “proprietary” about our strategic brand process. After working across 40 industries and with 120 brands, we know there is no such thing…

However, we have taken the best of what we’ve learned along the way about discovering the essential truth of brands, and applied them into a thorough, but time and cost conscious system.

The core issue with most brands is that their owners know too much. They no longer think like the people they want to attract, and as a result, utilize suboptimal messages.

This issue often manifests itself as “Why don’t they get it?” questions from the brand owners. Our goal is to look at everything with fresh eyes, from as many different perspectives. as possible. Here’s how:

Existing Information

Whenever possible, we prefer to review an organization’s business, branding and marketing plans on a five-year time horizon. This anchors us better, so we can make our next steps most productive.

Secondary Research

Since the Internet knows most everything about everything, we conduct detailed secondary research analyses. We’ve found this is the most time and cost efficient way to arrive at a common base of knowledge early on.

Primary Research

By conducting emotionally focused, one-on-one interviews with a range of internal and external constituencies, we are able to discover the authentic brand truth that already exists. This research is our “secret sauce”.

Competitive Brand Analysis

We also develop customized benchmarking analyses. Using homepages as brand surrogates, normative analyses of peer and aspirational groups allow us to understand new branding opportunities from a global perspective.

Years ago, a retail CEO taught us, “Don’t write a check the store can’t cash.” In other words, ensure the brand’s promise is kept at every point of contact, and with every element of the promise.

A succinct, evidence-based brand strategy drives internal alignment and keeps an organization focused. This is critical in a world that’s overwhelmed by the tyranny of the new. It’s much easier to manage tactical ideas when there’s an overarching brand strategy to contextualize them.

Strategic Brand Platform

These documents are a defining element of The Utmost Group and our ethos. So much so, there’s a blog post on the site we invite you to read, “Without a strategy, we’re just decorating.”

We develop brand platforms iteratively, in partnership with our clients. The goal is to achieve consensus and alignment about marketing and communications before it’s created and produced.

Once we have approval of the strategic brand platform and achieved alignment within the organization, we can begin the creative process with confidence.

This allows the brand’s expression to remain strategically consistent at all points of contact and to have engaging, motivating resonance with its intended target audience(s).

Brand Promise

80-90 percent of a brand’s first touch happens online, most often by a mobile device. In that environment, brands have six seconds or less to connect. Otherwise, visitors bounce, perhaps forever.

Synthesizing a brand’s promise to six seconds is challenging, but necessary. And it’s a process we find genuinely exciting.

Internal Marketing

Internal marketing is a prerequisite to achieving brand alignment and marketing success. Every person associated with the brand must understand their role in keeping its promise.

We absolutely agree with Richard Branson’s statement, “Learn to look after your staff first, and the rest will follow.”

Brand ID Strategy

As communications continue to become more visual strategically driven, brand ID systems become even more essential to successful, sustainable branding.

By investing wisely in a strategically aligned system, brand owners can resist the urge to follow fads, and allow their visual branding to maximize its ROI over time.

External Marketing

Today’s IMC (integrated marketing communications) mix must be digital-centric. A professionally developed SEO plan is the cornerstone.

The same is true of social media. Motivating brand evangelists to reach seekers will always be the most compelling form of marketing. So this must be managed with the highest levels of authenticity and continuous care.

Our Services

  • Refresh

    Rebrand

    Rename

  • Brand ID systems

    Online and offline content

    Environmental

    Experiential

  • Benchmarking

    Brand discovery

    Strategic brand platform

  • SEO, PPC/AdWords

    Public/Media Relations

    Social media planning/implementation

    Behavioral targeting planning/implementation

  • Messaging optimization

    Content development/management

    Media investment planning/implementation

  • Strategic partnerships

    Events/Experiential

    Program planning/implementation

    Co-marketing planning/implementation