We had a great lunch last weekend at South Bend Chocolate Café with Evan DeWalt, one of our former—and one of my favorite—interns. As a Notre Dame double-major (marketing and design), he was in my Advertising Campaigns class, and was truly suited to join us as an intern. In fact, he spent a semester and a summer with us.
Evan’s had a great career so far that took him first to Philadelphia, then to Baltimore, and currently he’s a partner in a thriving and inventive business that makes custom-forming athletic protection apparel called Evoshield in Athens and Atlanta, Georgia. He heads marketing and design as part of his leadership in the company, and has his hands full with product launches, endorsements and a plethora of advertising and communication opportunities.
Our conversation turned to strategies for creating awareness and presence in a market. As a former RHB employee—and a fan of “the book”—Evan is a coherence disciple. We discussed measuring coherent strategies when there are so many ways to get noticed. Specifically, we discussed the degree to which alarming or “humorous” videos on YouTube can be used to help create audience. We were chatting about how many times we’ve both heard things from clients like, “Don’t worry about our image right now, just let’s get stuff out there. Let’s do something shocking and then we can clean up our brand message later.
And then Evan looked at me and asked a great question: “But what value is exposure without the right message and the right audience?” (I told you I love this guy.)
In our business with colleges and universities, we are sometimes called in by trustees to make their school a “household name.” It always takes me by surprise. I’m intrigued. “To what end do you wish to be a household name? How many households have a student here or give money to you? How many households can you accommodate?” (Usually, when it boils down to it, not that many.) But clients sure would enjoy the bragging rights of being well known. Who wouldn’t?
Evan and Tammy and I talked some more and agreed that perhaps a first step is to do something remarkable. To be something worthy of being recognized. To make something so great that great exposure won’t be difficult to acquire. Then, if you really want to make a goofy video, you can. Because your great brand and your outstanding reputation will be set in cement and a couple of goofy videos won’t hurt it.
-Rick Bailey is the principal and founder of Richard Harrison Bailey/The Agency and author of Coherence: How Telling the Truth Will Advance Your Cause (and Save the World). Follow him on Twitter @RichardHBailey.
