As an agency, we don’t simply jump into brainstorming ideas or flush out creative designs until we dive deep into our client’s business to understand their problems, audience and differentiation. Our discovery and strategy process fuel our thinking. We work tirelessly on figuring out the right positioning for our clients and it’s led to tremendous success – from doing our part in helping iCIMS and Cholula be acquired for mega millions to rejuvenating household names like Ortega and Dash for B&G to launching new brands for major corporations.
We are in our 14th year as a business and thought… we should do this for ourselves! It’s part of an initiative that we coined “Spitball as a Client” to put more focus on us. As we set out to formalize our own agency positioning, we wanted to stay away from the trap of talking about what we do and more why we do it. Too many companies and brands get stuck in describing their product which sometimes isn’t all that differentiated. When you say “We are an AI, cloud-based software” or “We are a digital-first, direct-to-consumer product” you are simply chasing jargon.
We had a client who always asked “What’s the why?” When you chase jargon, you have no why. Chase meaning and you can answer the “why”. At the end of the day we create brands, we make advertising. We’re not saving the world no matter how much we spin it. We do what we do because we love it and we’re good at it. Regardless of our client – from food to healthcare or global services to Main Street stores – they’re businesses and we help them succeed in their market.
But why choose Spitball? Because we’re a full-service agency? Because we’re an integrated agency? Those are what’s not why’s – or at a minimum they aren’t differentiated. And all are snooze-fests. What makes us different? What makes us meaningful?
At Spitball we think of our discovery and strategy process as two sides of a straw. On one side we want to make sure we are authentic to the brand – in this case ourselves; and on the other, making sure we are audience-centric. Our positioning focuses on who our audience is and what they are trying to achieve, coupled with how we fit into solving their day-to-day marketing problems and larger business challenges. We are scrappy, relentless and wildly imaginative which helps those clients who struggle to find a partner in their own fight to create meaning, differentiation and success.
A lot of details were left out here for competitive reasons – but there’s a lot of layers in our positioning that connect to the childhood spirit of our brand. This uniquely brand-authentic positioning helps leverage our agency name to what it was intended to do originally – embody the youthful curiosity and energy we have for what we do, how we do it and who we do it for.
We’re excited about how our positioning captures us and our audience who want to instigate new thinking, rebel against industry norms and fight bigger brands. It resulted in more than just a project for ourselves but has inspired us even more in the work we do for our clients and why we do it. It’s created meaning for the agency, inside and out.
