One message, many voices
It wouldn't be America without hearing from a quintessential 'Merican company like NASCAR.
Jill Gregory, Evan Parker and Lindsy Blum (CMO of NASCAR, Managing Director and Content Strategist of NASCAR, VP of Vayner Media, respectively) discussed how they transformed NASCAR communication channels into a supercharged machine all heading for the same finish line and why this is becoming a trend for companies to do so.
When you are working with these legacy companies who have been growing for decades, just like NASCAR noticed, there are hundreds different partners, vendors, agencies, specialists, consultants, etc. From this never ending list of partners, brand managers then have to contact and create multiple messages a year across varying channels using these different partners. It's pretty obvious how the "one team, one dream" could get lost amongst these different stakeholders.
Agencies have always been there to explain the nuances of the modern media to clients but now brands are discovering you can save money by bringing expert people in house to have ultimate control of their main message. Who better knows the brand than those in the brand themselves?
NASCAR as a brand was one that was willing to take the time it needs to build an almost completely new media presence with continuity across all channels, they were ready to fail and more importantly, ready to adapt as they felt they didn't have the cumbersome hierarchy found in traditional agencies. They could "deep dive and find the stories within the company that can be told" to tell an authentic narrative they knew would land with their loyalist audiences. Some of the best stories they produce weren't from influencers or short content stories about the sport, but by finding their own talent and training them to become their own influencers. Consider their successful Facebook series that chronicled the life of one Bubba Wallace Jr. (Yes, his name was Bubba).
The real selling point of in-house? You now get control over your own data from all this content! And boy is that (subjectively) the golden egg of today. By combining their creative and messaging into one place, they were able to grow their media impressions exponentially over the space of 5 years.
It looks like Armageddon for agencies doesn't it? Well not necessarily. But it does mean you have to be ready to fight.
This same model of thinking can be achieved in an agency as much as it can be in-house. How could we do this? I can't assuredly say, but the key takeaway seems to be that you must take control of the organising idea running through every facet of a brand. Break through the stigma that you just do "advertising" or "public relations" and actually start trying to create brand experiences that sit under one goal; to improve interactions for customers and audiences alike, not how you can win awards. It's simplistic and a little idealistic but it's the truth.
And finally, use the one thing in-house creatives can't use; perspective. "When you walk in every day to the same corporate culture, you can’t help but get swallowed up, to varying degrees, by that culture" (Mark Ray, AdWeek). Agencies have the power to bring fresh eyes to every part of the business and can help stop pretentious creative from being spat out. As I said, companies who use in-house creative have the opportunity to use data to help understand their loyalists but data is literally nothing but numbers, so knowing about it means zero. It's how you interpret that data, and that is something only someone with a diverse perspective can creatively do.
How can it be that hard to know your audience if you litterally have all the data in the world about them? I'll just leave this here.