andy-blankenburg-1524

Andy Blankenburg

Partner, Content Practice Lead

History will ultimately judge whether McDonald’s newly [announced](https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/en-us/our-stories/article/ourstories.menu-items.html) McPlant burger is any good, but for now, branding professionals are enjoying a good roast of the name.
 
The Mc-mockery is predictable—maybe inevitable—for a brand name that’s come to be associated with the speed, uniformity and mass production (see: “McMansion”) of processed food. One observer immediately eschewed the plant-based burger’s name, saying  “When I hear ‘McPlant,’ what comes up in my head is eating a tree or grass.” Others who aren’t lovin’ it noted that a McPlant sounds more like a manufacturing facility than a vegan treat.
 
But all the burger-flamers may be missing the point. McDonald’s is approaching the McPlant name as a “platform” rather than a product name. Meaning that it’s an umbrella term that the company hopes to grow into a franchise of products beyond the burger, as it has over the past 10 years with [McCafé](https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/mcdonalds-adding-menu-items-breakfast). It’s also a conscious attempt to not market the platform as vegetarian or vegan. (McDonald’s has sold a McVeggie in Australia, with some [fine print](https://mcdonalds.com.au/menu/mcveggie%E2%84%A2), since the beginning of 2020.) Instead, the McPlant is about going to market as a meat-substitute burger rather than as another veggie burger, a fine distinction in mindset that’s propelled the growth of [Beyond Meat](https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/09/beyond-meat-shares-rise-on-news-that-it-collaborated-with-mcdonalds-on-the-mcplant-options/) and the Impossible Burger brands: It’s about the taste, not just what’s in it.
 
That said, is McPlant a good name? Will anyone want to eat a platform? Well, “McPlant” checks [certain functional boxes](https://www.businessinsider.com/mcplants-name-reveals-mcdonalds-takes-plant-based-meat-seriously-2020-11), and it helps that it comes with a perfunctory sort of visual identity that makes it look less like manufactured food than it sounds. Unfortunately, McPlant bears all the hallmarks of a name a committee settled for at the end of a long week, rather than a name that plants a meaningful flag, so to speak. Or, as comedian Rob Gill tweeted, it’s just “the laziest name for a McDonald’s plant-based product.”

You can imagine what else might have been on the table for the McPlant name, and the brainstorming that went with it:

McHarvest: “Too romantic. What says *grazing*?”&nbsp;  

McGarden: “Yeah, right. Let me check the tomatoes growing by the drive-thru.”&nbsp;  

McGreen: “Ew. Sounds like mold.”&nbsp;  

McStraordinary: “Evocative, but can you bring it back to earth?”&nbsp;  

McEarthy: “Too preachy. And too gritty.”&nbsp;  

McHerb: “Hungry segment, but too nichey.”&nbsp;  

McRoots: “Too Alex Haley.”&nbsp;  

McBeans: “We already sold Chipotle.”&nbsp;  

McField: “I see ‘Mrs Fields.’ It’s not a cookie. But hold that thought…”&nbsp;  

McNaturals: “Let me call the lawyers and see if we can own ‘natural.’”&nbsp;  

McAg: “’Gag’? No.”&nbsp;  

McGrown: “Do you even *know* what a homonym is?”&nbsp;  

McCrop: “One letter away from disaster.”&nbsp;  

McFarm: “Like *all the animals*? E-I-E-I-O? Gross.”&nbsp;  

McBlossom: “Hated that show.”&nbsp;  

McSeed: “Step away from the thesaurus, please.”&nbsp;  

McReap: “Please leave the room.”&nbsp;  

In the final analysis, “McPlant” may be descriptive, inert and endlessly lampoonable. But what it lacks in flavor, it makes up for in pure…functionality. And McDonald’s is clearly betting big that McPlant tastes like victory.

Bland naming: Why ‘McPlant’ wasn’t meant to sizzle

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curt-schreiber-1524

Curt Schreiber

Chief Creative Officer

In most organizations, the number of marketers and communicators far outpace the size and resources of their colleagues on the brand team. At the same time, those businesses recognize that brand is essential to the direction and alignment of their organization, and that everyone plays a role in contributing to the success of the brand. And beyond the walls of an enterprise, agencies and business partners also “touch” the brand and influence how it’s experienced. Internal brand leaders and their functions—the “keepers of the flame”—increasingly face a decentralized, distributed and often disjointed world that they need to manage. A systems approach to brand management has become the answer to the need for guidance and consistency while serving the realities of scale, adaptability and distributed brand decision-making.

Brand guidelines haven’t changed much over the past 50 years. Typically, they consist of assets and standards—a comprehensive set of do’s and don’ts that govern the use of the company's proprietary visual and verbal assets. Certainly, many brand guides have made the leap to digital brand centers, asset management systems or even public websites, but it’s rare when they actually account for how people learn and work today.

It’s time for a change in how we approach branding systems — one that centers branding as an intuitive, adaptable framework rather than a static set of rules. The following three target areas optimize the relationship between the brand management system and the people who use it, ultimately creating a modernized brand management approach ready for a fast-paced market. 

An effective brand system takes more than providing access to a robust set of guidelines. Your entire organization needs to develop and reinforce better brand practitioner skills—and the critical thinking needed to interpret rules and adapt assets.

How much effort should go into upskilling employees? The biggest factor is the desired level of expertise and fluency. Malcolm Gladwell famously said it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill, which translates to about nine years (around four hours a day, five days a week). No business needs an entire organization of brand experts, but all employees need to learn the skills to perform well enough for their own purposes—think 10 to 20 hours of training each year. This is the right commitment to brand training for acquiring the needed amount of brand fluency.

In a large organization, brand practitioners and marketers can number in the hundreds. Brand users and “brand dependents” can number in the thousands, with connections and needs shared between them often going unseen. This makes consistency an enormous challenge. For disciplined brand governance, businesses should be investing in tools, not just guidelines and assets.

An automated, systems-based tool provides constraints. Think of these tools as a means of “rigid flexibility.” With preprogrammed choices like color, typography, format and hierarchy, virtually anyone can build the right asset and do so efficiently. This ensures fewer mistakes and is less expensive than human intervention.

Most of our own work in this area resides in building digital design systems. These are fundamentally code and pattern libraries that greatly reduce the amount of effort to build and deploy, and that increase the consistency and efficiency of teams. 

Two notable examples worth learning from:

[TimesTalks](https://www.basedesign.com/work/the-new-york-times-know-whats-now-know-whats-next) – A quote about the system from Mirek Nisenbaum: “A bespoke digital tool allows The New York Times’ design team to easily implement an established graphic language, explore the entire range of color and type and maintain consistency from event to event. This beats a static graphic guideline.” 

[Walker Expanded](https://walkerart.org/magazine/walker-expanded) – This was a brilliant “hack” by the museum back in the day, and a great example of automation. The typeface has all the right choices of words, patterns and colors embedded. It’s hard to mess it up. And still rewarding to use. 

The primary implication of automation and systemization of brand expression is less “guideline” training and more “tool” training. For groups like a social media team, who work at accelerated speed and responsiveness, an automated tool embedded in the creative process is a powerful enabler of disciplined brand management.


Big, distributed and automated brand systems still have to account for the human factor. Like all the major digital and societal shifts underway in how people consume, navigate and share information, brand guidance needs to fit new expectations and habits among users to be effective.

A few tips that help to ensure users see themselves as part of the brand system:
- Make it two-way: systems need to support conversation—expert to user, user to expert, and user to user  
- Open it up: systems need to be easy to access, easy to change and easy to support a complete range of users—known and unknown
- Leverage tutorials: video is the ideal medium for engagement, knowledge transfer and modeling skills
- Appeal to all: the user interface and range of content needs to appeal to the expert and novice—“insiders” and generalists can each find information relevant to their needs and interests

However a brand system is designed, distributed and managed, it's crucial to treat it as a living organism. The more rigid a brand is for its users, the more static and "expected" the experience becomes for its broader stakeholder audiences. Build it with logic and structure, certainly. But also envision how it will evolve and be interpreted over time and through different media and moments. With skilled practitioners, digital access and automation, and human-centered guidance, you can build a system that is truly future-proofed.


Managing brand in a decentralized, democratized world

brand_management

aaron headshot

Aaron K. Heltsmith

Director, Talent Experience

I think we can all agree that 2020 has been unlike anything most of us have ever experienced professionally or personally. In early March as we were all told to vacate the familiarity of our offices, the fear and uncertainty were palpable. But creative agencies don’t just sit with fear and uncertainty. Our clients pay us to design solutions. So, true to form, that’s exactly what VSA did for this year’s Summer Internship program.

In the first half of any year, VSA’s Talent Management team is hard at work planning and interviewing candidates for our Summer Internship program. Our standard framework is designed to provide burgeoning talent the opportunity to become acquainted with working at a creative agency, leaving with real-life experience that prepares them for the job market after graduation. It’s a celebrated and cherished program — all of VSA gets excited to interview and welcome a fresh cohort of interns every summer. 

With so much uncertainty at the end of February and early March of this year, my team and I questioned what would become of VSA’s beloved summer program. The prospect of not having a summer internship and leaving so much eager talent idle was unfavorable to say the least. After extensive discussion and logistical planning alongside the Executive Leadership Team, we decided to take the program online, and the 2020 Virtual Summer AtHometernship was born.

This year’s program was a 12-week, part-time virtual experience, focused on eLearning and Mentorship. In the absence of confirmation that any of us would be back in the office this year, the AtHometernship was designed to be geographically agnostic and allowed our participants to stay safely at home. Our practices welcomed amazing students from across the country who partnered with multiple mentors to understand career progression, their current roles and all things VSA. We prioritized billable work for our full-time employees so AtHometernship participants were able to shadow and learn from some of the best creative minds in the marketing world and gain real agency experience. Additionally, our AtHometerns designed and delivered a COVID-19 related project together, giving them a topical and unique addition to their portfolio as well as mirroring the cross-functional collaboration that is part of every project at VSA.

We are pleased to say that each of our AtHometern finalist candidates pivoted with us as the structure of the program changed. Our top choices chose us as well, knowing this year’s program would be like none other. Thank you to this year’s participants for sticking with us; we are excited to see how each of you continues to develop and grow.

While VSA’s At-Hometerns may not have been able to enjoy our snack bins, they instead received the best version of an internship experience the creative world can offer in the midst of a global pandemic, resulting in job preparedness, powerful exposure to agency life, AP-level Zoom skills and a deeply meaningful experience to prepare them for the future. 

tracee

raven

cara

gilly

jack

morgan

joseph

amber

ryan

VSA Partners' Virtual Internship Program

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kim-mickenberg

Kim Mickenberg

Creative Director

This past July 4th weekend, we were very proud to launch “Until Justice Just Is,” a platform idea and rallying cry for long-overdue change, which we developed in collaboration with our longtime clients and friends at YWCA Metropolitan Chicago. The fully integrated campaign had a :90 video; OOH, digital, print, and paid social advertising; a fully built-out, written, and designed microsite; and a social strategy (complete with designed assets) for launch. **It helped our clients meet their fundraising goals six months ahead of schedule—and kick off an all-new Racial Justice League committed to dismantling systemic racism in companies throughout the country.**

Oh, and we did it in *three weeks.* 

Like every member of our team, I am deeply proud of the work and personally invested in the success of the larger movement. But five minutes after the campaign launched—and four minutes into actually sitting still and breathing for a bit—I was stunned by how quickly we’d pulled it all together. And how we’d done it all seamlessly, while cobbling together workspaces out of our living rooms, children’s rooms, and backyards. 

After a few days of reflection (and sleep), I realized there were a few core elements that made the turnaround possible. I’m sharing them not to suggest that *all* teams and projects should work this fast, but instead to shed light on what pieces you need in place if you *need* to work fast—especially in the midst of a pandemic. 

YWCA is a unique organization that’s spent the last century in pursuit of one very big, consequential goal: eliminating racism and empowering women. They work toward it in many ways—from providing direct services in their communities around the country to advocating for policy changes on Capitol Hill—but their mission is clear. That clarity makes it a lot easier to come up with a creative platform that speaks to the totality of what they do for the world. And it makes it easier for them, as an organization, to recognize the “right” idea when they see it. 

The platform idea we developed with the YWCA—Until Justice Just Is—works for a few main reasons. One, it’s true to who YWCA is and always has been: an intersectional feminist organization dedicated to addressing the effects of systemic racism and eliminating it. The line would have been clever for a wide variety of organizations and initiatives, but it would have felt hollow for any that couldn’t authentically own it the way YWCA can.  

Two, it’s a call to action with a clear and differentiating purpose: to ask people to commit to *act* to advance racial justice not just today, and not just tomorrow, but until justice and fairness are something we can all take for granted. 

And third, the idea is big enough to encompass who YWCA is today and who they could be tomorrow. Plus, it’s a *narrow enough idea* to have clear meaning and a built-in point of view. That narrowness and point of view are the reason creative teams can bring it to life in a meaningful way, execution after execution. And it’s what allows us, the creative directors, to review work and immediately know what’s working, what’s not, and why. The result? A more focused, unified, and purposeful campaign that gets its message across in every medium.

YWCA_Blog_LogoAnimation

VSA has a wide range of capabilities in-house, from creative concepting, design, and writing to digital strategy and UX to production. Having all of these teams used to working seamlessly together makes it quicker and easier for us to spin up new projects or build on existing ones. 

For example, once we got the go-ahead from YWCA on the campaign concept, we had to immediately start writing, designing and developing a website so we could have it programmed and launched by Day 1 of the campaign. Without wasting any time, we looped in our director of UX so we could brief her on the project, share the client’s wish list for the site and talk through different approaches. Within two days we had approval on wireframes, at which point we were able to start design and copy.


YWCA_Blog_Web_NoScroll

I don’t care where you’ve worked before or what big names are on your highlight reel; to me, the most important thing any teammate can bring is passion for the work and intellectual curiosity about the subject matter. And fortunately, our team had that in spades, finding a million tiny ways to bring thoughtful, considered elements into the project that made the work stronger and more meaningful. 

For example, let’s take deep dive into the Until Justice Just Is typeface. The typeface is actually from Vocal Type, a type foundry created by Tre Seals. After starting his career as a graphic designer, Tre decided to create typefaces in order to bring more diversity into the industry. The font we purchased from him, Bayard, was actually inspired by a hand-painted sign outside the HQ for the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom—which was led by Bayard Rustin, a prominent gay and civil rights leader. 

YWCA_Blog_VocalType_02

That same integrity and specificity was also applied to the imagery in the video. Many of the images we used are from Black photographers who have been at the BLM protests, capturing the energy, enthusiasm, and empowerment of activists, organizers, and participants. Their POV was essential to providing a truly balanced and honest look at the world right now. And as an added bonus, we loved getting to know new-to-us talent and supporting their careers. 

YWCA_Blog_DanielDelgado

YWCA_Blog_DarrellBooker

We chose Sarofsky, a female-owned editing studio, to bring the video to life. Not only does founder Erin Sarofsky feel passionate about Black Lives Matter, but she’s also a longtime supporter of the YWCA whose personal values are deeply in sync with their feminist mission. Plus, her team is as committed and creative as she is. After we shared our script and vision for the video (shown below), the Sarofsky team went out and developed beautiful, evocative visual storytelling, with the perfect vocal talent to bring it to life: a Baptist preacher from Los Angeles. 


The more organizational layers you have to go through to approve any campaign asset, the longer it’s going to take to put things out in the world. Period. The YWCA has a very streamlined internal approval process, which enabled us to meet extremely aggressive deadlines. 

I have a love-hate relationship with Zoom. After a full day of videoconferencing, I’m completely wiped out from the energy it takes to focus on-camera.

But that said, it really does help simulate the office setting while working from home. Spending all day, every day, on video conferences with colleagues in different time zones—many of whom I’d never worked with before in person—really did bring us close together as a team. Two days after the campaign launched, I found myself missing our morning stand-ups and the chance to catch up with everyone. 

Lately, though, we’ve been getting the band back together. The campaign performed so well to date in Chicago, YWCA is going to launch it nationally in the next few weeks. And we couldn’t be more excited about it. 


YWCA: Until Justice Just Is

YWCA_Blog_Main

heather-torreggiani-1524

Heather Torreggiani

Chief Marketing Officer

Like so many of us, the Great Debacle that is 2020 has made me quite reflective. This reflection is compounded by a pretty momentous professional milestone—25 years ago this week, I began my career. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long, but I have a drawer full of retinoids to prove it. Back then, I was fresh out of college, wearing an Ann Taylor pantsuit and hitting the streets of Manhattan to join a management training program at a Fortune 100 company. I was finally about to learn the things about business that my liberal arts degree didn’t teach me, and determined to make an impact on Corporate America. After some twists and turns, including ample soul-searching and pavement-pounding, I landed where I now know I belonged all along—right into the wonderworld of creative advertising. If your aim is to be in the “room where it happens” of Corporate America, there is no better position than business development. 

In this crazy agency pitch world, I’ve learned a ton about broader business—including the giants of industry—and what makes them so successful. While I don’t have a big quant study to substantiate my findings, I have probably gotten to know nearly 3,000 companies over the years. Plus, the pitch process gets you very close to several integral aspects of an organization: you get to see how they operate, what interactions feel like with one another and what’s most important to them. I’ve encountered tech titans like Facebook and Amazon, icons like McDonald’s and American Express, challengers such as Southwest Airlines and startups in plant based food alternatives and self driving cars, to Pfizer and Abbott in Big Pharma. 

During my tenure, I’ve seen firsthand how brands triumph and falter. And while all companies are unique and their business models and industries vary, there are three specific characteristics that create a powerful, successful company. 


They are keenly aware of what they are all about and what the company exists to do. You can feel that focused vision through each employee and how they talk about why they’re there. It doesn’t feel scripted from the employee handbook or the mantras painted on the walls, it comes across their true reason for being. Perhaps as importantly, they know what they don’t know. They’re not afraid to ask for help from potential partners. They’re clear about where they are open to having you challenge their thinking and where they’re most likely an expert. One time, the lead client said, “we love having agencies push back, but make sure it’s provocative when you do because we know a lot about ourselves!” It’s not only refreshing to see that self-awareness but it helps external partners do their best work.

I met with one CEO and Founder who said, “I hate when my employees don’t fail. Because if they’re not failing, they’re not truly innovating.” I’ve never forgotten that. He led an organization that embraced risk-taking and encouraged his team to take big swings. Sometimes this attitude is most associated with startups and disruptors, but I think it’s even more important and powerful for large, established entities. The more supported people feel, the more they want to do their best work and create the next chapter for the company. You can tell when clients feel this way because they talk in terms of what’s possible, instead of who has to approve decisions and why things can’t be done because of internal barriers. They rarely talk about how things used to be. They are continually learning, growing and pushing themselves in new ways.

I don’t know how many RFPs and briefs I’ve read in my career. Probably a million. (Okay, maybe that’s a stretch. But it’s a lot.) Only three that I remember started by describing the culture. And I don’t mean they said, “our culture is like this.” They simply talked about what matters most to them. While only a handful of companies I’ve encountered put this in their briefs, many of them make sure you know what they value early on. One of my favorite examples was from a company that described themselves as the kind of place that tips their umbrella away when encountering someone on a rainy day—as not to collide or get rain on the person approaching—and leaving towels on the bed for guests. The minute I heard that, I knew exactly who they were and the rest of our team did too. But not only did this idea of the company culture appear as an anecdote or words in a brief. We felt it. The entire team at this company treated us with respect from day one and their enthusiasm for their employer was contagious. Companies that lead with culture do more than talk about it—they implement and embody these traits, starting from the top down. When the CEO takes personal responsibility to be the type of person to tip their umbrella, they begin to build a company full of people that will do the same. This commitment creates an environment where culture is not only referenced as an imagined ideal, but is consistently implemented through daily, tangible moments. 

From tech to pharma, finance to home goods—great, successful, *powerful* companies exhibit these traits in abundance. But while it may look to an outsider like these characteristics existed all along, rarely are these inherent traits. The companies that have incorporated these values have done so with deliberate, consistent efforts, sometimes over decades, and have managed to course-correct when they’ve drifted. All this to say, if you’re managing a business that has found itself far away from embodying these traits, there is power in perception. As any good mentor will tell you, first you identify where you’re going, and then you get going. 

And if you’re at an agency, I’ve learned quite a bit about what leads to being the best there, too—but I’ll save *that* for another reflective moment. 

How to create a powerhouse business:  three attributes of successful companies

best_companies

Mike_Walsh

Mike Walsh

Associate Partner, Client Engagement 

“Let’s not use the word craft.” 

So began our pitch to VSA’s first prospective beer client. A craft beer client. 

In 2011, Goose Island Beer Co. had turned the craft beer world upside down by selling to Anheuser-Busch. As one of the “Class of ‘88” breweries—the breweries including Deschutes, Great Lakes, and Rogue that opened in 1988—Goose was an O.G. in craft beer. Their perceived defection to “big beer” was met with howls of outrage, including from within its own ranks. 

As Goose searched for an agency partner to tell the brewery’s story, one thing was clear: They cared as much as ever about their craft and the quality of their beer, and that needed to come through. 

And there we were telling them that that word—“craft”—had outlived its usefulness. 

Consumers still cared about quality, yes. But in the time since Goose Island opened in 1988, the beer landscape had changed. A newly legal-aged-drinker’s first beer is as likely to be a flavorful IPA or a rich amber ale as it is a watered-down light lager. For these drinkers, it wasn’t “craft beer.” It was just “beer.” 

The industry itself was also changing, fast. New breweries were opening every day. “Local” replaced “craft” as the signifier of quality (even if it was hit or miss). And big brewers were coming around to the need to broaden their portfolios.

At VSA, we were lucky to have a front-row seat for what unfolded next. 

We won the Goose Island work. We repositioned the brewery’s brand, redesigned its identity and packaging, and created its first national campaign. Then AB bought Blue Point Brewing in New York. And Breckenridge Brewery in Colorado. And Elysian. Golden Road. Four Peaks. Karbach. Virtue Cider. 

With each acquisition, VSA had the opportunity to do what we’d done with Goose Island. And over the next several years we learned a number of things about the beer business.


The influx of choice in the beer category has given drinkers permission to sleep around (metaphorically, mostly). Breweries have long cultivated deep relationships with serious fans—and even those lovers aren’t entirely loyal. Drinkers don’t have a steady go-to anymore. They have a handful of brands on their list at any given time. Breweries need to get into that selection set; a deep bench of “likers” is worth more than a bunch of somewhat committed lovers. 

It’s rare in packaged goods categories that the spiritual home of the brand is also its actual home. No one visits a diaper factory, or thinks much about who made their soap. And while breweries strive to build brands, those brands are inextricable from the place and the culture where they’re born. The “brewed and bottled by” statement on a can of beer is more than a legal requirement. It’s a badge, and part of the brand’s (that is, the brewery’s) essence. 

Working with founder-led businesses is different. It’s a gift to have their thumbprint to use as a roadmap to brand character. A brewery takes its cues from the tone they set. The culture flows from there, along with the choices about beers and brand. Does the founder exude sunny optimism and love pop art? Are they counterculture rebels? Are they khakis-and-a-button-down kinda guys? Embracing the founders’ ethos keeps the brand true and helps deepen its ability to connect.

Someone once once quipped that breweries are like pizza shops: there’s no such thing as too many. And it’s true—there’s never been a better time to be a beer lover (or a pizza lover, for that matter) in terms of quality and choice. But it’s downright daunting for the consumer at the shelf. Even with the power of strong distribution, breweries need to work hard to break through. A Super Bowl ad may not be the answer, but investing in creating mental availability is a must. Counting on a New Year’s Eve post to become a meme won’t cut it. 

In the end, craft still matters. Consumers are over bad craft beer. They’ve been burned too many times by the local brew pub or an out-of-code can of IPA. So they look for familiarity, and for cues that the brewery cares about what’s in the package. Those cues come from what’s on the package, and what comes from the brand. Craftsmanship of communication is every bit as important as the beer itself.  

A few things we have learned over a few beers

Variety of beer brands that VSA has helped elevate.

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josh_berta.jpg

Josh Berta

*This article is part of an on-going research initiative at VSA to help companies understand the evolving needs of their employees in the remote workplace. To learn more about our findings (and to discover your own work personality), check out [“Understanding the Needs of Your Remote Workers”](/understanding-the-needs-of-your-remote-workers) and download our study.*

&nbsp;  
The other day as I finished a Zoom call with a designer, my daughter looked over with eyebrows raised. “That was a short meeting,” she said. I had to explain that the call wasn’t a meeting, at least not in the pre-COVID sense. In the world of working from my living room, that call was my replacement for being able to swivel my chair around to face my co-worker, and quickly suggest we make X, Y, and Z changes.

As managers, we have lost the ability to practice one of the most simultaneously valuable and fraught exercises: The Hover. The Hover is universal. We’ve all done it, and we’ve certainly all been subjected to it. But like any habit, some of us are more dependent on that type of working than others, and anxiety ensues when it’s suddenly pulled away.

How can we hover? How, while we’re all working remotely, can I stand behind a designer, gesturing at their screen and asking them to try this and that? In these past few weeks, managers have been trying to adapt The Hover, having their teams share screens and push pixels on command. If you’re prone to hovering, this tactic might be the best proxy. Even so, it’s no stand-in for the real thing, and could have an unwelcome side effect of piling on the Zoom Gloom. It’s also already facing a phase-out. As we all return to the office after a prolonged period of increased autonomy and independence, I can only imagine that The Hover might be less welcome after months of working without it.

There is value in this kind of collaborative, in-real-time editing. It’s one of the reasons we all love The Hover: it gets things done, exactly how we want it. But because it works, it’s often overused, leading to inefficiency and needless repetition. We’ve been given a chance to hit the reset button, and my hope is that we can find a better way to work—one that is built on trust, learning, and letting go (just a little).

**Let’s start with trust.** Managers, if you’ve had trouble trusting your team before now, it would be a good time to start developing some faith. If you have notes, share them. Send an email, have a quick Zoom call, do what you need to do to get the message across. And then let your team work. Make it clear you’re giving them the space to try things, even occasionally fail, but that you are looking forward to seeing a product closer to the finish line than it was before you gave the notes.

Teams, you aren’t off the hook—you need to step it up too. If you have been given autonomy and ownership of the work, show your stuff! And be prepared to defend your choices. If you’re not entirely sure what to do, try it all, and then try some more. Reward the trust you’ve been given and take advantage of this new terrain. Understand this: it’s going to make you better at your job.

**Get learning!** Teams should also be using this time to learn, and their leaders should become more patient in their teaching (which means they might have some stuff to learn as well). For team members, your new-found autonomy might be a crash course in solving problems on your own, or using new tools. If you’re confused, ask questions. Confer with your fellow teammates. Rely on each other’s expertise and experience. Ask the internet. Do what it takes to get up and running.

For managers, it is crucial that you invite those questions, be open to conferring, and share your experiences. In other words, teach. If your usual way of hovering is simply a shortcut to finishing the work and not using it as a teaching moment, learn to be more open with your thinking and your process. Teams who understand why you want it to be blue instead of red are more likely to meet your expectations when you give them all that trust we talked about.

**I know it’s hard, but you might have to let go, just a little.** It’s time we acknowledge why we hover: we want to control the output to make it the way we want it. And yes, we all want the work to be as perfect as possible. But perfection is subjective. Your perfect is another person’s meh. Part of trusting your team is seeing the value in the choices they make. They’re not the choices you would make? Get over it (or engage in some of that learning/teaching I’m endorsing).

This brings me to my most important point: sometimes hovering can get in the way of understanding what your company or clients value and prioritize. If you like to hover because you’re obsessed with kerning, but your client doesn’t know Comic Sans from Neue Haas Grotesk, set aside your obsession—at least for a little while. Prioritize your team’s efforts for the forest, not the trees. I’m not advocating we entirely abandon the hallmarks of our crafts. I’m simply saying, as belts are tightened globally, efficiency in objective becomes paramount. And as we all struggle to make the best of a bad situation in work as well as life—let’s not make “the perfect” the enemy of “the good.” Afterall, we could all use some good right about now.

Direction at a distance

direction-at-a-distance

michael_girts.jpg

Michael Girts

Strategy Director

I’ll admit I said it.

I said it out loud, before all the shutdowns, and before we knew how long this would last.

And for a while, it wasn’t so bad. I liked sleeping in an extra hour. I enjoyed making my own lunch in my own kitchen. And it was a treat to spend more quality time with my significant other.

Today? I miss going to the office. Working from home has been a little tough on me because I’m a **Connector.** That’s my work personality.

**Connectors** feel a deep need to share their truest, honest selves with their teammates and their bosses. We want to connect as people—not just co-workers. We think it’s important to go through the ups and downs together. We believe those experiences tend to facilitate collaboration, which leads to better work.

There are lots of employees out there just like me, but importantly, there are even more employees out there who are not like me. And we have the data to prove it.

You see, different employees care about different things. Yes, all of us value functional, tangible benefits like perks, paychecks and job security. But when it comes to emotional needs—the intangible stuff that rarely appears in a job description—that’s where we start to segment into different work personalities.

We conducted a quantitative survey of 1,100 employees who are working primarily from home. We asked them to identify what they most want—functionally and emotionally—from their employer. We also interrogated them about their attitudes on working from home, and we sought to understand their WFH conditions. (Do they have kids? Do they have roommates? How big is their living space? Are they in the city or the country or the suburbs?)

This study is helping us and our clients better understand how we can motivate, retain and reward our people in this new remote working environment.

The quantitative study revealed five distinct needs-based segments. Because their needs differ, their employers must add value in different ways.

Understanding the Needs of Your Remote Workers Five Needs-Based Segments

img_5-across

Understanding the Needs of Your Remote Workers: The Climber

img_climber

Climbers are frustrated by the lack of consistency, clarity and structure in their WFH routine. It’s harder for them to feel acknowledged or rewarded for the work they’re doing, and they are less likely to see a path forward with their company.

Understanding the Needs of Your Remote Workers: The Connector

img_connector

Connectors derive a lot of their self-identity from their workplace relationships. When they WFH, they feel distant from what they value most: their team and workplace culture.

Understanding the Needs of Your Remote Workers: The Believer

img_beliver

Believers know their company’s mission—but not always the company’s plan. They refuse to let these strange circumstances slow them down. They’re working more than ever—and burnout is a risk.

Understanding the Needs of Your Remote Workers: The Grinder

img_grinder

Grinders love the work for its own sake. WFH helps them focus more deeply, and they love how productive they feel. They already tend to detach from their teammates and workplace culture, and remote work pushes them even further away.

Understanding the Needs of Your Remote Workers: The Balancer

img_balancer

Balancers put their personal life ahead of their work life, and for the most part, remote work allows them to better achieve the balance they seek. The increasingly blurred lines between when they’re “at work” and when they’re not is a creeping frustration.


If you run a business or manage a team, there’s a good chance you have folks in all five of these segments. If we understand what motivates them, we can design solutions and communications that drive happiness, engagement and productivity for all types.

To read more about each work personality, [download this PDF.](https://s3.amazonaws.com/vsapartners.com-assets/VSA-Remote-Worker-Study_de3592e9e1.pdf) And if you’d like our help assessing how your own workforce fits into these segments, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Seriously, I’d love to connect. It’s kind of my thing.





*Study conducted by Michael Girts, Kyle Flynn, Elizabeth Hancock, Ryan Monroe, Joe Nio, Linda Vo and Emily Woodward.*

Understanding the needs of your remote workers

remote-worker-study

ariadna-navarro-1524

Ariadna Navarro

Chief Strategy Officer

fay-scott

Fay Scott

The COVID-19 global pandemic has created seismic shifts within our culture for individuals and companies alike. In mid-March, VSA decided to start tracking and predicting sociological changes in this global crisis. The goal of this study was not to **report on the obvious and immediate shifts** in spend, lifestyle, and habits brought on by social distancing in response to the COVID-19 outbreak — we see those as ephemeral, reactive symptoms. Instead, we wanted to understand how our **individual lenses may be shifting** through the collective experience of this pandemic, and hypothesize its implications for the future.

We used a social listening tool to analyze tens of millions of digital posts (December to April) as well as dozens of industry reports released within the first month of social distancing (March to early April) to identify the tectonic patterns of behavioral and perceptual shifts happening through the varied experiences of Americans.

COVID-19 Behavioral and Perceptual Shifts metrics

COVID-Strategy_LB_R5

At the macro level, we found the largest topic was ‘Government Handling’ which was mostly attributed to a growing distrust of government and institutional leaders. In that thread of conversations, we also saw a desire and an expectation for companies to play a larger role in helping and supporting people in not only combatting the virus, but also adapting to a new way of life.

COVID-19 Behavioral and Perceptual Shifts statistics

COVID-Strategy_LB_R5_2

And although we are all coping in various ways, there were several universal shifts that we are all experiencing to some degree that have the potential to fundamentally shape our post-COVID reality:

- We are rapidly **adapting to new constraints** with the help of brands that have taken on expanded roles in our lives, including figuring out how to create a new ‘normal’ with less physical proximity in our social interactions, reacting to an increased reliance on technology and devices, and living with an inability to plan for the future.
- We are **imbuing new meaning to the words ‘valuable,’ ‘essential,’ and ‘necessary’** in the context of quarantine, shifting power and importance to populations and products previously overlooked.
- We are less trusting of large institutions, and more reliant on community-level organization, with our level of **trust correlated to perceived brand selflessness.**

As we think about the future of our business and our clients’ businesses, we see this as a tremendous opportunity for companies to play **more meaningful and potentially new roles in customers’ and employees’ lives** as important conduits to the new ‘normal.’ A massive global disruption is ripe for rapid innovation and brands that rise to the occasion can and will emerge stronger and more valuable to daily life than they were before.

Our report details how companies must disrupt their own businesses by redefining:

- **The value** you deliver
- **How** your value is delivered
- **Who** are your most valuable customers and stakeholders

We are already seeing a new class of brands forming: quick service restaurants hosting virtual parties with high-profile celebrity programming, technology companies known for charging fees and overages providing free services to all customers, and delivery services creating coalitions with their competitors to keep restaurants in business. These leaders are rising to the top through their ability to be nimble, responsive and selfless to exceed expectations in meeting their customers’ changing needs.

When we work with companies, we break out their response capacity into two categories: operational agility and strategic adaptability. As defined by [Gary Hamel](http://www.garyhamel.com/), operational agility implies an ability to respond quickly to shifts in demand or customer preference within the boundaries of an existing business model. Strategic adaptability, by contrast, refers to a company’s capacity to reconfigure its underlying business concept by dramatically rethinking the existing business model. This includes massive alterations of key structures — everything from its core mission to its pricing model to even the basic way in which it produces products and services.

This crisis has become a true test of both a company’s operational and strategic agility. As businesses undergo immense change, it can be tempting to limit strategy to just keeping up with the surface-level demands of the present. Our data-driven framework creates a game-plan to move companies beyond just playing defense (with reactions tied solely to the here and now), to curating a strong offense position within the competitive market. By utilizing these tools, companies can meet marketplace changes with agility, and set their business up for a stronger, more resilient future.

To read our full perspective, [download the PDF](https://s3.amazonaws.com/vsapartners.com-assets/COVID-19-Behavioral-and-Perceptual-Shifts_VSA_e655593bc6.pdf).

Behavioral and perceptual shifts from COVID-19

COVID-19 Behavioral and Perceptual Shifts booklet

covid-cover-v2

jlooby

Josh Looby

Senior Strategist & Analytics Manager

Zach Frazer

Senior Copywriter

ariel_bolles.jpg

Ariel Bolles

Former Associate Director, Content Strategy

It’s an odd feeling, knowing that we’re in the midst of a major historical event. COVID-19 has quickly taken over our lives, foisting on us a new normal that now colors everything we do (and that has made “unprecedented” the most popular word in the English language). As brand stewards work from their homes and try to plot the best path forward, that path is proving difficult to determine. When every commercial break swells with emotional music and platitudes about how we’re “stronger together,” the brands that have been making a genuine impression have taken one thing to heart.

These strange times we’re living in have made people highly sensitive to branded messages. Money suddenly seems scarcer than it used to be—and not just for the 30+ million Americans who recently filed for unemployment. No one knows how long this pandemic response will last and how much of an effect it will have on any industry, putting future incomes at risk almost across the board. And in the middle of a crisis, when economic futures are uncertain, trying overtly to convince people to spend on your product or service feels tone deaf (and that’s not even mentioning anyone using “COVID19” as a promo code).

Even brands who didn’t take any action to adjust their normal strategy ended up catching some flak. When the first lockdown orders were issued and panic-buying at grocery stores was in full swing, social media lit up with people appalled that certain cleaning brands were still running ads despite their products having already been cleaned out at most retail stores. As one Twitter user who replied to a sponsored tweet about crackers put it, “Read the room, baby.”

So what do you do when most promotional, traditional advertising feels wrong? Let’s take, for example, a Vietnamese bistro that opened recently in St. Louis—recently, by the way, meaning they hadn’t yet been open a month before the stay-at-home orders went into effect across the country. In the face of mounting adversity, wondering where sales would come from and how long they would be able to stay open, they packed up a bunch of sandwiches and meal kits and took them to a local hospital to feed healthcare workers on the frontlines. Local news outlets picked up their story, and after a barrage of articles and on-air coverage, they put together a successful restaurant launch in the middle of a pandemic.

The brands that have been succeeding in this torrid time haven’t been focused on selling—**they’ve been focused on helping.** They have put their promotions on hold in favor of putting time and energy and resources toward making a real difference in people’s lives. Giving back has moved their brand forward. Because when you do the right thing, people take notice.

Brands that are focused on helping rather than selling are succeeding right now for a few reasons. First, temporarily deprioritizing business needs and leading with empathy helps build brand affinity—when people feel they share common values with a brand, the emotional part of a purchasing decision is more likely to play a larger role. Recent studies have shown that brand affinity helps raise conversions [by a staggering 131%](https://www.shopkick.com/partners/blog/how-to-build-brand-affinity-why-your-brands-personality-matters-fc/), while [81% of people](https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2019-06/2019_edelman_trust_barometer_special_report_in_brands_we_trust.pdf) felt brand trust was a deal breaker or deciding factor when considering a purchase.

Doing good out in the world humanizes brands. It makes companies seem less like money-driven soulless entities and more like collections of people working together for a common goal. And that ‘feel-good’ factor, in turn, puts those companies into more consideration sets and gives people a reason to buy or spend on them in the future—in fact, [study](https://studylib.net/doc/8817665/does-business-ethics-pay%3F---institute-of-business-ethics) after [study](https://www.forbes.com/sites/petergeorgescu/2017/07/26/doing-the-right-thing-is-just-profitable/#6687d4f27488), from the UK’s Institute of Business Ethics to the nonprofit organization JUST Capital, has shown that the most ethical companies consistently outperform their industry competitors.

Helping also attracts media coverage, which generally carries more trust with consumers than traditional advertising. Earned media get the word out and builds positive perception without relying on owned channels that can be seen as self-serving and insincere. At a time when people are often more skeptical when hearing about companies talk about themselves—and when every TV spot is the same piano-driven montage of stills—this is one of the best ways for brands to stay top-of-mind and grow that brand affinity.

We’ve all gotten emails from brands we haven’t interacted with in years about their response to the coronavirus crisis. While this information is great to reassure potential customers that you’re taking the current situation into account, it’s certainly not going to stand out or make an impact. Some brands have gone a bit farther by changing their logos or taglines to promote social distancing. And again, it’s commendable that they’re raising awareness for and supporting the stay-at-home cause—but the brand actions that have really resonated with people and have dominated conversations have been those that make a difference out in the world.

As the adage goes, actions speak louder than words (and in this case, logo redesigns too). The most impactful brand responses to this crisis have been helpful actions—giving aid to our tireless healthcare workers on the frontlines, repurposing resources to produce helpful products, or simply providing a bit of relief to the everyday Americans that are doing their best to stop the spread. There are plenty of lists full of distilleries and perfume makers that have outfitted their assembly lines to make hand sanitizer and delivery services that have cut fees to support people and restaurants (if you haven’t read one yet, [here](https://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/how-marketers-responded-coronavirus-first-three-months/2244251) [are](https://www.growwire.com/coronavirus-relief) [a few](https://www.adweek.com/creativity/brands-launch-creative-initiatives-to-help-people-impacted-by-covid-19-tuesdays-first-things-first/)), so we wanted to highlight one small business we love as well as one of our clients here at VSA that have really taken helping to heart.

The first is a tech company called Wyze, headquartered out in Seattle, WA. They’re a smart home device maker that set out to make things like smart plugs and wifi-connected light bulbs cheaper and more accessible to the everyday consumer. As part of their [COVID-19 response](https://wyze.com/wyze-in-response), they set up a program to donate their popular Wyze Cam wifi cameras to small business owners across the state of Washington to help them look after their stores while they are self-isolating. Brilliant. (author’s note: I may or may not have bought another pack of their smart plugs after reading about their efforts just to show my support)

The second is VSA’s client [Arity](https://www.arity.com/), a company that gathers mobility data and turns it into insights to make transportation safer, smarter and more useful for everyone. They recently determined that there had been a [drastic decrease in people on the roads](https://www.arity.com/move/americans-starting-cope-covid-19-driving-less/) due to the many shelter-in-place orders in effect. This insight was integral to their parent company Allstate’s decision to return to their customers an estimated $600 million in insurance premiums—an action that has spurred many competitors to follow suit. And as an added bonus, Arity offered up their insights and COVID-19 driving reports to any insurance company in the industry in hopes that those companies can use their data to help their customers in a time of need. That’s how you make an impact.

1. As for us at VSA, we recognize that we are incredibly fortunate to be able to continue our work (remotely, of course) and we’ve been doing our best to help, too. VSA is partnering with Barrel Maker Printing to use our collective creative talent to help keep some of our favorite small businesses in business through and beyond the current crisis. Our talented team of designers have been hard at work creating designs for t-shirts, the proceeds from the sale of which will be donated to the participating local businesses to help keep them afloat. You can help support the cause [by checking out the shirts](http://localinsideandout.com/).

In addition to helping at company-wide level, it’s important to support individual employees as they help, too. Here are some of the ways our brilliant employees are doing their part: 

**Designer Johnny Mei** is donating all sales of his [photographs on Society6](https://society6.com/imperfectday) this year to Doctors Without Borders. He says, “Their support for countries in conflict zones is continuously important. In addition, the organization’s emphasis on being independent, impartial, and neutral also resonates with me.

**Content Strategist Ariel Bolles** is working with a community-based mutual aid group in her area, and built and maintains a [simple website](https://www.bcmutualaid.com/) for the cause. The bilingual website provides general and local resources in addition to links to request help and volunteer.

- **Talent Manager Lauren Nadel** has been receiving messages from former employees, friends and friends of friends who have lost their jobs, internships or freelance gigs. She also works with program representatives at Pursuit, BUILT BY GIRLS, and Here Are All the Black People who’ve been forwarding resumes to her. Even though at the moment VSA doesn’t have any open roles, in her spare time she’s taken the time to chat with each and every one of these people. She says, “I feel fortunate every morning knowing I still have my position and if there is anything I can do to help others ease the anxiety of being without a job or opportunity to grow, I do what I can to make sure they feel supported.”

Uniting around putting our expertise to work for local groups and friends is just one way we’re committed to helping—we’ve got plenty more in the works, and we hope to see plenty more from you, too.

Marketing in the time of COVID-19

marketing-in-the-time-of-COVID-19

Culture is the glue that binds us. As people, as ethnicities, as companies.

So naturally every company tries to “create” a culture that is (circle one or more): innovative / agile / compelling / inspirational / progressive…you get the idea. You’ve done it before. A common set of values, beliefs and behaviors that define a “way of being,” help drive a business forward and motivate people.

But honestly, how are you supposed to maintain a company’s culture when the very essence of culture that we have relied on over the past 2,000+ years — personal connection — has been taken away?

At the center of culture is people. So what happens when we’re no longer together, when we’re working alone, from home, connecting to each other through a screen that allows for limited, artificial moments of interaction? When we can’t show up and lead by physical example? When actions are not overt and can’t be shared and seen?

When digital communications that were meant to be a substitute for the real thing are the ONLY thing?

When we do Culture Transformation work we tell our clients “Culture is a process. It’s not an event or a moment in time.” Not a list of words on a page. Ok yes it has to be words on a page somewhere, but it only comes alive and resonates if realized consistently and credibly, every day, in every action. Either as deliberate acts that help nurture it or as spontaneous gestures of meaning and support. It’s a system and as such it has to be treated in a systematic way.

However given today’s circumstances you need to simplify. We’ve been focusing on three core pillars to maintain our culture:

Trust, shared rituals and meaningful connectivity.

Trust is the mother of all cultural glue. You can’t “offer it or promise it,” it can only be earned through transparency, respect and backing up your words with actions. It’s the pillar to all other aspirations of creating culture. In a time of unprecedented uncertainty, it’s your duty to offer a clear representation of reality — of the company’s views, actions and decisions, of even your personal fears. And more importantly, it’s your duty to put the interests of the people first. It’s hard to earn trust if people don’t feel you have their back.

Rituals and moments of surprise and delight create shared experiences and nurture a sense of belonging. At VSA we’ve done it in an amplified way to counter the physical absence.  Everything from virtual bingo to talent contests to dress up day to sending someone who needed extra care a bottle of wine. It hasn’t been scripted or forced — we just became even more sensitive to when it was needed. This requires you to be really tuned in to your teams. Sometimes you need to bring joy and levity to the group, other times support and empathy, other times clarity and leadership.

Meaningful connections, both big and small, are at the center of managing culture in absentia. And we’re being purposeful here about the word “meaningful.” This is about making a gigantic space, literally time on your calendar, to allow you to reach out to people. To ensure you know what’s going on with their families, to give someone some free time if you think they need a break, or to celebrate their achievements. But you have to mean it.

And here’s a little hint. Omissions count as much. If you forget to congratulate someone who aced a presentation or forget to check in if you heard their kids are sick, that leaves a hole. It just does. And it’s very hard to fill back. Times are sensitive. Today, hyper-sensitive might not be a strong enough way to describe how people feel. To describe all of us.

During these past weeks, when so much has been at stake, those are the few things that have truly mattered, that have kept us sane as a team and actually brought us even closer together and allowed us to continue to do great work in the process.

It’s the art of marrying people’s dreams and beliefs with your company’s and finding a way to dance together through this difficult time. And when it’s over we’ll all be that much stronger. Together.

Be well.

Creating virtual culture in a virtual world

VSA-apart

VSA Creative Director Josh Berta found a creative outlet by designing a number of COVID-themed parodies of famous book covers. Check out his collection of COVID covers and see if you recognize any of these from your own library.

The Great Fauci (The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)

the-great-fauci

catch-it

Children of Zoom (Children of Dune, by Frank Herbert)

children-of-zoom

The Amazing Adventures of Shelter & Stay (The Amazing Adventure of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon)

shelter-and-stay

The Curve Also Flattens (The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway)

curve-also-flattens

Infinite Germs (Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace)

infinite-germs

Oh, the Places You'll Stay! (Oh, the Places You'll Go!, by Dr. Seuss)

the-places-youll-stay

Great Vaccinations (Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens)

great-vaccinations

Harry Potter and the Hoarder of the Kleenex (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by J.K. Rowling)

harry-potter

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Living Room (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams)

hitchhikers-guide

Hoard of Supplies (Lord of the Flies, by William Golding)

hoard-of-supplies

The Odyssey of Home (The Odyssey of Homer)

the-odyssey

High Virality (High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby)

high-virality

The Hoard of the Things (The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien)

hoard-of-the-rings

Muddlemarch (Middlemarch, by George Eliot)

muddledmarch

Memes in the Time of COVID-19 (Love in the Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

memes-in-the-time-of-covid

Maybe Sick; or, The Well (Moby Dick; or, The Whale, by Herman Melville)

maybe-sick

COVID-1984 (Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell)

1984

Near, The Child Things Are (Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak )

the-child-things-are

the-ill-advised

Walled In (Walden, by Henry David Thoreau)

walled-in

Journey to the Back of the Fridge (Journey to the End of the Night, by Louis-Ferdinand Céline)

journey-to-the-fridge

Tasks in Masks (Fox in Socks, by Dr. Seuss)

tasks-in-masks

Gathering Likes (Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë)

gathering-likes

Cruiseship Troopers (Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heinlein)

cruiseship-troopers

Brioche, Challah, Soda, Rye (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, by John le Carré)

brioche

Everything's Closed in Brooklyn (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith)

closed-in-brooklyn

COVID covers

the-great-fauci-leadspace2

anne-marie-rosser-1524

Anne-Marie Rosser

President

In times of crisis, our first instinct is to slow down. If it’s a global pandemic, it may feel more like “come to a screeching halt.” It makes sense, right? The road is unknown, things are changing quickly, and plowing ahead may set you up for an unplanned cliff dive. But standing still can be just as dangerous, and a few months of non-movement as a business can leave you years if not decades behind. So it’s eyes up and forward march. But why is it that some companies seem to be better at adapting to the changing landscape than others? 

A few months ago, I was reflecting on my work experience and observations born largely from working with West Coast versus East Coast clients. My experience over decades of working with established blue chip companies (think at least 100 years old) was that they tended to favor rigor and, not surprisingly, logic in driving sound decisions. When I transitioned to working for more West Coast companies (think 20 years old or younger) there was an almost opposite dynamic. These companies seemed comfortable working within ambiguity, and the trick was figuring out how to do great work within that ambiguity instead of seeking to eradicate it. 

Here’s the thing: both are right. There’s a benefit to guidelines and process just as there’s an advantage to innovation and risk-taking.  When I see companies thrive in times of uncertainty, young and old, it’s because they’ve taken lessons from both ends of the spectrum. In short, they’ve created a framework for ambiguity. By working with ambiguity in a systematic way, they’re providing the checks and balances necessary to correct direction as needed while still continuing their momentum. They’re meeting ambiguity with increased velocity. 

Meeting ambiguity with increased velocity in a thoughtful, systematic way is the key to successfully navigating a rapidly changing landscape. If I knew it a few months ago I definitely know it now, even as the notion of “ambiguity” has taken on an entirely new resonance. There’s something emotionally comforting in finding that some of the same tools still apply, and that my natural propensity to take action (fly by the seat of my pants?) is still as good a bet as any. So I thought I would share some of the steps I’ve learned along the way. 

If you’re ready to make friends with ambiguity, here’s how to get started.

The goal here is to embrace the ambiguity, but still be disciplined enough to define a singular problem that you are trying to solve. In reality, the challenge in front of you may be multidimensional, but sometimes you just need to define one dimension to move forward. I often found that in organizations that move quickly, the problem state is either broadly defined or often wrongly stated. If you interrogate the stated problem and relate it back to either a business challenge or a customer need, you’ll get a pretty good sense of whether it is the right problem to run at or not. And if you do identify multiple problems—prioritize. There’s usually a sequence where solving one will naturally begin to unlock the others.

Hypothesizing is my BFF. It is a really critical tool in beginning to address “velocity”—allowing a team to move quickly through relative ambiguity to still deliver great work. Today, there are more tools that allow you to get both quant and qual research fairly quickly, making the chances of true insight much more likely. But even if you aren’t able to do any primary research, fast synthesis of past learning and current landscape dynamics can still generate enough to help you hypothesize. I find that “narrative hypothesizing” where you build out a story or argument is really helpful. You learn quickly whether the argument can hold water, or whether it’s a weak hypothesis and you need to keep working.



One of the hardest parts about working in ambiguity is the natural desire to want to work sequentially. Ah, if only this were possible in every circumstance. But this is where the idea of “velocity” becomes even more important. It’s counter-intuitive to start on creative solutions before strategy is fully baked, or perhaps before insights are identified. But if you’ve done the hypothesizing, you have enough of a framework to understand what to create, and also where to modify when you need to (which you likely will.) My creative colleagues have become adept at understanding that much of the work they begin to develop will never see the light of day, because strategy work is happening in parallel. The creative work may not be bad, it may just prove to be “wrong” once strategy gets farther along. It takes a pretty amazing dose of confidence coupled with a rare lack of ego to really make this work. My hats off to our creative teams everyday for their winning combo in driving with velocity.



Sometimes I forget how comfortable I’ve become working in ambiguity. As new team members join projects for our clients, I’m reminded of just how overwhelming it can feel at first. And that’s where trust comes in. This style of work can take a lot out of you. But it can also be energizing and incredibly exciting. I remain in awe of the rabbits I see my colleagues pulling out of hats every…single…week. And I believe it’s because we’ve built a culture of trust that allows people to work this quickly, fail together, rebuild and build again. Trust is built from each discipline in the group bringing their best, and trusting in the rest of the team to do the same. Generally, there is at least one team member (from strategy or account) who is responsible for keeping the hypothesis thread in mind. They keep the team focused or re-focus as work develops. The lack of ego comes into play when it’s time to tweak, or even abandon good ideas that no longer serve the hypothesis. Having a shared goal, in a high degree of ambiguity, while working with velocity makes this kind of trust a necessity. Ideas are fragile, and they need care when they are being discarded or rebuilt. When you see creative leads who really know how to do this well, and validate the intent (if not the final idea) you see how valuable and motivating that skill is. Be a builder.

These four lessons have helped me and my teams deliver some of the work that I am most proud of, and have kept me nimble and flexible as a leader. When I think about the ambiguity we’re all living through right now, the language we tend to see is largely around inertia. And while it’s true that we must stay home to stay safe, it’s also true that our brains are free to roam. Defining problems, hypothesizing insights, breaking white paper and being a builder are tools I’ll use personally and professionally to help navigate these strange times we’re in. If we’re lucky, perhaps we can turn some of that inertia into ingenuity.


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