Last year we gave our brand a makeover. A major part of that work was formally identifying who we are, our tone, our voice — all the good foundational stuff we recommend for our clients. When we choose adjectives to describe the organization, we landed on:
• Thoughtful
• Brave
• Creative
• Clever
These words serve as guides when we make decisions about how we want to share CID with the world. They put constraints on our behavior that keep us from straying too far away from who we are.
Which brings us to a self-promotion video we did recently taking advantage of Wes Anderson parodies trending on Instagram and TikTok. If you didn’t catch it on our socials or in our newsletter (follow & subscribe!) take a minute to watch it here.
Pretty great right? If you’re used to seeing the content we usually share, you might notice it’s a bit of a departure for us. At least, that’s how it seems at first.
Embracing Our Creativity & Trusting the Process
Sure, our usual color palette isn’t dominating the look of the video. And it’s more playful than the informative thought leadership content that you’ll find on this blog. However, there’s a throughline to the core of our brand that remains present, even when we’re disrupting what people have come to expect from us.
Remember our brand words above? They were embedded in this video at every step in the process, in some ways purposefully and in others just as a natural extension of CID’s personality.
The video was originally intended to be a quick, scrappy reel for Instagram shot on an iPhone. But the more we thought about what we could do with an in-house video production team and a whole staff of creative people who were extremely enthusiastic about the idea, the production got scaled up.
There was an internal pitch deck. A storyboard. Pre-production planning meetings. Scripting. Location scouts. Wardrobe. Props. Shot lists. Early morning call times. A craft services table.
Inspiration from The Life Aquatic and Moonrise Kingdom with their CID video counterparts
We also created a detailed strategy for distributing the video that went beyond “just post it on Instagram.” A creative teaser campaign was developed alongside the full video that started to build a little buzz around what would be the video reveal. And, a marketing strategy that includes an ad campaign and dedicated landing page, was rolled out.
Taking a Risk Pays Off
The biggest takeaway for this whole project is this: sometimes the right inspiration can take you to unexpected places. And there are times when you absolutely need to do that.
This video project was an opportunity to show off who we are in a really fun way. It’s given us an in with people who may not have known us already, and it’s given hardcore CID fans (we see you) another look at what we’re capable of.
Changing up our approach to our own self-promotion allowed us to deliver a delightful surprise to our audience without ignoring our brand values or completely contradicting who we are. In fact, it reinforced our brand. When done well, that’s the real beauty of a brand disruption.
Meg’s racked up experience (and a couple awards) across a variety of disciplines in her 10 years: editorial and advertising design, marketing strategy, and brand development. With a focus on uncovering the thread that begs to be pulled, and getting into all the nooks and crannies of an initiative, Meg’s work results in verbal and visual communication that packs a punch.