Let’s do the speech for every design agency out there! Organisations hire creative agencies everyday, it’s not something new. But do they understand the full power of a design partner? Maybe yes, maybe not! There are several important business reasons why a company must hire a design agency to create and nurture the visual + cultural design language of their org, not just the basic need of “Okay! we need a collateral, so let’s get someone to do it!” There is more to the equation, here is what happens when you partner with a creative agency...
1. Dedicated Focus on Branding
While nobody can be more serious than the company itself for their product or service quality, a good design agency does not look at your product or service as only “your business”. Design is a very intense thought process, and design agencies immerse themselves fully into the organisations they feel responsible for. A healthy culture of sharing product vision, deep collaboration to understand the operations and then suggesting a marketing strategy rooted in design research is invaluable. Your company is very much their company, literally! We take pride in work done well, just like a performing artist does, only here, there is a whole team of performing artists working together.
2. Integrated User Experience
There was little to no awareness of “User Experience” even a decade back in markets and industrial congregations. The act of “design” needs the agencies to study about the end consumer of any service or product quite deeply. For example, in Fashion design, you need to think about the breathability of the fabric. There are decisions to be made, If you embroider the fabric, would the other side of the embroidered fabric become an irritant to the wearer? This is just a simple example of putting yourself in the user’s shoes and creating a design that works well.
Consider User Interface design as a practise, creatives need to think about how easy it is for a person to navigate across the app, does the app load fast enough? Does it have a great visual experience? Is it a secure platform to do money transactions? So many questions, right! In short, Design agencies bring with themselves a perspective that benefits organisations immensely, for it makes the customers happy!
You may have commissioned a design agency for doing poster design, but be assured that the design team will ask you about the vision of your company? and how exactly are your products reaching it. In fact, the attention on User experience began when the CEO’s and CTO’s discovered the power hidden inside UX in plain sight. As the attention grew, so did the recognition of design as a process everywhere, from streamlining your supply chain to thinking about “sustainability”. Now, this transformation in thinking is a result of the external partnerships which have historically grown the value of a company. Something that might be hard to pull off all by yourself.
3. Relief From Maintaining In-house Teams
Many organisations are striving hard to hire, maintain and nurture design talents in-house. In a world where creativity looks like a surplus supply; one wonders “Am I going to find the designer who gets me?” It may look simple, but getting the right team on-board is incredibly hard. Design is after all, an instinctive profession too and no one can deny the humanity of it. Finding a good design professional is not the search of a good portfolio alone, you're actually in search of a person with integrity, intellectual perspective, ability to defend design solutions from arbitrary conversations and a laser sharp focus on the target consumer. You may find a skilled graphic artist to do your visuals, but finding someone who changes the "thought" behind your visuals is not easy.
Many organisations have successfully established in-house design teams, but it is an everyday ordeal, We know! We do this everyday. There is more time and momentum in outputs with a creative partner, because the investment of running a good creative department requires full time focus, just like your other services and products, it makes sense to partner with professionals who can owe it up full time.
4. An opportunity to Explore and Play
Every creative agency has its own flavour and philosophy, a company can explore working relationships with more than two or three agencies for diversity in outputs and even delegate tasks depending on different budgets. Some agencies do a great PRINT job, some make great VIDEOS, some can really come up with that winning “TAGLINE”, some agencies help you deliver at the last minute, some help you craft luxury experiences, and some help you with stunning employer branding campaigns. Some are full service agencies like us - www.brandgraphy.in, while some specialise in a few key areas. Organisations can benefit with a good mix of so much design talent on offer in the market, through the route of creative agencies.
5. Developing a holistic outlook
You may have created a really smart product, and that is because of the genuine aptitude and interest in the process of creating it, while marketing is a second step to position and promote the product, it is not something that can be detached from the product when you consider the end user. Product or Service creators don't bring the same zeal and effort in devising marketing strategies because that is not their natural area of work. This is a common folly in perception that vintage or new companies struggle with everyday, they see the product and marketing strategy as independent islands, while the consumer is seeing the market offering holistically, they feel your service and product as a whole unit, and demand uniform experience during the purchase, after sales or the product life-cycle.
Your MARKETING is your product as well.
Many of us out there still think that visuals or content does not matter. For example, take the appliance sector, what you say about a Switch-board or a Ladelle may seem trivial, because you are banking on the power of a quality product and expect it to work for itself, this is far away from what goes on at the floor of a departmental store.
Imagine your customer choosing between two great quality products, priced exactly the same. What do you think will pull the customer to your product? Exactly! It is what you have considered trivial before - the packaging design, the colour, the information design crafted to describe the product. It all shows the attention you pay to what you do. A good creative agency helps you compete in the market and keep the customer engaged. Creative agencies help you reach your consumers at all the brand touch points.
We hope you enjoyed reading about why a design partnership is an integral part of the whole process. Whether you are considering a creative agency or thinking of developing an In-House team, your customer and therefore your business is the ultimate beneficiary.
