Following its acquisition of CO, Edge launches new agency proposition: Relentless Relevance

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Edge Sydney Staff Photo Oct 2017-web-thumb-400x378-268799.jpgFollowing its acquisition of Creative Oasis (CO) last Friday, Edge has unveiled its new integrated agency proposition: Relentless Relevance.

After over a decade in content strategy and production, Edge has been pushing hard to deliver one-to-one content experiences, fuelled by first and third party data and the application of technology. The new merged entity fuses Edge’s content experience with CO’s traditional advertising craft – to challenge brands to become more relevant to their customers.

Richard Parker, partner and planning director, explains the rationale behind the proposition: “There’s only one constant in our industry, and that’s change itself. Tectonic shifts in technology, society, and personal attitudes are dramatically changing the way consumers behave. The foot is on the pedal and there’s no brake. It’s our job as an agency to help brands navigate through this. We have to challenge the way they are engaging, to ensure they stay relevant – and do it relentlessly.

“The digital revolution just keeps on happening, with AI, AR and Voice just the latest innovations building off the huge disruptive forces unleashed by the dawn of web 2.0 almost 20 years ago. Feeding off technology, society is changing. Millennials are the biggest cohort in Australia – and either have just overtaken, or are just about to overtake Boomers as the biggest spenders, depending on how you look at the data.

“They consume media and content in vastly different ways to their forebears. And they’re more socially progressive, too.”

“And from an attitudinal viewpoint, we’re tribal consumers, as we always were – but it’s harder to predict which tribes we’ll belong to. It’s almost impossible to use traditional demographic segments (age, gender, income, family status etc) to predict consumer behaviour. People of all ages – and in many markets – are shaking off demographic ‘conventions’ and constructing lifestyles and identities more freely than ever before.

“With guaranteed, accelerating change underway, we know we need to challenge the way brands traditionally engage with their customers – because they’re becoming less and less effective. We need to challenge the channels and approaches that are used, we need to challenge conventional wisdom, we need to challenge empty brand promises and challenge the way we understand and respond to customers. It’s no easy task but it’s the only way forward if we want the brands we work with to succeed.

“We need to make them relevant, relentlessly.”

Edge has developed a seven point framework for driving relevance relentlessly – and the business has restructured to talk to the challenges thrown up by each point. They are:

1.     Consumer obsession

Know everything about how, why and when consumers behave – including what they value, and their decision-making and experience journeys – to drive advocacy.

2. Value evolution

Never stop innovating. Ensure that communications and business models are constantly evolving in response to the big social, cultural, technological and economic drivers of our times to provide something that the consumer genuinely values.

3. Scientific rigour

Apply the latest thinking around big data, machine learning, neuromarketing and behavioural economics.

4. Creative provocation

Deliver bold platform ideas that provoke an emotional response from the consumer, flow seamlessly across media and can be amplified by the consumer.

5. Transparent culture

Bring brand purpose to life through every aspect of the business, not just communications.

6. Real time presence

React and move with the customer – responding to their rhythms, not the rhythms of the business.

7. Hyper-personalisation

Build off big data to develop communications that are hyper-personal, taking into account context, interest, time and place.

Concludes Parker: “While product and service competition is fundamental, competing for the attention (and demand) of consumers is essential – not only for a brand’s continued growth, but for its very existence. ‘Relevance’ means ensuring consumers connect with a brand simultaneously as the brand connects with the consumer. Ensuring that the connections are real. Human. Intelligent or visceral. Rational or emotional. And ‘Relentless’ means doing it over, and over, and over again. Being nimble enough to adapt to the constantly shifting sands of consumer behaviour. Being able to pivot on a dime if need be.”

Says David Stretch, Edge Group MD: “The merger means we can provide a deeper end-to-end offering, spanning big brand ideas to micro personal experiences. It gives us more scale and expertise to begin to solve the problem of staying relevant relentlessly for our clients.”