Living Organism

Today’s branding landscape is inundated with so-called marketers touting individualized theories, half-baked processes and poorly translated approaches to best practices in graphic design and marketing. In many cases, marketers fashion bewildered clients by the close of an engagement – and sometimes even sooner. Such clients can often be identified by their resounding puzzlement as to how they wound up with a less-than-stellar deliverable that is a far cry from achieving their desired goals.

Knowing what your company can afford to spend is critical for most any purchasing scenario. Shopping for branding and PR services is no different. Yet time and time again agencies and boutiques alike are faced with the prospect that does not have a budget fleshed out and ready to discuss.

Good agencies and boutiques specialize in developing custom plans and strategies designed to strike a client’s unique goals and objectives. For such agencies to truly help a potential client, understanding the budget constraint is one of the most important factors in crafting a successful program and scope of services. No two jobs are the same and pricing is seldom standardized. Firms that standardize pricing cannot be considered an ‘apples to apples” comparison to organizations that customize. Generally speaking, standardized pricing means cookie-cutter process with very little strategy and consulting to complement the final products or services delivered.

What happens when a popular over-the-counter medicine brand is held responsible for the deaths of innocent people? Or when an accident at work kills almost all those involved—but the evening news or daily paper reports that everyone is alive and safe?

If an organization wants to survive a crisis, it is not enough to simply have a crisis action plan. Effective crisis communications is an extension of good, ongoing communications. Many organizations neglect to regularly cultivate relationships with the media, allowing disaster to strike tenfold.