Say More About the Company Lore
Years ago, one of our startup clients cut most of their marketing team. They needed to move faster and spend less. It’s a common story. Let me take you into the engagement that followed because it illuminates why we created one of our principles: Share the Lore.
With the old guard suddenly out, the remaining marketers felt adrift. Their executives wanted action. But they felt bewildered. Where to begin? So they called us, as they’d been a client for most of the decade and we had a good sense of what had preceded. But was it enough?
During that project, we asked the usual battery of questions: What other big changes were afoot? What campaigns were still active? How was everything performing? But wracked with responsibility and worry, they were busy and their answers clipped. Some weeks in, they assured us there was no more to learn.
Trusting them, we pitched a campaign idea—something wickedly controversial, around using their software in a way some people would object to which’d create a heated sales and marketing debate. The team loved it.
With their blessing, we gathered all our social capital into one presentation to their boss who replied ... “We’re already doing this.” And spent the rest of the call chastising their team. It was rough. And avoidable.
There is only so much an outsider can know about your organization or you. The staggering preponderance of all knowledge is undocumented—it’s in our heads. Hence our Fenwick principle: Share the Lore, which encourages us all to over-answer with abundant generosity.
All of us creatives are responsible for not just responding to inquiries, but going further, to also answer the questions behind the questions. In a reorg, sometimes that unwritten knowledge of how teams work together is lost. That is why we must all search not just our own minds, but those of others—to reform those intra-company neural links and ensure we are telling the full tale.
Sometimes we at Fenwick don’t receive the full lore. As with all things client related, it’s not their fault, it’s mine. So now I share this story. And you’d be surprised how often people say, “Oh, well in that case, maybe you should know we’re undergoing a full rebrand.”
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No company myth is ever complete. But it can always be fuller. Thus we forever implore, please—say more.
