Typical Is Relative

Did you know that the World's most typical person is a 28 year old Chinese male and that there are 9,000,000 of them! This fascinating fact was posted in an infographic video produced by the National Geographic who investigated the typical statistics that characterize our human population.

The video triggored my thoughts about the most typical UK media agency as I have recently moved into the New Business team at MEC. Part of my role whilst rotating in this department is to look at our agency both internally and externally, including how MEC is publicised through PR, our social media presence and what people are saying about us, how our website is performing and what our company credentials say to potential clients.
When sending out prospective letters or pitching for new client business, credentials are used as an introduction to the agency so the client can distinguish between all the competitors. Credentials are pretty standard but because there is so much competition I am trying to re-invigorate MEC's credentials in the hope that we stand a better chance of impressing and remaining at the forefront of the client's mind. The pace of change and digital advancement in the media industry has forced agencies to change their business model to reflect full integration. Consequently this has enforced an industry standard where agencies have become typical. They increasingly integrate all communication and creative services, have all the best research resources, own all the tools in the box, and have the best people in the industry. I started to think about how typical MEC is and whether there is such thing as a USP anymore?

I think the key to creating standout is not to prescribe standard credentials as I'm sure most clients would prefer to look through company info in their own time. Instead we should facilitate the 'New Rules of Marketing' -  nudging clients to actively seek and engage in our conversation via our blogs, social media, to create and post our own video thought-pieces in order to enhance our profile. All these elements together will naturally communicate the agency's credentials without the need for stating them in a typical list and thus creating standout and demonstrating our USP.

Just a thought:
Typical is stating your USP. Atypical is encouraging your USP to be found and witnessed by the client.


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