OUR SERVICES

To think, that when Scott and Andrew sat at that bar one fortuitous evening eight years ago that they’d actually have the courage to go through the business proposition that was discussed. The initial plan was scratched onto a bar napkin for goodness sake!

Nevertheless, in 2012, Water & Wall was founded on a limited budget with unlimited potential. Since then, the agency has accomplished more than what could have been imagined at that bar near the corner of Water & Wall streets in New York City’s Financial District. Fast forward to today, it was time for another change and so we’ve launched the new Water & Wall brand experience with an eye on 2020 and beyond.

In this months-long process, we took our own medicine and put into practice some of the advice we regularly dispense to clients. Here’s what we learned:

1. Don’t be afraid to rethink everything.

   On a fundamental level, we’re the same smart, growth-minded, business advocate that our clients and prospects need. Everything we’ve done on their behalf, to this point, we can call a success. Sure, there have been course corrections along the way, but at our core, the agency’s approach to the game got us to where we are today. For that we’re proud! While we’re always evaluating the best path to success, it was time for us to reconsider, or rethink, how we might get there.Among the questions we asked – the answers to which we can’t share because, well, secret sauce and all: What capability do we want to own in the market in the next five years that we might not already? In other words, we want the agency’s work to be synonymous with what exactly? What is the one thing we’ve done that we don’t want to repeat? How do we keep our people happy, with consideration toward what the next generation will want?

2. Reinvent only when and if it makes sense.

   There are books – we know because we’ve read them – that talk about reinvention as if it’s a radical often necessary exercise to evolve in any business environment. Yes, we agree with the “necessary” part and, sure, we’re learning with the frequency we drink coffee, but unless you make a concerted effort to plan how you want to apply that knowledge and change the way you do something, there isn’t a chance you will. Let us be clear in that change isn’t so much doing everything different. There’s plenty that will remain the same about us and in fact it’s from the old ways that we’ve come up with new ideas.Author and retirement scholar Marc Freedman once wrote in Harvard Business Review that some of the most successful entrepreneurs, “weave together accumulated knowledge with creativity, while balancing continuity with change, in crafting a new idea that’s almost always deeply rooted in earlier chapters and activities.”

   Yes!

3. Reengage stakeholders in a meaningful way.

   We had become so focused on our clients and moving their brands forward that we forgot about our own. Our industry peers know full well what this is like. In this brand recharge as we’ve called it, we’ve forced ourselves to reengage with the people who matter most to the future of this business in a way we’ve yet to do so. We’re marketers who had to market. For starters, we’re better as of right now at broadcasting what we do at headquarters and on the road for our colleagues and our clients. That means timely and topical social media dispatches, among other things. You should follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram.Second, our employees are being equipped with the resources to truly serve as brand ambassadors for and brain power of the agency. Whether it’s us financing their involvement in professional networking groups or investing the time in their continued education, we’ve learned that by broadening their horizons we’ve broadened our own.

   Ultimately, the future of this agency comes down to one simple concept and that’s humility. Now, while he meant it in the context of man versus machine, author Edward D. Hess once wrote, “To stay relevant, we human beings need to excel at doing those skills that technology won’t be able to do well: higher order critical thinking, creativity, innovation and high emotional engagement with other humans.”

   You’d think he was describing the best things about Water & Wall.

Hello,

I’m Casey, Account Director at Water & Wall, and newly appointed editor of our new blog! I’ll be working with my all-star colleagues to dispatch their brilliance into this forum. I’m excited for all that we have planned for this space and with that it’s my pleasure to introduce you to ‘Writing on the Wall.’

As we settle in to a reinvented Water & Wall (read more on our evolution in a note from our partners), we’ve made a promise to bring the same attention to detail, penchant for innovation and promotional chops to our own brand. Before we get the chance to work together, this blog should give a good idea of who we are.

Sure, we’re a tenacious team of communicators and marketers with depth well beyond our professional bios, but we’re also writers, photographers, designers, cinephiles, dancers, swimmers, and gamers. This motley mix of minds and hearts lends itself to sparkling creative genius and of course, no shortage of laughter.

Here you’ll find our ruminations on everything from big picture brand strategy to the nuances of journalist engagement, advice for new industry talent, and how we help clients think differently as we solve for “X” together. There’s plenty that you would and wouldn’t expect. Ever wonder what starting teaching English in Malaysia has to do with US business leadership? Have you considered what careers lessons can be learned from The Avengers? No matter the topic, we hope you enjoy the Writing on the Wall.

What do you think? Keep up with us on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Cheers,

Casey

My fascination with the life and times of Fred McFeely Rogers, or “Mister Rogers” as he’s known, is rivaled only by my fanaticism with Bob Ross. Nonetheless, we relaunched our brand this month and discussion of Mr. Rogers, these days, is apt, which is why it makes complete sense that I tell my neighbors what cardigans, Make Believe and whimsy have to do with our business. This is what Mr. Rogers teaches us about branding.

1. “Parents are like shuttles on a loom. They join the threads of the past with threads of the future and leave their own bright patterns as they go.”

   Our co-founders Scott and Andrew, who are enmeshed as influential executives in the operations and growth of our business since they first opened the doors in 2012, represent who we are, but also what we want to become. As the parents of this company, you might say, they recognize the importance of change and adaptation to get ahead of and react to challenges in the business environs in which our clients work. To do that we have to have the people who represent traditional services as well as those who are familiar with more progressive offerings. The people who started Water & Wall are make their mark across both.

2. “The story that we bring to the screen, whatever we happen to be watching, we bring our own story and consequently it’s like a dialogue.” … “What we see and hear on the screen is part of who we become.”

   He’s talking about the most popular medium of his day and that’s TV, of course. In the undercurrent of his point are the waves of influence. We are all impressionable and the right message finds us all via the right medium, or channel, at the right time. We understand that interacting with our intended audience will vary – from talent recruitment to new client partnerships – but we also understand that we have that power to influence a decision with each interaction.

3. “The best teachers in the world love what they do and just love it in front of you.”

   This is not about loving your day job above all things. The whole love what you do and you’ll never work a day in your life? Yeah, not this. This is about enthusiasm and passion and care factor that extends into everything that you do because people want to be around people who are smart and nice. It’s often that simple. Some of the best teachers taught the driest and most sophisticated topics like they were binge worthy. In an age of excess – particularly as it pertains to content since we’re marketers – the measure of good content is a willingness to take in an entire Netflix season in a weekend. It’s like good ideas. We’ve got those.

4. “Deep but simple.”

   This notion of keeping a message and its components simple has shown itself in marketing circles often of late. People who share this wisdom, caution against “dumb” or “stupid,” which one supposes that this is peoples’ association with simple these days. It’s as if you can’t be smart in the process. This is where depth factors. You should be able to say in so many words who you are and what you do. This gets us to the why rather quickly. For us, the depth is in the people at our seven-years-young agency and the experiences they create for our clients. If not for the people, there wouldn’t be a Water & Wall. I think Mr. Rogers said something about that, too.

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We’ve reached a point where a large portion of our every day may incorporate a social media component to enhance and complement our activities. As such, the collective whole of communications and marketing professionals have spent countless hours and written thousands of words on how to engage target audiences through the social fad du jour.

While many have rushed to embrace the myriad channels and the social media obsessed culture pushing them, not every company has adopted a comprehensive plan to managing and growing these channels in the long term. In fact, the CMO Council found 45% of marketers feel they lack the necessary talent, technology, and processes to master omni-channel brand marketing. Those marketers need to push their budget holders to move the dial on those strategies – brands with strong omnichannel customer engagement have an 89 percent customer retention rating, compared to 33 percent for brand rated at weak engagement, according to research by Aberdeen Group. It’s clear a dedicated and clever omni-channel strategy pays off.

Those who are successful will find a way to pick the channels appropriate to their brand and remain cohesive between them, without regurgitating the same information give or take the allowed character limit. Unless your company only uses one social platform, you need to have more than one social strategy – You need individual plans and campaigns created independently for Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, etc. Though overarching themes will permeate all channels, you shouldn’t be regurgitating the exact same copy on each platform.

So how do we as marketing and communications professionals avoid this “social regurgitation?”

First, define what the overarching goals are for your marketing strategy and how they may differ between each channel, and then make sure you have defined the type of content best suited for each channel based on those parameters. If you’re a retail company, you’re likely using Instagram to gain awareness, as an active shopping destination and for consumer research, while your LinkedIn page would be telling the corporate story and offering related news, job postings, etc.

Second, harness the power of each of those channels and their features to keep your followers interested, but not overwhelmed (or underwhelmed) by the amount of content. Rather than explain a new product via multiple posts or too-long captions, explore the engagement you receive with the ephemeral content provided through Instagram Stories. Take care to keep those fresh and your followers will eventually come to expect a new installment from you at a set pace: whether it be a series of quick educational bites, demos, or behind the scenes looks into your greater product campaign.

Brands are also now aware it is becoming harder and harder to get their feed posts across to consumers thanks to Instagram’s updated algorithm. Advertising can help reach through those algorithms and bring your content directly to the intended consumer and brands are catching on to the opportunity: Sprout Social reports social media advertising spend in the US is expected to reach $18.4 billion in 2019.

While the impact of these trends on the consumer world is obvious, other industries, such as Financial Services, should take note of the efficacy of these channels for their strategy as the millennials using them grow their wealth. An excellent example is Robinhood’s sponsorship of YouTube videos from the Funhaus channel, which primarily produces video-game focused content, from gameplay to industry news reporting. In one video, Robinhood offered listeners a ‘FREE stock like Apple, Ford, or Sprint to help you build your portfolio’ alongside a dedicated sign-up link, allowing Robinhood to track the referrals from this advertising effort. I’d expect these are dollars well spent for the diverse range of Funhaus viewers – falling into the ever-muddied waters of social media, advertising and influencer marketing.

Until we reach a point where one social media platform trumps them all, give your audience a clear path to engagement with your brand in various channels, in the way that best suits them. With fresh content applied in new ways across each, followers won’t find you stale, and you’ll see the positive feedback reflected in engagement, followers, and ultimately revenue.