Prepared by the fun folks at Imaginary Friend for California Design Den
Recrafting the CDD Brand
Before we get started, we would like to thank you for allowing us to submit this proposal. And for considering us as a potential confidant during this amazing stage in your brand's growth. We're incredibly excited about the opportunity of working together, and very much looking forward to unearthing new insights with you.
Let's get to it!
Gordon West
Creative Chief
m: (312) 550-4945
e: gordon@imaginaryfriendus.com
Greg Getner
Eunuch Extraordinare
m: (480) 689-1541
e: greg.getner@gmail.com
Why You Need an Imaginary Friend
We are an independent full-service branding, advertising, and digital agency. Having partnered with some of the most recognized brands in the world, our team consists of experienced, award-winning talent across the board. So you can bet your 4000 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets we offer up the most amazing minds in the biz.
Our focus is on the crafting of needle moving, eyeball earning, marketshare gaining business solutions that win the hearts, minds, and wallets of our clients' audiences. Work that captures an unfair share of cultural attention. So no matter the project, Imaginary Friend is the modern solution to all of your strategic, creative, production needs.
Come jump in the sandbox with us. Experience the powerfully positive impact that imagination without inhibition can have on your brand and business.
Let's Build a World-Class Brand and Marketing Program
We will develop a comprehensive strategy to help grow your business, use data intelligently, and establish a brand ecosystem that leads to creatively engaging, high converting, cross platform business solutions.
BRAND STRATEGY
Determining a brand strategy that serves as the foundation of your brand is paramount. Before you can share who you are with the world, you must first have a cohesive understanding of the role you will play in people's lives.
Defining a clear understanding of California Design Den at its deepest core is crucial. Getting to know each other and building on our relationship in person, and on a personal level makes this possible.
While many brands jump immediately into creative storytelling, we believe in uncovering the inherent truths about our client’s brand(s). This begins by delving into three key cooperatives:
1. Why does this brand exist?
2. Why does this brand matter to culture?
3. How is this brand impacting lives?
Cooperative
(A stage of play that involves coming together to determine a problem or work on a project to achieve shared results.)
We begin with a Cooperative, which will consist of a two-day, in-person, in depth, and structured workshop where we roll up our sleeves while working together to reveal and enhance upon the California Design Den brand.
Through exercises and stimulus, we proactively uncover themes that have never been considered. We look to the core, so that the surface will reflect something greater than off-hand, materialized stories. And we develop connections that go much deeper than a product’s offering(s).
Pre-Cooperative — There is work we will do beforehand involving category and cultural research, getting up-to-speeding on your existing brand story/assets, development of engagement pieces, and other necessary essentials.
Cooperative — Our two days together are filled with a series of discussions and exercises focused on better revealing your strategic brand position, company DNA, and unique story.
Post Cooperative — We synthesize and focuses all the learnings and discussions previously shared to build a clear strategic brand story. Utilizing our learnings to express your brand's true identity. Which, in turn, influences all brand assets, communications (both internal and external facing), and content moving forward.
Cooperative Agenda
Day 1
(TBD) – 6:00 PM: Arrive in (location) and Get Settled
6:00 PM: Welcome Dinner @ (location).
9:00 PM: Lights Out for a Fresh Kickoff Tomorrow Morning
Day 2
9:00 AM: Arrival (Breakfast Served)
10:00 AM: Hopes & Fears and Goals & Expectations
11:00 AM: Brand Foundation
12:00 PM: Working Lunch
1:00 PM: Beautiful Constraints
2:00 PM: Ambitious Audiences
3:00 PM: Competitive Landscape
4:00 PM: Cultural Snapshot
5:00 PM: Alignment Recap
5:30 PM: Close Session (6PM till 12AM Gordon & Greg Work Session)
Day 3
9:00 AM: Arrival & Recapping (Breakfast Served)
9:30 AM: Avenues of Approach
10:00 AM: Envisioning Our Brand
12:00 PM: Working Lunch
1:00 PM: Brand DNA
2:30 PM: Our Special Word
3:30 PM: Brand Pillars
4:30 PM: What ifs / Customer Journey
5:30 PM: Alignment Recap
6:00 PM: Close Session
7:30 PM: Team Drinks and Appetizers @ (location).
Deliverables
We will deliver a digital anthology on your new brand, as well as the recommended steps to be taken next in order to secure a strong and authentic place in consumers' hearts, minds, and lives. This will consist of...
Key Objective
Brand Tension
Transformative Opportunities
Key Audience Insight
Brand Purpose
Brand DNA
Brand Pillars
BRAND IMAGING
Following the Cooperative, and after absorbing the events results, We will regroup on our end and begin structuring thoughts, ideas, intentions, and conclusions to extract several brand names (those that seem most appropriate and aligned with the brand's ethos). Once client approved, we will begin concept development and an in-depth design system around the name of choice.
In parallel to the design of the corporate logo/identity, and in conjunction with ongoing strategic development, we will begin construction of the corporate style guide and cumulative brand book—determining the tone of the brand through a clearly defined manifesto, delivery of fonts and their clear usage, colors and theory, logo parameters and proper usage, iconography support (if applicable), photography and video parameters and specifications. All of this resulting in a complete brand book up to this point; and one that can be added to as relative assets come to fruition.
Deliverables
We will deliver a digital directive in the form of a full understanding of your brand voice, as well as how your corporate assets should be used in conjunction with one another and in relation to their would be surroundings within and across mediums. This will consist of...
Brand Tonality/Manifesto
Corporate Identity/Marquee
Style Guide and Brand Guardrails
BRAND BEHAVIORS
Based upon the results of the Brand Strategy and Brand Imaging, we will develop a go-to-market Brand Behavior Strategy. This will serve as ideation on how we can/will initially re-launch the brand (0-3 month rollout). Post process, the ambition is to work with you to develop and implement a sustainable and secure Brand Behavior plan.
While many talk about marketing, we believe that what is truly connective in today’s world are Brand Behaviors. All the ways that a brand interacts, intersects, and connects with an audience to make an ongoing, significant impact.
Deliverables
We deliver a Brand Behavior Strategy focused on:
Initial Launch Strategy – Awareness, Consideration, Intent, Usage
Delineation between Audiences
Customer Journey Mapping
Behavior/Media Considerations – Paid, Earned, Owned
Key Messaging Platforms in line with your Brand Strategy
NOTE: Creative Asset Ideation, Development, and Post Production will be based on an additional/future scope.
Meet Your Imaginary Friend Project Team Leads
We are an award-winning strategy & creative team with 40+ years of collective experience working with the best brands in the world. Providing A-Z brand and performance marketing solutions.
Gordon West | Founder & CCO | LinkedIn
A seasoned brand storyteller and acclaimed creative director, Gordon's highly accredited work and leadership style found him climbing the ranks at top agencies in cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, New York, and Chicago. Where he led talented cross-platform, multi-disciplinary teams, while working under some of the most acclaimed agencies on the planet, including Leagas Delaney, Cramer Krasselt, DDB, and VMLY&R.
After a long and illustrious career heading creative efforts for global brands like Bud Light, McDonald’s, Cars.com, and State Farm—helping clients attain staggering brand awareness and unprecedented revenue gains—Gordon founded Imaginary Friend in what Wired and Fast Company have deemed the fastest growing entertainment, marketing, and production hotspot in America… Atlanta (a.k.a. Hotlanta, the ATL, and more recently Hollywood of the South).
As the head of a full-service creative advertising and digital agency, he has had the honor of playing a part in the growth of some incredibly brave brands. As well as producing impossible to ignore content and activations for the likes of Porsche, Muscular Dystrophy Association, Warren Buffet owned Shaw Industries, and CPG giant Georgia Pacific brands to name a few.
A multi-disciplinary, award-winning One Show, Cannes, and Clio recognized creative head, with 20+ years in the marketing and advertising industry, Gordon continues to champion brands with a passion for building meaningful relationships, adding value to their communities, and enriching people’s lives.
I believe we had a whole bunch of not that too impressive or interesting to read stuff at one time to go here, no?
Greg Getner | Eunuch Extraordinare | LinkedIn