Believe it or not, I struggle with the question, “what do you do for a living?”

I work at an advertising agency. 

Again, “What is The Arland Group and what do you do?”  

Well, if you must know, here is the long answer:

I have witnessed many creative ideas, organizations and pitches in my years of working in marketing, but the main thing that draws me to this company is not what we do.  Lots of advertising agencies “do” what we do.  What makes us different is in who we are summarized by our mantra:

Everything has reason.
Everything has relation.
Everything has to be perfect.

The more I reflect on this statement, the more I realize why we are special and why our clients hire us.

Before the advent of the internet, the late cognitive psychologist Hebert Simon observed that “a wealth of information created a poverty of attention.”   If that was true more than 30 years ago, we now have a situation of Bill Gates information wealth coupled with the attention-poverty of a fruit fly channel-surfing with ADD.

In marketing and advertising, you are simply investing in creative communication.  Creativity is the antidote for inattention. 

So getting back to our mantra, when we craft our solutions for our clients, everything has:

1.  A Reason

I use reason here to mean purpose.  Your message matters to you and to us.  We are a “purpose-driven” agency.  Purpose requires an ultimate destination, a clear goal.  Believe it or not, most marketers lose focus or get off track when it comes to the destination.  The creative destination starts to evolve inward and become self-centered on awards, industry “buzz,”  agency YouTube views, etc.  

Warning:  You didn’t hire your agency so that they could adorn their lobby with another award.  You didn’t sign an Agency of Record (AOR) agreement to give the agency more press in their trade publications.

You hired the advertising agency so that your organization can achieve your goals.  Period!

2.  A Relation

Everything we do possesses a synergy and harmony.  A total and holistic solution that compliments, supports, and builds your organization’s message.  Creativity should build a message that reflects who the organization really is.  Each media, ad, message, and creative must authentically speak “on purpose.”

When I use the word, “everything” in our mantra, I hold that everything individually must support the whole in a balanced relationship.  

3.  To Be Perfect

Obviously perfection is a high order, but a worthy order, but by “perfect”, I chose to focus on the end result.  I know...ground-breaking concept.  Our work should have a return on investment.  There should be honesty within the client relationship when adjustments need to be made in the pursuit of perfection of message and result.  

You should never spend resources or money on a campaign or brand, you must invest in these endeavors.  Investing demands a return on that investment, it should multiply results, it should achieve goals and targets predictably.  

In conclusion, I do believe that creativity is a science.  Occasionally, mad science but still science.  Science seeks to uncover laws to give us answers.  My creative laws are that everything has a reason, everything has a relation, and everything has to be perfect.