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The Randall Branding Agency was honored with three awards at the 2016 Richmond Show presented by the Advertising Club of Richmond on April 7, 2017 at The Renaissance in Richmond, VA. The advertising and branding agency, also located in Richmond, won bronze, silver and gold cannonballs for three different clients, including River Run Dental, Duck Duck Eggs, and Shockoe Showdown.

The Randall Branding Agency was awarded a bronze cannonball in the Interactive genre of the Richmond Show for a new website designed for state-of-the-art dentistry practice, River Run Dental. Their second award was a silver cannonball received in the Design genre for a packaging design for Duck Duck Eggs, a local company providing high-quality duck eggs to grocery stores. The big win for the night was for the brand identity system created for Shockoe Showdown, a charitable ping-pong tournament in the Shockoe Bottom area. The Randall Branding Agency won a gold cannonball in the Design genre of the Richmond Show for their work on Shockoe Showdown.

The Richmond Show is the Advertising Club of Richmond’s annual event where the club’s coveted cannonball awards are given to local agencies and studios for standout work in advertising, design, interactive pieces and production work. The Randall Branding Agency was happy to connect with other creative agencies during the show and looks forward to continuing their relationships with their clients while creating more cannonball-worthy work.

One of the best things about working at Randall Branding is building relationships with great people. We love it when our clients share their world with us. And in the interest of returning the favor, we’ll be sharing parts of our weird and wonderful world with you here.

Six things you may not know about Carsen Young, our Front-End Web Developer.

1. I have a first-degree black belt in Japanese Jiu-jitsu. That’s the hand-to-hand martial art that was developed by the ancient samurai. I started studying it shortly after I graduated from college and earned my black belt nine long years later.

2. In two minutes or less, I can (usually) solve a Rubik’s Cube. My personal record is 57.8 seconds but it usually takes me between 90 and 120 seconds. When I’m stuck on a problem, I find a few good solves of the cube can be enough of a distraction to let me come back to the problem with fresh eyes.

3. I’m a backyard beekeeper! I had some friends who kept bees and I thought it was neat, and such an important thing for the environment. I do have a full bee suit but I only wear it if I’m doing something particularly invasive. Most of the time I’m out there with them in shorts and a t-shirt with just a veil to protect my face, just in case, and I’ve never been stung while inspecting a hive. There’s a lot of fear and lack of knowledge out there about honey bees, but they are not nearly as scary as people think, they serve an integral role in our food supply, and honey fresh from the hive is absolutely amazing.

4. For several years, I volunteered with Hollins Rescue Squad in Roanoke County.  By the time I left, I was the First Lieutenant of the rescue squad. I also was a certified instructor in CPR as well as basic first aid, though I’ve let those certifications lapse.  Although I don’t run on an ambulance these days, I’m still a certified EMT in the state of Virginia through the year 2020.

5. Jack-o-lanterns are kinda a big deal for me. I usually start working on drawing out my pattern sometime in September. In addition to the standard Halloween scene, I’ve carved the logos for several organizations I’ve been part of for their respective Halloween events and I even carved a memorial jack-o-lantern for one of my dogs who passed away.

6. Backyard cookouts are my favorite social activity. It’s a love only slightly tempered by the fact that I will attract every single mosquito within a ten-mile radius. I actually bought my house almost exclusively because of the back deck and large semi-private backyard. Outdoor entertaining space was priority number one when I was house hunting.

If you want to know more about us, you can jump over here. If you’d like to see what we do, you can always jump over there.

When you think about a good advertising campaign, you may remember a flashy commercial, witty copy in a radio spot or even the unique graphic design in a print ad. What many don’t see is how much research went into each of those creations, from understanding who to target with the message, to where to place the message so it will best reach the audience, to how to know it’s working.

Research is so important because placing a message in the right way and with the right content is crucial to reaching a company’s target audience. Women 22-35 years old may have completely different values, goals and beliefs than women 36-50 years old. Similarly, homeowners will have different values and goals than those who own apartments or live with family. There are so many factors and values that influence a purchase or position a brand in a consumer’s mind. Understanding what those factors are, as well as how they influence consumers is integral to the creation of the advertisement.

Good research starts with understanding where a company is in the market. This includes analyzing what their competitors are doing and what the industry’s trends are. Combining that with an exceptional knowledge of the company’s service or product being offered, their company background and who they’re currently marketing to will help researchers understand where the company is in it’s industry and where it is heading. This also includes identifying the “unique selling points” (USPs) of the product or service, and developing a SWOT analysis for the company. These aspects (the company, product, industry, consumer, competitive and analysis) are primarily discovered with secondary research (research obtained from a source that initially discovered the data) and come together in what is known as the Situational Analysis. These will be used as a knowledge platform for additional questions to be asked that are more tailored to uncovering the touch points between the brand and the target consumer.

To more precisely understand what messaging a company needs to have for it’s product or service, primary research (research obtained from new studies that are completed for the specific client/ issue at hand) is performed. Usually, primary research starts with an initial survey is done that generates a large amount of quantitative data from the target consumer that is related to the industry and category of the product or service. With that data, researchers can get a better direction into what they need to discover during in-depth interviews and focus groups with target consumers to see how they feel about the market the company is in as well as to get an idea as to how the target consumer will respond to the product or service being offered. Other forms of primary research in this area of market research can include shop-a-longs, observation studies, and many more that can gain insightful qualitative data that provides the foundation for a strong, effective campaign.

Once all the data is gathered, an agency can better define who they are targeting and the target’s specific values, interests and other sociodemographic information. With this information, account planners can build a target profile for the target consumer. This includes insights into what their motivators are for purchases surrounding the industry the client’s product or service is in. Here is also where the findings from the research become in-depth insights that connect the brand and the consumer via actionable and reasonable touch points. These touch points are what the brand’s creative should “touch” on to best connect the consumer and have a message that strongly resonates.

After this, the agency’s team has reached the last stretch of the race for an amazing campaign. With research and an extensive knowledge of the target consumer under the belt, BIG IDEA creation is born. This big idea will usually take the brand truths and match them to the truths of the consumer in a creative way across different platforms (whether it be social, out of home, experiential, print, broadcast, digital, etc.). These messages will cut through other advertising clutter, resonate with the consumer, position the brand at a top-of-mind recall for the consumer and ultimately reach the goals of the client.
At the end of the day (usually in weeks or months) if the research was done right and the time to properly analyze it was taken, there will be a campaign that is effective, exciting and talked about. Once advertisements have taken life across the different platforms being utilized, it is always important to understand how to measure the campaign’s performance. The metric data gathered on the different platforms will allow an agency to see how well the campaign is doing, make changes, if necessary, and use that information to better place messages in the future. Metrics are also a great way to show the client in a concrete manner how well their campaign is performing for the target consumer.

Research…some love it, most think it’s pretty boring. However, it is crucial to a great campaign. As long as one understands how vital research is to a campaign and it is done well, success, and the client’s happiness, isn’t far behind.