Every day we encounter a raging media landscape; swamped by a cacophony of content vying for our limited attention. How can brands reach customers without amplifying the noise?
Be authentic! Invite everyday engagement–not with yesterday’s pitch and speil, but by creating space to be encountered; to evoke in our audience the choice to say, “Okay, maybe…”
The genesis of my new creative services imprint, the WAYFARER AGENCY, came at the end of a second arduous ten months of chemotherapy. I had gazed over the precipice, into the maw of death and just like that, my tumour was gone. My oncology team had every reason to expect a recurrence of disease; a return to normalcy remained still hazy and distant on the horizon. Every three months I have to undergo MRIs and CT scans–for the rest of my life. Every six weeks, nurses puncture a device in my chest with a large needle, drawing blood from a catheter that saunters improbably through my neck directly into my heart. This device has to stay inside me indefinitely, until the recurrence risk is far below its current 80%. At any moment I could be thrown back into months of radiation and chemotherapy. I couldn’t return to work in the quite the same way I had been doing, operating a Stedicam or running the large motion picture cameras which had been my bread-and-butter. I was devastated. So much dedication, experience and time spent honing those skills – in a notoriously difficult field – put on ice by the whimsy of my own cells.
A rangy period of grief ensued and at the end of it I accepted It was time to take a step back, beyond the familiar; search out a new way to bring value. I considered all of the creative and professional skills I had grown during 20 years of Motion Pictures, Television, Advertising and Commercial Production; working with fortune 500 brands in healthcare, automotive, sports, construction, apparel, gaming and tech. Making beautiful images remained with me, but I could write, manage large productions and projects, see not only the shot-list but the big picture, I was drawn to art and innovative design, and I liked to listen to people’s stories. Out there was a medium where all of those skills could work in concert–the two hemispheres of my mind, creative and practical might find synergy. What if, instead of asking the creative industry to make space in its complex machinery for my cancer and its unique demands, what if I can be an agency of one, nimbly offering a vast skill-set in personal way? The key offering: storytelling.
MEANINGFUL BRAND STORYTELLING
“A great brand is not a mark burned into a product—it’s something we want to belong to”
You are a small, fledgling brand with a game-changing offering. You have followed every step in the DO-IT-YOURSELF MARKETING playbook: Social Media, blogging, even local advertising, but the majority of your conversions come from the word-of-mouth of your family and friends; you feel your product is so good, so unique, it should simply sell itself! Despite years in business, that brand presence you aspire to still feels just out of reach.
Like it or not, we are all consumers. Why do we select the products and services we do? What compels us to hand over our hard-earned cash, our trust, to a brand? The quality of the offering relative to its cost sure, but something deeper serves as the mainstay of that transaction: As consumers, how do we desire to feel when we buy something? We yearn to feel confident in our purchase and we want to feel a sense of belonging; we want the brands we trust be a part of our story. The products and services we trust say something about us: who we are; where we’ve been; what we value. We don’t merely connect to the brand, we connect to the story that brand tells. Storytelling is the key to elevating your brand into an identity that feels cohesive, beautiful and personal.
I’m here to help you tell yours.
A HOLISTIC CREATIVE APPROACH
The journey to meaning can feel like a maze– fraught with twists, turns and dead ends.
Storytelling elevates those twists and turns into introspection and meaningful payoffs.
Together, design tools and story curation help the journey to meaning transcend the maze.
Earning engagement requires two things: meaning and empathy. Be exactly the solution your customer needs and provide a top-shelf service experience.
Whatever you are selling, whether a product or a service, your customers don’t buy what you do, they buy an opportunity to enhance their sense of self. Are you selling the best natural elderberry skin care in Ashland, or a lifestyle? Are you selling home organisation or serenity? Are you selling acupuncture or a full-body tune-up? Are you selling therapy or a new lease on life? In the midst of every challenge they face, your customers want to place their trust in the hearts and hands behind your brand; to look to you and feel that you’ve been there too.
WEBSITES THAT ARE WORKS OF ART
“Good design is a Renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need and beauty to produce something.”
I didn’t start out doing web design, in fact I fell into it out of necessity. Battling cancer challenged me to put the camera down for awhile and find another way to bring value–pulling from years of experience in other disciplines to tell stories another way; adaptation is essential. Working under my new imprint, WAYFARER AGENCY as a member of Squarespace Circle, I have assembled the tools and skills to help you showcase your story in curated, beautifully rendered form.
Whether it’s a personal blog to field your ideas, or an e-commerce platform to empower sales and facilitate growth, a website should feel like a gateway your brand’s heart in gallery form. Your customers should spend time there, feeling affinity for your brand and seeing themselves in your story.
Just as your brand must be what the customer needs, a website must balance beauty and functionality. Designed with human beings in mind, a website can create a consistent positive experience across all platforms – including optimisation for mobile devices where the opportunity to engage with your brand is always possible and convenient.
At WAYFARER AGENCY, we approach your brand story from a designer perspective; producing beautiful images and video, to IAPWE certified copywriting that feels personal–while serving SEO, to a social media presence that is consistent, authentic and beautiful. We want you to feel seen, understood and offered first-class content that connects with your customers, elevates your brand presence and shows up as you.
We don’t see gestalt advertising as art. In fact, we typically do everything in our power to filter it out; dismiss it as visual noise, cluttering our awareness.
What if advertising adds to the landscape? Draws us in? Brings us joy and wonder? Inspires us to act? At WAYFARER AGENCY we believe that content must not only be functional, it also must be beautiful and like the products you create, made to last. As designers we borrow from the physical and mental landscape. Just as industry has a responsibility to steward the environment, content creators and creative professionals have a responsibility to to be stewards of the sensory environment; coexisting, cultivating, and nurturing. We believe the best audience is the one invited, not invaded.
MOTION & PICTURES THAT MOVE YOU
"What content do you prefer from brands?"
The typical human being is exposed to an average of 250 images per day. That's over 91,000 images a year. You'd better have the one that grabs their attention.
The affordability of cameras makes it easy to take images for granted. Everyone knows that video is the preferred form of content marketing amongst both brands and audiences, but what kind of video? Simply shooting video doesn’t cut it alone. What sets your brand apart from the competition? What visuals inspire your audience to skip the “skip ad” button stay awhile and hear your pitch?
90% of all high-end video is in the planning. Photography and Video shoots are complex. A challenge-tested, nimble, scalable process is needed to bring every project from daydream to deliverable, on-time and under budget. Beautiful cinematic content requires more than the best gear. It requires focused ideation, engaging scriptwriting and tight execution. Producing photography and video with WAYFARER AGENCY means commitment; one-on-one creative planning sessions, where we talk through and pen your ideas in the writer’s room, crafting words that inform and inspire. We expertly source and leverage the right equipment from industry standard brands like ARRI, RED Digital Cinema, Canon, Cooke, Zeiss and Panavision to bring you the very best in image quality. We scout, crew, cast and block the shoot determined to offer an authentic, lived-in universe to elevate your brand story; and we have a sense of adventure.
"Video leads in content marketing"
ADAPTIVE DESIGN
It begins with a simple question: are you carrying a story that is clamoring to be told? Are you in need of a fresh approach, seeking to work collaboratively with a creative professional with vast interdisciplinary skills? Whether it’s an ad campaign, a website, video, photography, writing and copy; a re-brand seeking polish; maybe you’re a production company needing to fill a crew position on any type of project, or even book a rental, you’ve come to the right place. We offer an à la carte approach to our services, working with brands of all means and sizes. Please, feel free to get in touch! Ask questions, pitch, book a book a free 30-minute online consultation, or arrange a friendly meet-’n-greet, we are here to engage with you and we look forward to helping you tell your story!