Boff believes that brands should look for agency partners that are what she calls “business growth excavators”—creatives willing to learn a brand’s business model first.
Know what you want, and say it clearly
Another insight Boff has shared before, but “I don’t know if I fully appreciated it before as I do now,” she said. If the brand doesn’t know what it wants, no agency will—and expressing what it wants means that the marketing folks have to invest the time and effort to make it clear.
Brands “get the work they deserve—the tighter the brief, the better the work,” Boff said. “If there isn’t clarity on what the problem is [that] we’re trying to solve, the best agency in the world isn’t going to land that plane.”
AI is a powerful tool, but just that
As brands and agencies race to see how many uses they can find for AI, Boff said it’s just as important to understand what AI can’t do as what it can.
“I think of AI as a very powerful tool—not more than a tool,” she said. For example, “you would never use [AI] to launch a jet engine, which has to be beyond perfect,” she said. But could an AI-driven model furnish enough accuracy to allow you to start test-marketing a concept? Yes. “I am very excited about AI and market research,” she said.
Act like a human
A recent OnePoll survey in the U.K. found that 40% of adults had gone three days without an in-person conversation. At a time when technology is both essential and inescapable, “every brand needs to be humanized,” Boff believes.
No matter what product a company sells, the best marketing message is always one that people can relate to. But isn’t it hard to humanize a product? “Dove did it with a bar of soap,” Boff said. “Everybody’s going to do it their own way, but [there’s always] the opportunity to be approachable.”
