• by Melisa Smith , October 28, 2024

Too many fast-moving brands find out the hard way they weren’t ready to advertise. They had an agency, a budget, a brief, a point person, and a measurement program. But advertising successfully entails much more than the bold creative and precise media of campaigns, and they overlooked essential foundations and process in the race to expand.

That foundation is operational and administrative -- the boring basics of business. It boils down to capacity: If the campaign brings a 500% or 1,000% increase in traffic, are you set up to support the business effects of that volume?

Ready to work. Do you have a complete master service agreement that covers all the complexities of a workable partnership? Too often that’s not the case with developing brands. Their boilerplate agreement, aimed at self-protection, gets argued over and revised for weeks; and then a statement of work needs to be created. All this builds cost, delay, and tension into the start.

Ready to employ. Are your attorneys ready to handle the vicissitudes of employment law? It’s getting more difficult as states force contractors to be paid as employees or vendors. Talent might not get pulled off the job, but the penalties for getting this wrong can derail a budget. Creative and production directors can’t filter through the rules in tapping resources.

Ready to sell.Advertising extends a promise and invitation you must be ready to meet, and first experiences are final. If you sell direct to consumers, is your product assortment organized and navigable? Is checkout fluid? Is customer service ready to handle a boom in requests?

Ready to fulfill. Do you have production to meet the top end of forecasts, and do you have overflow to tap into at once? If not, the more successful your advertising is at generating traffic, the faster it can shut you down. Amazon automatically halts ads for direct products that run too low in supply, but with most retail you’re on your own. Shoppers don’t come back to empty shelves; they just move on.

Ready to react. Audiences are moving faster, so advertising needs to keep pace. That means faster reaction with more kinds of content and more adjustments in media. You need an extended team -- not just your agencies -- moving with you. Rock-solid relationships with vendors from accounting to parts to shipping determine the speed with which you can react to opportunities.

These are things you need to work out before you get rolling with an agency. They can’t make work that works -- expanding the business, not just sharpening the messages -- if they’re having to triage business functions.

Great advertising accelerates rising brands with strong operating systems. It also exposes flaws in their structures. Shoring up the conditions and practices for advertising to succeed is as important as compelling content.