We arrived in good time to see Siegel + Gale which was situated in an office block which didn't look very modern. Once we got to their floor and into their reception we saw how modern this place was. It was all white with white net curtains that created a fresh yet warm ambience.
A lady called Barbara greeted us at reception and we talked over our stay in New York and what we had done so far since we arrived. A man called Doug was called to meet us and he showed us to the seating area where we waited for a few minutes. We flicked through a few magazines that they were featured in aswell as a self designed book. We could also see how big the place was and what a good atmosphere it looked to work in. Around the waiting area were sculptures of animals made from old street signage. Doug then came back with someone called Alan and we all proceeded to sit down in a nice open plan meeting room with no Macs around. We then began a very in depth discussion about branding which was totally unexpected. We spoke of rival companies such as Futurebrand and Wolff Olins and how they differ which was a great insight as I've never spoken to anyone about rivalry between companies before. This led onto us talking about the London 2012 Olympic Logo and how they have come to like the logo as it has made people react and talk about it aswell as it working as a moving image very well.
People talking about brand became an important theme of our discussion. They told us about brands now working by being talked about across forums and blogs. One example of this is the film 'Bruno' which had massive amounts of money spent on the advertising, the sales in the first week echoed the amount of advertising it was given but overall the film became a flop as people spoke across the net about it not being very good and, of course, people listen to other people which meant it then failed from then on.
They spoke about the way brands have changed, they used to be centred around emotions but are now driven by people socially. Social media can be negative as well as positive so its more important now than ever to be sensitive to what your client needs. What was different about this agency visit is that they barely talked about their own work and talked very much about strategy which is something, after hearing a lot about from these agencies, I need to learn a lot more about. Absolutely everything needs to be considered, they said it can take months to get around the naming process due to research into meanings of words across all of the continents. Some words may offend etc in certain languages. I have come across aspects of these type of problem during my time at Mccann Erickson.
The company BP was briefly spoken about due to its relatively recent re-brand with it's flower like logo. Essentially the company does what it always has and that is have workers go deep into dirty oil wells to get oil to power machines across the world. However the rebrand has changed peoples opinions of the brand into thinking that it is now a green eco friendly company. It has done this very well although it isnt completely true.
Something Siegel + Gale have which I found different to other agencies is a different hierarchy. Most have pyramids but we were told that at this agency it was much less as there are the same amount of people at each level wherever possible.
We finished up the talk by being taken around the agency which was even bigger than I first realised. It was in a U shape and divided into sections for accounts to designers etc. The equipment was all fantastic and I saw some fantastic work on and off screen. We were allowed to take some photos but not any near walls of work due to confidentiality issues.
Overall, we were given some fantastic advice and our knowledge of strategy and branding has substantially grown due to this meeting. It is definitely the only portfolio visit I have been to where I haven't actually shown my portfolio!
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