At Wax, we employ a simple but effective (and flexible) integrated marketing process based on three phases:

1. Research and Insight
2. Strategy and Planning
3. Creative Execution

Research and Insight

Until recently, marketing agencies could get by with a relatively perfunctory knowledge of their clients and an approach to research that revolved around whether focus groups responded favorably to TV spots or print ads (or not). That’s because marketing was centered on broadcasting messages to passive masses of media consumers. The role of an agency was to create the "big idea" that would hook the consumer.

That’s all changed.

Today’s agency is accountable for developing marketing programs that directly impact business goals, and doing so efficiently. They’re responsible for creating content that’s pertinent, relevant and compelling to time-pressed, knowledgeable customers who are one bad user experience or negative review away from buying a competitor's product.

This requires hair-trigger flexibility and a forensic approach to understanding client and customer needs and motivations.

And it’s why at Wax we take our approach to learning very seriously. At the start of any client engagement, we employ a robust research framework that we call C4. It allows us to establish and build on a baseline of knowledge that defines the challenges our clients and their customers face.

C4 has four key elements:

1. Culture
2. Consumer and Community
3. Competition
4. Company

Because market research is such a key weapon in our arsenal, we’re able to rapidly assimilate specific client context into our larger knowledge base. From there we conduct a judicious array of primary and secondary research,  including key stakeholder interviews, customer and market surveys, and social media monitoring.

Ongoing research continues throughout our relationship with a client as a core element of our services agreement. The market, the customer, the company and media choices are in a constant state of flux. We need to stay on the pulse.

Strategy AND Planning

The secret sauce! We could tell you our process, but we’d have to kill you. Actually, it’s pretty simple. Our ecosystem model gives us immediate access to some of the most brilliant minds in marketing. We take the things we’ve learned, brief our strategy team and engage in an intensive process of strategic planning.

The goal of our marketing planning process?

Well, that depends on the scope of our engagement with a client. Sometimes it might be a comprehensive marketing strategy. Other times, it might be a website redesign, an advertising campaign, or the development of a new customer magazine – or all those things. The point is that we have no preconceived idea what we’ll find or what we'll recommend as the best solution ... something else you won’t get from an "integrated" ad agency.

Execution

The challenge of having a name like Wax is that it’s just too dang catchy! So obviously we named our marketing and advertising development process WaxWorks.

Once our Strategy and Planning phase is complete, it’s likely we’ve agreed on the need to develop one or multiple communications tactics. To do that, we use our time-tested WaxWorks process to ensure everything we create achieves the highest possible level of performance and reflects the best expression of brand identity.

WaxWorks starts with an intensive collaboration between the Wax creative development team and our ecosystem partners. We examine the challenge from every angle. We seek to understand objectives - what it is that makes your business and brand unique, and how best to approach your customers.

WaxWorks Delivers by Following a Dynamic Path of Program Development:

1. Analyze existing initiatives and materials.
2. Investigate and define goals.
3. Scrutinize what has worked and what has not.
4. Perform a thorough competitive creative analysis.
5. Engage our teams for ideation.
6. Refine and shape concepts into a firm, actionable plan.
7. Execute the action plan, measuring and adjusting as we progress.

Throughout the process, we hold regular status meetings, and a dedicated Wax account team – led by a seasoned executive – is available at all times to field concerns and make adjustments to the project. Before any marketing piece reaches you – or more importantly, your customers – multiple rounds of internal and external proofreading and design scrutiny purge the product of flaws.

Integration

As Wax develops and executes your marketing program, we make sure it will present end users with a synthesized message.

Wax practices three forms of integration. Not only do we integrate various marketing tools and platforms, but we also integrate both with our ecosystem and our clients’ other specialist agencies. On occasion we might play the lead role, in other situations not. Our DNA is to be collaborative. We know that the biggest hurdles to our clients’ success are unnecessary silos and defensive behavior. You won’t find any of that with Wax.

Meaningful Metrics

Wax backs up our work with quality data. We employ proven and effective metrics – Web analytics, multivariate testing, focus groups, etc. – to track audience perception and measure the impact of our activity on consideration and purchase behavior.

We practice the art and science of “meaningful metrics.” Individual data points are meaningless unless they ladder up to an overarching metrics framework. We collect data that’s easy to grasp and can quickly be used to refine messages, mediums and segmentation for maximum impact on your mission. We make it our business to develop communications with insight and to measure with intelligence.