For 12 years, Alloy has sought to redefine what brands can and should expect from their agency partners by pioneering integrated marketing.
Following 12 months of unprecedented growth and expansion, in 2024 we set our to create a strategy practice that would unify our PR, performance marketing, UX, creative and technical departments. This move is a natural next step as we help brands think through their toughest challenges and deliver unbridled creativity, data-driven thinking and story-based strategies. This new practice isn't merely an addition; it represents a strategic enhancement that amplifies the value we bring to our clients.
How will put this into action? We sat down with Alloy’s new senior vice president of strategy, David Randolph, to dig a little deeper:
How will the creation of Alloy’s strategy practice guide the future of our client service?
The great benefit to standing up a strategy practice at Alloy is that it is additive. There has been, and always will be strategic thinking within each service Alloy offers. The difference between then and now is that Alloy is partnering with increasingly larger clients and broader scopes of work. And when multiple departments are overseeing multiple areas within a client’s marketing, each part needs to ladder up to a goal, a target audience and a complementary framework.
Where does Alloy’s strategy practice sit within the agency’s organizational structure?
It is a distinct specialization, and an organizational department within Alloy. The strategy team specializes in two main areas for clients:
The first focus area is delivering comprehensive research and insights for clients to use in a variety of ways. We can do primary and/or secondary research and deliver the implications and recommendations to a client based on what we discover.
The second focus area is developing brand or comms strategies. The latter deliverable is when we act as the glue that brings disparate departments within Alloy together under a common strategic framework. In doing so, the result is “1 + 1 = 3” for our clients.
Having built and led strategy practices at mid-size and large agencies, what are the top three lessons learned that you’re bringing with you to your new role at Alloy?
First, I’ve learned that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to building insights and strategies for clients. Every situation and client is different. While we maintain certain operational consistency, Alloy’s strategy team will deploy different tools and processes based on the situation. Ultimately, clients benefit the most from “bespoke” strategy deliverables.
The second lesson I’ve learned is that strategy takes more time than many people think. But it is absolutely worth the effort. It often acts as the master architectural plan that sets every other team up for success.
The third lesson is that, just like other departments at an agency, some people are born with an affinity for research and strategy work. It’s important to recruit and develop people with that affinity to work on the strategy team.
How will Alloy’s strategy practice harness AI to add deeper efficiencies and insights to its work?
AI can be very helpful in the research phase of our process. It can devour large amounts of first party survey data and help us dig into interesting insights that would normally take a more manual process to uncover. Additionally, AI is an excellent editing tool that can help us with phrasing certain elements of our brand strategy or positioning statements.
Based on your experience, what are the top pressures facing CMOs today, and how do you hope Alloy can alleviate these by partnering together?
CMOs have always had a tough gig. But the complexity is just on another level in 2024. I actually just wrote a recent Alloy blog post on that topic!
But I think the most difficult aspect of being a CMO is having to balance such a wide range of resources and technologies to achieve very ambitious goals. In addition to being a steward of the company brand, a CMO has to oversee an ecosystem that requires domain expertise from creative and design to analytics and development.
It comes down to picking best of breed strategic partners, like Alloy. CMOs really need external partners that can bring strategic clarity and focus to marketing campaigns with many moving parts.
By serving as a strategic partner, we help brands navigate the complexities of modern marketing, enabling them to lead successful, multichannel campaigns with confidence. Let’s do something great together. Get in touch today.