July 2014

Don Draper’s marketing world revolved around print advertising, and perhaps too many midday cocktails. While innovative at the time, times have changed, and we must continually adjust. As Don Draper says, “change is neither good or bad, it simply is.” However we disagree.

Change is good.

For over 40 years, we’ve been leaders in innovation. We like change. We think change is good, because it is inevitable. From our perspective, why not look at it as a good thing? Change is an opportunity.

In the 1950’s and 1960’s, marketing was all about print advertising. Make brands visible to the people, and make your ads stand out. Those things are important, but they were just the beginning. In the 1970’s, we pioneered the idea of Integrated Marketing Communications.

Today, you might associate the term IMC with the paradigm shift of connecting marketing efforts. According to Lance Jackson, the president of Art + Business One, IMC is “the connective relationship between messages, where customer-driven messages are tied together for cumulative benefit.” In reality, IMC has become an industry standard.

The University of Colorado at Boulder offers a Master’s Degree in Integrated Marketing Communications. The program focuses on brand building, customer relationship management, and “strategically using all of the marketing communications functions.” We have been using these concepts well before they were institutionalized, because early on, we recognized the need to capitalize on customer relationships and experience in the market.

Change has come again, and A+B1 has moved beyond Integrated Marketing Communications. We’re building on it, using IMC as a platform for even more dynamic strategies.

We’re focused on engaging the customer, cultivating customer relationships and integrating customer experience.

By welcoming change we’re able to stay “front of mind” with consumers. Art + Business One understands that the emotional platform should be taken into consideration each step of the way to promote what we like to consider an Integrated Experiential Strategy.

We don’t agree that change “simply is.” We anticipate and initiate change. That’s what has kept us ahead of the curve for over 40 years.