The Objective Blog

Keep up with what we're thinking, reading, and doing.

Agency Fusion is Now Objective

April 22nd, 2015 - by Objective - Salt Lake City, Utah

Welcome to the new us. We’re still the same people in the same place, but we’ve given our brand a major overhaul.

Why Rebrand?

We’re twelve years old this year. At this point you might assume everything is nailed down and set in stone for us but the truth is, a lot has changed since 2003: The economy is different, our industry has evolved, our business model has shifted, and our team is different. In short, it’s time to update our brand to more accurately reflect who we are today and where we are headed.

A Brand that Pulls Us

You’ll find dozens of different definitions for what a brand is. This post isn’t about creating a new definition, but we do want to share a bit about what we think a brand should do for the employees of a company as partial explanation for why we’re changing our brand.

We believe a brand should be aspirational to the people working for the company. The brand should support the company’s vision and provide a framework within which to communicate that vision. For employees, their ability and their desire to “get on board” with a company’s vision are in part shaped by the brand itself. The brand helps create that ever-so-important feeling of “I’m part of something great.”

Over time we came to feel that our former name “Agency Fusion” was pulling us backward instead of drawing us toward the future we were working hard to achieve. The old name, because of our old positioning, felt like baggage we were fighting against, instead of a brand that we are aspiring to build in the direction we’ve been heading.

Evolution and Revolution

When we chose the name Agency Fusion, we wanted a name that represented our core business model. At the time the majority of our revenue came from providing education and development services to other creative agencies. As far as we know, we pioneered the phrase, “You design it. We build it.” This business model worked well for years but with the economic downturn in 2008-2009, the flaws of this model were exposed in a dire way.

Rather than continue to rely on business from other creative agencies, we opted to begin transitioning away from this business model. Over time we shifted from getting most of our revenue from other agencies, to now getting the majority of our revenue from our own clients and our own software products.

We’re fans of a Harvard Business Review article about how companies go through periods of evolution and revolution. Our big shift in our business model was a time of revolution that likely saved us from an early demise. Our name, however, has been stuck back in the pre-2009 days of our existence and this rebrand aims to fix that.

Today the types of projects we choose to accept are bigger and more complex than in our former life. We work for a lot of startups and often for big companies who want to launch a new product or act more like a startup. We’re less of an ad agency and more of a digital product design and development company. If you mashed up an ad agency, a startup, a software development firm, and a business consultancy you’d have something very much like us. People hire us when they need to create something both technical and elegant, and when they’re willing to invest what it takes to do it right.

Looking to the Future

A full rebrand is time consuming. We’re still dotting i’s and crossing t’s to roll out our new brand. We hope the change has minimal negative impact on our clients. Our proposals, invoices, and other documents will have a new look. Accounting or accounts payable departments will need to update our vendor profile (the new name is a DBA so our tax ID stays the same). Clients will need to contact us using our new email addresses (although the old ones will continue to forward for a while). But other than these few inconveniences, everything else moves forward as before but with a new brand that works with us instead of against us.

 

3Things Lecture Series Update

October 14th, 2014 - by Objective - Salt Lake City, Utah

3Things Lecture SeriesOur next 3Things lecture series event will be Tuesday, October 21st at 4:00 PM. We’ve got an incredible lineup of speakers that you really shouldn’t miss!

Steve Swensen | Founder, Last Advisor
Finding Success Through Self Discovery

Paul Mayne | Founder, Bloom Built
Passion to Profit: Key Ingredients to App Store Success

Stuart Eyring | Chief Operating Officer, Orbit Irrigation Products
3 Marketing Lessons Learned on 3 Continents

We finally launched a site so check it out to get more details.

Best of State: Year 7

June 20th, 2014 - by Objective - Salt Lake City, Utah

Agency Fusion Best of StateWe’re honored to have been named Best of State for the seventh year in a row! It goes without saying that this is only possible because of a great team and great clients.

It’s very fulfilling to come to work each day and get to use our creative and technical skills to solve complex problems for clients all over the country. We’re a bit unusual in that we have some projects which are purely creative and others which are deeply technical. We’re branding one client and developing sophisticated software for another, and we couldn’t be happier about the fact that we get to do both.

Thank you, Agency Fusion clients and employees!

June 3Things Event

May 30th, 2014 - by Objective - Salt Lake City, Utah

3Things Lecture SeriesJoin us Tuesday, June 17th at 6:00 PM for our next 3Things Lecture Series event, featuring the following excellent presentations:

Lisa Tadje | Director of Marketing & Communications,
Rakuten MediaForge

Become a Thought Leader in 3 Easy Steps

Egan Metcalf | Sr. Material Designer, 3form
3 Ways Global Artisans Have Influenced My Creative Process

Aubren Johnson | CEO, SideKix
3 Lessons Learned While Our Business Became Reality Show Ready

 

If you plan to attend please RSVP to 3things [at] agencyfusion.com.

Date: Tuesday, 6/17/2014
Time: 6:00 PM (sharp)
Location: 155 N 400 W, Ste 460, Salt Lake City, UT 84103 (map)

Visitor parking is on the north side of the building. If there aren’t any visitor spots open, just grab an open spot anywhere that doesn’t say ‘reserved’. When you exit the elevator on the 4th floor, go through the door on the right side and then turn right down the hallway to the Agency Fusion office.

Upcoming 3Things Event

April 17th, 2014 - by Objective - Salt Lake City, Utah

3Things Lecture SeriesOur second 3Things event is just around the corner. Tuesday 4/22 at 6:00 PM we’ll be featuring three more dynamic speakers, each presenting for 20 minutes:

Bret Rasmussen | Founder, Kuru
3 Things Every Entrepreneur Should Know

Andrew Scarcella | Copywriter, Ancestry.com
3 Things You Can’t Do, But a Copywriter Can

David Johnson | Art Director, Agency Fusion
3 Things to Keep Your High-maintenance Creatives Happy

 

 

If you plan to attend please RSVP to 3things at agencyfusion.com.

Date: Tuesday, 4/22/14
Time: 6:00 PM (sharp)
Location: 155 N 400 W, Ste 460, Salt Lake City, UT 84103 (map)

Visitor parking is on the north side of the building. If there aren’t any visitor spots open, just grab an open spot anywhere that doesn’t say ‘reserved’. When you exit the elevator on the 4th floor, go through the door on the right side and then turn right down the hallway to the Agency Fusion office.