Two decades ago we were a small creative collective working with big brands like Burton Snowboards.
Today, we’re makers pushing past market expectations, branding experts working alongside clients who value one-of-a-kind work, and risk-takers solving complex problems with creativity.
In the in-between, we’ve built a team and portfolio that’s gained a reputation for being unapologetically authentic.
Whether you’re here looking for your next ad partner or to make your next career move, there’s one thing we want to make clear about this business—we all have a choice: we can either follow or Defy.
The foundation of great work is a strong strategy. It’s what guides the courses we take to get clients where they want to go.
We prefer open communication with our clients to learn their businesses, develop relationships with their team, and jot down the small anecdotes that lead to big ideas down the line.
DEVELOPING GREAT WORK REQUIRES TRUST.
We believe an environment that promotes our team’s physical and mental health creates an atmosphere of inspiration and collaboration. So that’s just what we do. Together we’ve developed a flexible workflow that allows us to influence culture from the inside of our office or from the inside of our homes.
Our investment in people grows well outside our workspace. We understand this is all bigger than ourselves, so Defy continues to serve nonprofits and the ad community at large.
The USWNT is a globally known powerhouse and the most successful women’s soccer team in the world. In capturing four Women’s World Cup titles, four Olympic gold medals, or eight CONCACAF Gold Cups, the team has a well-earned reputation for being stacked with talent, and acknowledged the world over as the standard-bearers for a variety of aspects of the game.
While the on-field team tours the world winning over and over again, their behind-the-scenes team is putting in the sweat equity as well. The USWNT’s Twitter and Instagram accounts (@uswnt) are filled with content year round, regardless of any lulls in the season. The team’s vast library of assets, ranging from videos to images to infographics, is maximized by their marketing team, which consistently posts branded content whether they’re competing or not.
These posts – or as we like to call them, marketing assets – are often throwback images and videos from the Olympics and World Cup. The key here is that the USWNT’s social media strategists are taking advantage of these historical moments in order to curate content for months to come.
This strategy is known all throughout marketing – not just for sports. Using an event such as the Olympics for consistent content creation is an approach that keeps the images and videos on a brand’s page unified visually and tonally.
For the USWNT, their tone is empowering, brave, and trustworthy so their content, captions, and video voiceovers have to embody that same brand persona. Overloading on the collection of potential content during the Olympics allows the team’s marketing assets to stay uniform (no pun intended) throughout the year while simultaneously highlighting some of the team’s greatest accomplishments.
Content creation such as this has us asking ourselves – what’s your Olympics? What is the service, product, or event we can develop various assets from in order to stay on brand and relevant to our consumers over a longer period of time? Marketing and asset building can come from varying occasions for a brand such as a brand rollout, product launch, merger and acquisition, or updated service. These occasions should all be looked at as fodder for long-term campaigns.
For our client Cynch, their Olympics was the launch of their service in a handful of new markets via a broadcast commercial titled “Too Much Time.” Our agency used the footage and photography from the spot to create various versions of the commercial, and used the b-roll content for a longer-form series. This content was intended for social media usage as a miniseries.
When considering what your brand’s Olympics are, we understand that it may not actually be the Olympics – though if it is, definitely give us a call. If you’re not able to pinpoint exactly what your brand’s Olympics are, that’s what we’re here for – hit us up here and we can chat more about it.
2.15.21
You always had a choice. Instead of following, you chose to Defy.
As you’ve come to know from our relationship, we always looked to push beyond limits to help our clients create work that stands out from the norm.
Over the last 12 months, we’ve finally gotten around to focusing this same approach on our own agency.
Moving forward, the agency formerly known as [ 2 one 5 ] Creative will go by Defy.
Our new brand name honors the spirit of our beginnings as an artists collective 20 years ago, and lights an exciting path ahead for an agency that continues to grow and evolve.
Together, we look forward to continuing to defy the conventional, limits, and expectations in 2021 and beyond.
