By Abby Breckenridge

Image by Nicole Todd

What trends am I seeing for spring? Butter yellow, oversized blazers, and asking marketing agency owners how they’re using AI. 

It’s a good question—and certainly one that no self-respecting agency leader is ignoring. It’s just that the hype levels have gotten a bit, how shall we say it, inauthentic. 

So here’s my answer: we’re embracing AI as a tool to help us do the work our clients need better and faster! And we’re doing it in a way that aligns with our values. 

Here’s what I mean: 

We’re helpful. We’re using AI tools in ways that are helpful to us and our clients. When it gets work done faster and better? Then it’s an AI yes. We’re using AI to help us parse resources more thoroughly, brainstorm 25 header options instead of 10, and check for the right voice and tone throughout content. 

We’re serious about our work. Our clients choose us for our high-quality deliverables and smooth client experience, and we’re serious about continuing to stand out in those ways. When AI helps us deeply engage with our work, we’re all in. Today, that means taking a client’s messaging framework and using gen AI to quickly create derivative assets like one-pagers, ebooks, and banner ads. The result? More content for better value. Tomorrow, it could mean something else. 

We work to build trust. Human relationships mean a lot in our business. We’re seeing many faceless offerings pop up, such as “become an AI expert in 10 days” and “accomplish your tasks at warp speed.” We maintain the trust of our clients, and in turn, their audiences’ trust in them, by using our expertise to refine work. We’re experts in our clients’ brands, their differentiators, and their customers’ pain points—so when AI spits out something off, we spot it. 

We tack toward improvement. Lucky for us and our clients, we’re a curious bunch. Our team gets excited about testing new approaches and refining based on what we learn. Gen AI tools are no different. Nothing drains a creative team faster than doing the same thing repeatedly for days on end. And the possibilities of today’s (and tomorrow’s) tools have us pumped. 

Seeking marketing assets that work, and an energizing client experience? Give us a ping. And, if you see me around town in my oversized butter-yellow blazer, please say hello. 

By Abby Breckenridge

Renato is leaving 2A. This is a big deal for us and comes with so many emotions.  

There is no doubt we’ll miss him. Renato started 2A on his own back in 2010, then Daniel and I joined him a few years later. It’s that entrepreneurial spirit, the sauce that emboldened him to start 2A, that we’ll miss the most. He brings the guts it takes to break out on his own, paired with the vision to see how something can be made from nothing. That, his sunny sense of humor, and his deep commitment to caring for the people around him will leave the biggest legacy.  

I’ll always remember the first time Daniel, Renato, and I got together. It was a breezy summer dinner around a fiery grill in my backyard, after Renato and I had finished the MBA program at Foster and Daniel had moved to Seattle with his girlfriend (my childhood friend). It was a lot of fun, included a lot of wine, and set the stage for the fruitful relationship we now share.  

Since then, the three of us have led 2A through countless wins and humbling challenges—a journey that looks more like a doodle than a straight line. From a team of four to almost 40. From one amazing client to over 40. From a shared room in a to-be-torn-down house, to 6,000 square feet on Capitol Hill. And from the youthful idea that all the steps are laid out in front of us to a more seasoned view that plans are just that.   

What we do know is that 2A, the team, Daniel, and I are all stronger because of Renato. We also know this change is a great move for all of us. Daniel and I will get to flex our skills in new directions as Renato’s departure, even with all the planning, will surely leave gaps. There’s an ocean of new possibilities for Renato as he unleashes his entrepreneurial spirit toward new ventures. And while our partnership in 2A is over, breezy backyard dinners around a fire will surely continue.  

By Abby Breckenridge

Image by Thad Allen

“But what happened that was bad?” my 5-year-old asked after I wrapped up an improvised bedtime story about a boy named Chugapie who likes to eat a lot of pies. And while his question was certainly a stall tactic, and he was probably just hoping for a sword fight instead of a child-driven, problem-solving narrative, he did have a point.

A good story needs some tension—or something “that was bad.”

As students of business-to-business marketing, we’re well versed in the tensions that compel decision makers to act. Fear is a tested marketing lever, but the business audience has a unique set of worries. As we support our B2B marketing clients to create stories that resonate with their customers, we’ve found common themes. Here’s our short list of business villains that smart leaders pay money to avoid, and clever marketers position their products to combat.  

• Innovative competitors—nothing spells the end like getting left behind by a business that reinvents your space.
• Security threats—if your data is compromised, so is your future.
• Inefficient teams—employees make the engine churn, don’t let old tools and bad training slow them down.
• Disenchanted customers—they vote with their dollars, so you’d better make sure they’re voting for you.

Whether your business customer is looking to digitally transform or empower their team, make sure you’re offering a solution that fights their villains and smooths the arc to resolution.

By Abby Breckenridge

Did you have plans to create an awesome video case study for your upcoming conference, or an explainer video to tell customers how to get started? Well, your plans have been changed. In an age of distancing we’re not gathering film crews and talent to make marketing videos, it’s just not essential. But there are some good alternatives, and we’d love to help. 

Combine amateur footage with a
professional edit

We’re all spending a lot of time looking at low-quality video of our friends and colleagues talking into the computer—so lean into it. Piece together footage from customers, partners, or subject matter experts, and make a compelling story from afar. We’ll work with you on a concept, point you to some helpful equipment, prep your speakers, edit your footage, add sounds and graphics, and deliver you a final asset. You’ll be amazed at what a professional edit can do to turn your homegrown footage into a powerful, customer-ready video.

Spruce up your webcast

There’s a lot we can do to make a webcast more engaging for the viewer. And these remote events can be the perfect stand-in for that video you just can’t make right now. Start with your customer need, add an expertly crafted talk track, engaging slides, a professional voiceover, some animated transitions, and you have yourself a watch-worthy show.

Make an animation

When live-action footage isn’t available—and even when it is—animation is powerful tool to make your stories mesmerizing. Switch gears away from live-action footage and embrace the power of a well-crafted animation. Your words have more sticking power when they’re choreographed together with illustration, voiceover, and music. And your audience won’t be able to look away.

Your video plans have changed but don’t let that stop you from making a powerful marketing tool your prospects and customers can watch online.

By Abby Breckenridge

Switching your in-person event to a virtual one is this season’s must-have marketing move. Everyone’s doing it. So how do you make your webinar a showstopper? Here are our top tips to ensure success.

1. Invest in getting people there. Send multiple, targeted email invitations and drive them to an engaging registration page with clear takeaways, ideal attendee personas, well-crafted session descriptions, and presenter photos.
2. Practice makes better. A virtual event can still run into the same logistical kinks as an in-person experience. Be sure to gather all your presenters together for a dry run beforehand, and practice hand-offs between speakers.
3. Agree on a presenter dress code. Just because it’s virtual, doesn’t mean we can’t see you! When you have multiple presenters, it’s nice to standardize the mood so someone doesn’t show up in a robe broadcasting from their closet, then hand it off to a colleague in a tie.
4. Anticipate more attendees. It’s far cheaper to send 30 people to an online event than on a plane across the country, so make sure you track registration counts, confirm your online meeting platform can handle high traffic, and give your IT department a heads up—nothing says failure like a mid-session app crash.
5. Keep sessions short. People get distracted more quickly when they have the whole internet at their fingertips, so limit sessions to 30 minutes.
6. Plan for too short. Talks tend to tick along more quickly when the speakers don’t have the energy of an in-person audience. Presenters won’t know if their joke leads to chuckles, so there won’t be pauses for laughter. In case of wrapping early, keep your attendees engaged with a fun break experience and a note about when the next session will start.
7. Tell breathtaking stories. Talk tracks and slides will carry a heavier load than usual, so don’t skimp. Here are our tips for what’s hot in slides.
8. Share the screen. It’s most engaging to share a visual mix of the speaker, demos, and their slides—that’ll require a producer on the backend to do it well.
9. Be ready for questions. Attendees will still want to ask questions and make themselves known to the presenter. Use a moderator to gather and share questions or schedule a Q&A where attendees can queue up to ask in their own voice.
10. Give your content legs. Plan to share resources like event recordings, decks, whitepapers and other related content to capitalize on the momentum.
11. Don’t drop the marketing ball. Capture and segment all engagement, then plan your next touchpoint, whether it’s a follow-up email, a private demo, exclusive access to an eBook, or something else.

We’d love to help make your just-turned-virtual event a worthy marketing investment. From start to finish—promotion, registration pages, speaker training, talk tracks, slides, follow-up, and project management—we’ve got your back. Drop us a line.

By Abby Breckenridge

Planning 2A’s Serious Party has us musing on topics like breakthroughs and the Grateful Dead. I’m impressed once again by how creativity leads us down various paths, and I’m getting excited to celebrate traveling down them with our clients and friends on August 1. You should come—it could be fun.

My four-year-old believes that when he squints his eyes and tilts his head just so, he has heat vision—an enviable super-power we’ve learned about from library books. I find myself wishing I had the same confidence in my ability to conjure up a big idea. But for me, creative breakthroughs seem to come along on their own timeline. More like a cat considering my lap than a superhero charging to the rescue.

Pairing the uncertainty of how to generate a big idea on demand with the business need to deliver reliable solutions for our clients might result in taking the easy path—recycling last year’s successes, relying on gimmicks, and following trends. But is any of that worth celebrating? We choose to celebrate the messiness necessary for innovation.

In the Amazon hit Long Strange Trip, Amir Bar-Lev presents an in-depth view of the 30-year career of The Grateful Dead. We see the band grappling with the same issue of how to accomplish day-to-day goals without closing the door to creativity. Their identity and success as a singular touring band relied on their ability to inspire the crowd to dance, but as a values-driven squad, they feared getting trapped into using stale ploys to move an audience. “Once it’s a device,” they said, “it’s frozen.” They took their commitment to creative reinvention seriously. We’re inspired by the Dead’s example even as we occasionally question their fashion choices.

Our task as a professional team of creatives is to walk the line between reliable deliverables and envelope-pushing innovation. We strive to build an engine that delivers results, works quickly, and navigates the realities of clients’ marketing needs, while nurturing a culture that invites new ways of telling stories. We believe we can actively cultivate creativity. We reinforce the practice of celebrating failure. We challenge ourselves with exercises that shake up how we think. We study and discuss work that doesn’t necessarily relate to ours. We learn from others and know that our individual paths are unique. We take the challenge seriously.

As you can see, we’re into taking things seriously—our work for sure, and also our clients, our family, our friends, you. So we decided to throw a seriously fun party that celebrates the long, strange trip ahead. We’d be thrilled for you to join us. But please wear shoes and park the microbus out back.

By Abby Breckenridge

One day, while on a walk in Interlaken Park, our creative director Daniel and his 7-year-old son noticed a terrifying beetle that looked ready for battle. Upon closer inspection, they were inspired to identify the crazy creature. Little did they know, their bug’s eye view would inspire our latest animation and challenge us to take a closer look at our creative process.

The Seattle Public Library asked us to create an animation that would excite kids about their Summer of Learning program and this year’s theme to “explore your world.” It had to capture a voice that would appeal to a diverse bunch of kids without being too childish, reference native Puget Sound plants and animals, and use watercolors from local artist Yessica Marquez.

These requirements led to an animation far different than the ones we typically build for our corporate tech clients (who tend to think of bugs as bad things). Here’s how we put our own creativity under the microscope:

We asked lots and lots of questions

We tapped into kids’ innate curiosity from the get-go, posing the sorts of provocative questions an elementary school student would appreciate. When we sourced our nature images, we asked ourselves, “What kind of plant is that? Is it native to the Pacific Northwest? Would a bee pollinate that flower?”

We got down in the weeds

As adults, we often fail to notice the natural wonders that surround us. This animation was our chance to get up close and personal with bugs, birds, and trees. The more we learned, the easier it became to convey the joy of exploration to the young scientists who we know will dig this program.

We used our hive mind

This project had a tight timeline, so we had to be resourceful and especially collaborative in order to deliver. We used a collage approach and pulled images from multiple sources. This allowed us to divide the work among more designers, then weave everything together cohesively.

Are you ready to bring newfound curiosity to your marketing? It’s time to make some new discoveries!

By Abby Breckenridge

I’ve had a few conversations with women leaders recently where the story I hear goes something like this: I was doing my job, never thought of myself as a leader, someone else told me how great I was and now here we are. Surprise! I am in charge.

While I’m sure that’s how it happened for some women, I would prefer to paint a different narrative for aspiring leaders. One closer to what my peer Carey Jenkins, CEO of Substantial, shared in a Q&A for Seattle Magazine’s Daring Women series. “I ended last year thinking for the first time, ‘What if I were CEO?’ Within a couple of months, I was in talks for the role.” It’s refreshing to hear a woman leader tell us she believed in herself and made her goals come to life. And it’s essential that we tell the next generation of leaders you don’t need to wait for someone to tap you on the shoulder.

I, like many women, was raised not to brag. There’s certainly some goodness in that lesson—no one wants to hang around people who can’t shut up about how great they are. But (to twist an expression from Anne Lamott) the sunny side of bragging is owning your own strength. It’s saying: I am qualified to weigh in here, I’m up for the debate, and in some cases, here’s why I’d make a great CEO.

As February sees many easing off aggressive New Year’s resolutions to KonMari their basement or detox their beauty routine, we at 2A are homing in on a theme for the year. We’re working toward refining how we talk to our strengths and the value of our work. For us, that’s explaining design decisions, backing up copy choices with strategy, and speaking up when we have tested opinions. We’re calling it demonstrating our worth.

The flip side of that coin is making sure we’re treated fairly and honoring our worth. That’s insisting on fair pricing, communicating the benefits of reasonable timelines, and saying no to projects that just don’t fit.

My partners and I have been helping clients market for over a decade. But we’ve been doing it as 2A for just five years. For us, startup mode helped us build a body of strong work, win and keep exceptional clients, and recruit some of the most talented marketers around. Now—with a team of over 40 consultants, designers, storytellers, PMs, developers, and administrators—we’ve outgrown startup mode.

While creating amazing and effective work for our clients will always be the core of our effort, we also need to nurture a culture that supports creativity and experimentation. This is how we’ll hang on to that team and those clients, and how our work will get even better. It’s time to shirk the imposter syndrome—to stop waiting for someone to tap us on the shoulder—and act like the thriving team we’ve become.

It’s essential for our business to honor and demonstrate our worth. And it’s the next step for us as individuals, for aspiring leaders, and for women who want to take charge.

By Abby Breckenridge

Ally Henny—writer and speaker on the intersection of race, culture, and faith—recently made a bid to her Facebook followers to confront racist comments at Thanksgiving instead of keeping the peace. Her point was that while it certainly is easier to let things slide—whether you change the subject or step outside for a glass of wine—just remember that our kids are watching. And the stories they hear at family gatherings, the stories they see their trusted adults overlook and ignore, will be the stories they remember and perpetuate.

I plan on taking her words seriously this holiday season as I grasp for things we can do to shift our culture. Whether it’s an insensitive comment about a hijab, a dismissal of Central Americans seeking asylum in the US, or a claim that taking a knee to protest police brutality is unpatriotic, I plan to engage.

By Abby Breckenridge

I’ve been a marketing consultant in one form or another since the summer of 2007, so I’ve had ample time to field cocktail-party reactions to my profession. On the whole, people aren’t that interested in talking about it—they’d much rather talk to my architect husband about that new library they love than piece through a messaging strategy with me—but when they do speak up their comments are consistent. Non-marketers generally believe that marketing a) is evil, and b) has no effect on them personally. This is when I throw my head back in evil marketing laughter.

As a marketer, of course, my opinions are quite different. I think marketing is only evil some of the time, and successful much of the time. I would have gone through two pregnancies without the best maternity basics if they hadn’t tracked me down on social media, and I have no idea how we would have chosen our HR software if no one had explained its unique benefits.

Definitely successful—and slightly evil—is marketing from the $128B skincare industry. Most of the time it’s designed to make women feel badly about their skin. I used to just shrug off their ads as unrealistic representations of women, but ever since I turned 40 I haven’t been able to shake them as easily.

Just days after my birthday I found myself clicking through headlines like “Drink up and glow,” texting my girlfriend to ask if I should be using an oil-based cleanser, and wanting to learn more about the benefits of alpha and beta hydroxy acids. I’ve applied more face masks in the last 9 months than I have in the rest of my life combined!

How had this drugstore-lotion-using woman been seduced by the anti-feminist engine? What I’ve come to realize is marketing is only one piece of the puzzle. Those confidence-crushing ads inevitably combine with all the other stories out there, from friends, coworkers, and the news. But just as we’re all influenced by stories from many directions, we’re also influencers—contributing to the stories of those around us.

Someone recently said to me that positivity is like perfume on the brain—it’s enchanting and doesn’t hang around for long. Negativity is what gums us up. Let’s be the perfume, shall we?