By Kelly Schermer

Some digital marketing campaigns today make me feel like a downright curmudgeon. Before I attended the Digital Marketing Summit in Seattle, I assumed that was because a) I am, or b) I’m not the target audience. The summit provided perspective on where big shifts in digital marketing have taken us all—marketers and consumers alike—and helped to dispel a few myths that have made the digital marketing waters murky. The biggest revelation for me was that good digital marketing should come from good marketing, but not all of it does, and that can make the marketer in all of us feel like a grump.

Major platforms are not channels

Digital marketing arose from the creation of new channels that we rely on today to reach consumers.  Platforms that originally established themselves as free, democratic aggregators and distributors of information across web and mobile channels (such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the App Store) are becoming markedly less democratic and (surprise!) more fee-biased.

Rand Fishkin talked about how Google strips content from sites to create a no-click search experience that keeps customers on its page instead of linking out to yours. He shared research on how Facebook and YouTube similarly discourage people from sharing URLs in order to keep eyeballs on their sites.  

Brands can still create value through these platforms, however it’s important to understand what they offer versus what we want them to offer, how to play within the rules of their ever-changing algorithms, and—above all else—how to use these platforms to complement the marketing strategy for the channel and not vice versa. 

Entertainment is not marketing

Everyone agrees that content is still key to engagement. However, the iPhone and social media make it increasingly harder to know the difference between gratuitous entertainment and entertaining marketing. For example, you could argue that capturing Lady Gaga’s performance of “Bad Romance” in front of a business and spreading it on social media promotes awareness of the business. You could also argue that investing that same time and money into creating a “bad romance” campaign to support your value prop will lead to higher quality customers. 

Both arguments have merit. The call ultimately comes down to your brand, your business, and your customers. As marketers, it’s important we challenge ourselves to not get caught in the media sparkle and evaluate each campaign for how the content can contribute to the brand and business overall.

Digital marketing is not magic pixie dust

In my favorite session of the summit, April Dunford spoke about how to position complex products in a crowded market. As promised, her message was Obviously Awesome: frame your product by focusing on its most valuable attributes. Her shorthand, like her presentation style, was colorful and direct:  

• Your solution + The right market context = Effective but boring
  • Ex) We make popsicles for kids who like popsicles.
• Your solution + The right market context + Trend = Effective and SPICY!
  • Ex) We make popsicles for kids who like popsicles and deliver them poolside when kids call from the popsicle hotline.
• Your solution + Trend = Confusing
  • Ex) We make popsicles and there’s a poolside hotline.
• Market context + Trend = ?
  • Ex) For kids who like popsicles, there’s a poolside hotline.

April made the point that good digital marketing must be grounded in smart marketing as part of a larger strategy. 

In the throes of digital evolution, we need to invest in activities that are built on facts not myths. When in doubt, continue to put quality brand work at the heart of everything and build a digital strategy around the elements you can fully own—it’s a surefire way to win over the staunch marketing curmudgeons.

Ready to move your business forward in our digital world without compromising your voice, your brand, or your ownership? So are we.

By Katy Nally

Once upon a time, Katherine cracked open a book. She was smitten. The more she read, the more she appreciated books and their ability to transport the reader. That enthusiasm grew over the years, until books and reading slowly sowed their way into her identity. By the time she moved to Seattle she had liquidated her possessions—except for her book collection. It was the one thing she couldn’t part with. Today she pays tribute to her first love by working with the Microsoft book store, writing spellbinding copy to hook readers, and promoting a happily ever after for all.

Never an idle protagonist, Katherine has taken charge of the narrative of her career. Facing a professional turning point, she decided to get her Project Management Professional certification to open new career opportunities. And she’s not stopping there. Next up is her PMI-Agile Certified Practitioner exam. All that know-how has bolstered her love of thinking strategically and building processes to achieve a goal. As a project manager at 2A, Katherine supports the Microsoft book store, leveraging her penchant for strategy to help drive the team’s marketing campaigns.

The Microsoft book store feeds her need for books—Katherine thrives amongst her fellow bibliophiles and enjoys getting an inside look at the publishing industry. She’s right at home curating and publishing lists of favorite reads, and writing snappy copy to make her lineups pop. Before joining 2A, Katherine worked as a copywriter at Zulily. Her way with words comes in handy for the Books Merchandising team, which publishes her copy on the books storefront and across various marketing channels. Her keen sense of project management, plus her writing skills keep her team highly efficient and running smoothly.

Katherine has always been dedicated to helping people live happily ever after by building a more peaceful world. In addition to her history and international studies majors, Katherine also earned a peace studies minor. Her education sparked a stint in AmeriCorps, working for the International Rescue Committee. These days she’s a member of both the Seattle-Perugia Sister City Association and Seattle-Isfahan Sister City Advocacy, which promote an inclusive and diverse city. When she sees a cause that deserves advocacy, Katherine doesn’t hold back. She’s already converted a few friends to the sustainable blockchain Burstcoin, after learning about its green solution to reduce energy waste in coin mining.

Project manager, writer and advocate all rolled into one. Let’s see how she can build your story. 

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 Kelly Schermer

Everyone knows it’s wrong to hire based on a person’s origins, but what if the person happens to be from the Renaissance? Are we supposed to overlook the fact that he can do a little bit of everything really well? Seems so… biased. Hardwiring for technology, his ability to observe, and his stark perseverance make him a poster child for the golden age and our go-to for consulting and project planning.

Functions as a linchpin

Recently Kyle transitioned his role at 2A from a go-to-market project manager embedded within Microsoft to a member of our in-house consultant group. In addition to managing client accounts and working with team members to create content, he also leads our team’s technology adoption, spearheading and troubleshooting our internal adoption of Microsoft Teams. His ability to listen closely, understand and anticipate needs, and propose solutions make him instrumental in his clients’ and teammates’ success.

Displays mechanical and emotional intelligence

From a young age, the machine force has been strong in Kyle. He and his dad used to spend hours together fixing cars, computers, and other appliances. He claims that he can diagnose and solve problems just by listening carefully. In his everyday job, he uses the same practice of reflection and emotional intelligence to listen and observe what’s going on around him before choosing a course of action.

Conquers the unknown with the known

Kyle’s pragmatic pursuit of art and his ability to nurture his passion from a spark of inspiration to a profitable product demonstrate his perseverance and willingness to learn. Between 1999 and 2008, Kyle parlayed vanilla-flavored piano lessons into a one-man industrial band. He single-handedly wrote, performed, and produced a half dozen albums under the name Inelex. During that time, he developed an interest in photography, which he grew into a freelance job after graduating college with his bachelor’s in business. Kyle looks for opportunities to use what he already knows to figure out what he doesn’t know…yet.

It’s not often you meet a bona fide machine whisperer who feels just as comfortable taking a campaign to market as he does cutting an album or writing a case study, but that’s what we’ve found in Kyle. Next time you need a Renaissance expert-in-anything, you know who to call!

By Tuya Shepel

Do you know where you’ll be when you’re 100? Thai Lee does. The CEO of tech company SHI has each decade of her life planned out and has been executing her roadmap since she was 17. While it was shocking to hear her describe her extreme long-term planning at the Women in Cloud Summit last month, it’s wasn’t the first time I’d encountered the concept.

Growing up in communist Mongolia, mapping our future according to communist ideas was the expectation. Even at a young age we planned our life and development by quarter, semester, and 5-year chunk. For inspiration, we learned about Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov who made a list of things he wanted to achieve in his life when he was a kid. His plan required him to live until 114. He made it to 86, but still achieved all his goals! (We were told.) This national push for planning at the individual level was meant to emulate the Soviet Union’s five-year plan.

While my life definitely didn’t go according to my childhood plans, I’m happy it didn’t. And with my youth experience in mind, I could appreciate Thai’s 100-year blueprint so much more. It was the first time I had considered the lifetime plan from a capitalist—and not a communist—perspective. Turns out it works for capitalists, too, if they’re dogged enough to stick with it.

Not only is Thai’s follow-through a feat, but the items on her checklist were extremely ambitious. At 60, everything in her life has happened according to plan. She’s a billionaire who owns one of the largest female-owned businesses in the US. Her keynote address on how she built her IT products and services company was spectacular and empowering for us entrepreneurs in the audience. It was refreshing to hear someone so prominent talk about the importance of empowering employees to make independent decisions, valuing all staff equally, and promoting and supporting women in leadership positions.

In addition to Thai, the words of CVP of Microsoft, Gavriella Schuster, also stuck with me. Her advice for young women in technology:

• Know who you are and be willing to lead with authenticity
• Be willing to fail, and pick yourself up—put your voice out there over and over again
• Know what you aspire to, what you stand for, and lead with courage and conviction to make yourself heard

Looking forward to the next year’s summit! In the meantime, I’ll be working on my revised plan.

By Guy Schoonmaker

I grew up with a dog. It was a great dog; a big fluffy Newfoundland who didn’t mind wrestling around with me and my brothers. As what seems to be the norm for many dog-lovers, I developed an anti-cat mentality for no particular reason. I’d say things like “cats aren’t loyal like dogs” and “cats only care about themselves.” Of course I said these things having never owned a cat, while most of my information about cats came from memes and gifs (by the way, 2A makes a great cat gif if you’re ever in the market).

Over the last six months, through no ambition of my own, two cats have prowled their way into my life, one at home and one at work. And you know what, they’re not that bad. In fact, cats are pretty cool! They are happy to hang out with you, but also fine on their own. They like a little more space than most dogs, but I think anyone commuting in Seattle right now can relate to wanting a little more space.

What’s the lesson learned here? Don’t be afraid to question your own assumptions.

One challenge around implementing inclusive behavior is knowing where to start. There’s no quick checklist on how to be inclusive but putting your assumptions under a microscope is a great first step.

Checking your assumptions can help you avoid snap judgements on first impressions and embrace confrontation with empathy instead of anger. And of course, it can lead to giving cats a chance. The bottom line is, we all make assumptions every day. But becoming aware of your assumptions and recognizing when they need to be challenged will open you up to new ideas, collaborations, and maybe even a new pet.

Inclusivity has become more of a priority for workplaces over the last decade, and 2A is clearly on board. Just about a month into my role here, I already notice the effort to make our office a comfortable and healthy environment. From stating preferred pronouns to scrapping the antiquated primary/secondary criteria in parental leave—the inclusive culture here is fur real.

By Katy Nally

This year she traded in her pliés for a chance to pop and lock. While the moves may be new—venturing from years of ballet to freestyle hip hop—this drive to expand her breadth of expertise is Annie’s telltale MO. With a former life as a fashion buyer, a background in Middle Eastern studies, and a penchant for marketing strategy, Annie applies her multitude of perspectives to see client projects from all angles.

A historian at heart with an analytical appetite

Who says a liberal arts education is dead? Annie is living proof that you can still get your money’s worth. Studying history at the University of Washington left her with a zeal for digging into information to understand the why. That analytical appetite has come in handy when devising marketing strategies for clients. And it’s part of the reason she chose 2A. Annie relishes a good challenge, and has no fear when it comes to defusing big BOMs, aka bill of materials.

A double dawg with a business bent

Fresh out of college, Annie parlayed her passion for fashion into an internship at Nordstrom. She learned the ropes quickly and worked her way up to become a merchandise analyst. After tasting the business side of things, Annie was hungry to learn more. Turning back to UW she started her journey as a double dawg, earning her MBA at night and working full time during the day. She scored a job at Amazon where her love of marketing flourished—driving in-house fashion brands with go-to-market strategies.  

An envelope pusher with a smack of snark

Throughout her career—and equally outside of work—Annie has grown her breadth of knowledge, collecting nuggets of information in each endeavor, then pushing the envelope to learn more. Her love of learning has no end in sight—case in point the several book clubs she’s in and her well-worn library card. In each pursuit she makes it her own with a heavy dose of snark, inevitably building connections through her sense of humor and wit. It’s how her puppy earned the name Zopa, which stands for zone of possible agreement. Annie chose the name after acing negotiation tactics first in class, then later at home.

Got a new topic that Annie can sink her teeth into? Give us a call!

By Mitchell Thompson

A few weeks ago, I went to see The Midnight perform at Neumos. I discovered their music fairly recently, but they’ve swiftly become one of my favorite bands for how their melodies and vocals carry such a strong feeling of emotion, longing, and ennui. As saxophone solos wafted over a crowd illuminated in beams of neon light, I could hardly imagine a better visualization of the burgeoning synthwave movement.

Synthwave, also called retrowave or outrun, is an artistic movement that’s been gaining a lot of steam over the past several years. Inspired mainly by imagery and music from the 80s, synthwave combines visuals like neon lighting, airbrushed chrome, computer grids, and midnight cityscapes with synthesizer-heavy music reminiscent of new-wave pop music and sci-fi movie soundtracks. The genre explores a wide variety of themes, from retrofuturistic optimism to dystopian fears of mechanized oppression. Many artists explore the limits of 80s media, intentionally adding VHS noise to digital video or releasing their music on vinyl.

And yet, for something apparently steeped in nostalgia, synthwave isn’t an accurate representation of what the 80s were really like. Movies looked at as progenitors of the movement—such as Blade Runner, TRON, or films by John Carpenter—were minor successes at best or box-office failures at worst. Synthesizer film scores by Tangerine Dream and Ennio Morricone garnered Razzie nominations rather than Oscar nods. Even the famous DeLorean DMC-12 seen in Back to the Future drove poorly and sold worse. Though synthwave visuals may resemble tech support posters or a Corvette ad, by and large the media of the 80s bore only a minor resemblance to this new aesthetic. Going beyond regular rose-tinted glasses, synthwave is nostalgia for a time that never existed.

This fascinating development—faux-nostalgia taken in a new and modern direction—speaks to me as a designer. A truly successful design should connect with its audience, and synthwave has achieved this. Straightforward 80s nostalgia has become a huge marketing trend in recent years, from Voltron selling Hondas to the Stranger Things kids suiting up as Ghostbusters, but synthwave goes beyond simply parroting what was popular 30 years ago. Instead, the movement uses a smaller-scale evocation of certain nostalgic elements rather than a full-on resurrection.

In an age where you can instantly stream a classic album or pull up clips from a favorite movie, synthwave stands out by sampling the mood and aesthetics of the past and then taking it in a new direction. Pressing beyond hollowly echoing nostalgia, synthwave finds a unique way to create emotionally resonant works.

By Katy Nally

When you summit a 20,000-foot peak, you rely on your rope team to get to the top. If you’re traversing steep glaciers and icy slopes, it helps to know your group is linked together, and someone is there to pull you back up if you fall. With a lifetime of experience in outdoor education, our operations manager Mel Hodgman knows the value of a dependable rope team. And now that she’s at 2A, she’s making sure we all benefit from that same safety net so we can summit together.

The glue that keeps our team together

Before she came to 2A, Mel flexed her logistics muscles by coordinating mountaineering expeditions for guided groups around the world. She was the point person for each trip, making sure the crew had exactly what they needed to summit. Now she’s doing the same for our 2A office. She’s the glue that holds us all together. Whether we’re meeting on Mondays to plan our week, or onboarding new hires, Mel anticipates needs before they arise. Her instinct to snag inefficiencies before they cause trouble makes her a huge asset to our team.

The educator who leads by example

In between living in Joshua Tree National Park and summiting Mount Aconcagua, the highest mountain outside of Asia, Mel somehow made time to get her master’s in education. 2A isn’t exactly a classroom, but that hasn’t stopped Mel from teaching us a thing or two. Her human resources training has led to a more inclusive office where we all pitch in to recognize the culture contributions of our colleagues and appreciate a diverse and growing pool of perspectives.

The fearless problem solver

Making the transition from outdoor education to marketing seemed like a big leap at first, but Mel was game. Maybe it was all that mountaineering, but Mel was keen on trudging into unknown territory. She was excited to join 2A and help refine our foundational systems to maximize efficiency. She’s a natural born problem solver and digs in to find answers to new questions. She’s eternally searching for new ways to improve processes and do the job better, faster, and beneficial for all.

Put simply, Mel makes our adventures at 2A possible.

By Kelly Schermer

Nothing shoots me to the top of the silly scale quite like someone trying to tell me how I should feel about something.

My husband loves to tease me about the time I dropkicked his basketball down a hill in college. The moment he turned to me laughing and said, “You will get that,” (because it WAS a jerk move, and up to that point I HAD been planning to get it) I felt the flirty fun curdle into a feral little gremlin in my belly.

While I’ve developed a few strategies for handling myself in these situations, they don’t always save me from the knee-jerk reaction that loads my adrenaline cannons.

Take for instance my mother’s email asking if I could join her and my sister for lunch. Totally unremarkable except that, for the first time ever, Gmail included 3 clickable response options at the bottom of the message.

• Yes, I do.
• I love you!
• Thanks, but I’m busy.

By the time I finished reading those, my metaphorical guns were at the ready. 

Now, if I hadn’t seen those responses, I would have probably freehanded something like, “Order the yam fries for me!” But the mere presence of these Smart Reply buttons hijacked my conversation with my mom. They had me thinking in terms of yes/no, free/busy instead of yam fries/sister laughter.

In the scheme of life, email shortcuts seem trivial (especially at work!). But I believe voice and individuality accumulate through conversation strings like this to develop the chemistry that ultimately defines our relationships. If we cut our personality out of our correspondence, we could be cutting ourselves off from a genuine connection. By the time we get to email, we’ve already cut out the face-to-face and the phone. Do we really need to get less personal with people?

Email has serendipitously helped me realize that my flash-anger onset is a defense mechanism for times when I feel like my personal story (or my right to tell my story the way I want to tell it) is being threatened. Because what am I if not the story I tell? 

We all have the unique privilege of being exactly who we are. I want to see, hear, and read your story exactly the way you live it. After all, you do you best.  Why let a computer hack you with generic responses?