The shoemaker’s son finally has a new pair of shoes. That’s the analogy Su Strawderman, senior vice president of creative, uses to describe Mintz & Hoke Communications Group’s recent reorganization and rebranding.
The Avon firm, which employs approximately 50 full- and part-time employees plus freelancers, has adopted the new branding statement, “Make every contact with your brand worth more,” while at the same time reorganizing its internal structure for more efficiencies.
Chris Knopf, Mintz & Hoke’s CEO, said the communication firm’s way of doing business was working fine but it was time for a change.
“Every profession has to deal with this,” he said, especially one that espouses brand change for its own clients. “If we hadn’t done this, we would be a step behind. Our competitive set would get ahead of us.”
An external review of the company’s brand found no negative perceptions, Knopf said, but no excitement either. “We can’t stay static. If our look ages, we don’t look fresh,” he explained.
Susan Spiggle, a marketing professor at the University of Connecticut, said the evolution of media in the last decade has forced many communications firms to re-think how they do business.
“Social media is revolutionizing the whole industry,” Spiggle said. “It’s absolutely necessary for [a media firm] to refresh and rejuvenate and make their brand relevant. You can’t rest on your laurels, especially when the environment around you is changing so much.”
Mintz & Hoke conducted an internal audit last year to initiate its rebranding process. Knopf said one of the challenges the company faced was real estate. It owns 40 percent of its building at 40 Tower Lane in Avon.
“We always struggled with [the fact that] we had too much space,” he said during a recent interview in the company’s boardroom. Staff wasn’t placed efficiently because the firm had an abundance of room to spread out.
“We could fit 200 people in this space without breaking a sweat,” Knopf said. “My impulse was if you have the room, use it. But that was a bad impulse.”
The spread out spacing arrangement led to the creation of “mini-cultures” inside the firm and cumbersome processes, Knopf said. An industrial psychologist was hired to create a more coherent agency structure.
Under the new setup, all creative staff has been brought together onto Mintz & Hoke’s third floor. Previously they were split between the third and fourth floors, which led to communication via email instead of standing up and poking a head over the partition to talk to a neighbor. “It was an inefficient way to communicate,” Strawderman said of the old layout.
The firm also took down artificial barriers, such as department-centric seating. More floor space was devoted to ad hoc collaboration. Also, a lottery was held to determine who sat where. Knopf’s cubicle sits in the middle of a row.
“Our process was antiquated. We had to get some density,” Knopf said, adding there were no staff reductions because of the reorganization. “We gained tremendous amounts of efficiency by doing that,” Knopf said.
On the operations side, the company is also trying to speed up the process for new idea development and increase the use of data and tools to measure results, and make strategic modifications in real time.
Knopf said he wouldn’t quantify how much the re-branding cost. “It’s a relatively small investment considering how a dull look can hurt your brand.”
As Knopf observed, the competitive environment and business model has changed dramatically in the communications business. “It’s not a zero sum gain,” he said. “It’s an addition of new things.”
Mintz & Hoke is competing with global agencies, boutiques and specialists. In Greater Hartford it is the second largest communications firm behind Cronin and Co.
Spiggle, the UConn professor, said the firm deserves praise for being transparent with its restructuring. She said Mintz & Hoke enhanced its authenticity with the openness. “They’re exposing themselves by being this transparent,” she said. Successful branding, she explained, relies on authenticity, and transparency enhances that.
The announcement, the professor added, was also “client-centric, which is very important for a service firm.” The “mantra of marketing,” she added, “over the last two decades has been to focus on the customer rather than the product or the firm. When a firm is client-centric, the firm is likely to give better service. Some companies do a lot better than others.”
The firm’s new logo, which incorporates the “+” sign into H of Mintz + Hoke, replaces one with an ampersand designed more than 12 years ago, according to Strawderman. “It signals how we evolved and how we’re different,” she said, conceding that some may now read the firm’s name as Mintz-Hoke on the firm’s website.
The company also moved away from the use of orange in its marketing. “We’d go on agency tours and everybody else has the same color. How could they all be orange?” Strawderman asked.
