Why brand platforms elevate advertising to new levels

The first platform I ever heard articulated as such was Apple’s “Think Different”. To this day it's probably the simplest and best example out there.

However it came from an age when platforms weren’t common and weren’t seen as necessary as they are today. Because way back at the inception of “Think Different” the world of advertising was still one of TV, press, posters and radio. In that world a “campaign” would usually suffice.

We now live in a diversified world, where anything’s an ad.

Where differing specialisms have fragmented skills across multiple agencies; digital, pr, media, social, etc. The problem this has for legacy above-the-line creative agencies is that it’s all too easy for clients to now see us as just the TV and poster people. This seriously limits our ability to express our ideas in the places they’re best.

And that’s where platforms come in. If you create a brand platform, it doesn’t just create single brand stories across all channels, it works further up the organisation and wider across it too. A good brand platform will inform all aspects of a client's business, from the way they recruit to internal training to new product development to corporate affairs.

A platform allows the agency to operate higher up the client business in a much more impactful way. It will make its creators invaluable to the CEO as much as the CMO. This isn’t dissimilar to the space the consultants have been in, except they weren’t providing the platform solutions bit.

But as far as creativity is concerned a successful brand platform will give the agency the right to create more and better work in all consumer touch points. Because a platform implemented correctly will ladder-up every action up into a brand action. Platforms build a bigger sandpit for an agency to create in and exert influence from.

We're lucky at TBWA because we have a tool here called 'Disruption' which at its simplest is a platform creator. We've seen it work most recently with "True Originals" for our partners at McVities.

Platforms change businesses like campaigns can’t, they’re long-term, more sustainable and provide growth opportunities.

But most importantly, they allow us to execute the very best work for the modern world.

Any Jex is chief creative officer of TBWA\London