The creative strategy sets out the company’s pattern of behaviour in all channels, commercials and adverts. The company’s goals are the leading input here. The creative strategy also determines the overall attitude – how the company’s marketing comes across against the general background. Let’s give an example: an innovative company that deals with innovative gadgets should also use innovative messages in its marketing. However, a personal and unique private banking service should opt for a marketing approach that makes it look conservative, personal and expensive in a good way.

It’s important to give a uniform and complete message in all marketing communications. We’re the ones who see the big picture in marketing, but can also polish the minutest details to precision, so we can agree on all the timelines, bind them into a book and stick to them as well.

The CEO of the agency, team leaders and our media manager also attend the creative strategy meetings. The involvement of all areas of the agency is necessary here to ensure that the strategy is watertight and viable. Preparatory work, which all the key persons of the agency must do before the meetings, is also important. Competition analysis, brand mapping, marking the milestones in the company’s history and assessing the impact of the overall business landscape.

Creative strategy is a conscious and strategic approach, which the company takes into account in the development and implementation of measures aimed at ensuring and supporting growth in sales. It is a strategy for achieving one’s business goals.

In the case of creative strategy, we analyse the company’s current situation, business strategy and performance. We define and prepare our own vision of how to achieve your goals. We help you develop a creative marketing plan for the implementation of business plans.
We offer the following under the creative strategy service:

• development of a business strategy;
• development of a marketing strategy;
• market analysis;
• analysis of the competitive position;
• overview of strategic opportunities;
• market identification and segmentation;
• preparation of business plans;
• company performance management.

The creative strategy is also a small mantra for new marketing employees who, after reading the document, clearly understand how to act in the new company. A marketing strategy also helps save money, because this document prevents impulsive experiments along the lines of “this year, let’s try it like that” and the wind can only change in the right direction.

In today’s shopping environment, which is overflowing with products, packaging design is one of the most important aspects considered by consumers when they decide what to buy. The shelves are full of colourful and beautiful packaging whist the products inside are often quite similar in essence and composition. When you look at packaging, it must be clear what’s inside – a healthy organic product, a hearty meat product or an expensive wine. As we cannot stand next to shoppers when they decide what to buy, packaging is the thing that should tell them: “Put me in your basket!”

Good packaging design requires a lot of homework. We find out everything about the customer’s products as well as the products of competitors. We find everything that’s good or bad about the product, listen to the customer’s requests and production options, and taking all of this into consideration, we set ourselves the task to create packaging that works better than anything already on the market. In addition its appearance, packaging must be functional and innovative, so that consuming this product would be more convenient for the consumer than the products of competitors. As we have many contacts in the world of printing, we can also help you find the most optimal solution for printing packaging.

In addition to designing the new packaging, we can help you update your existing products. Good products have a long life, but packaging tends to become outdated after a while. The solution is to revamp the existing packaging. The product must still remain recognisable, but be competitive among the new products flooding the market.

We consider several aspects when determining the price of packaging design – is it a single product or a product range, are we updating existing packaging or creating a new one. We always try to find a solution that’s suitable for everyone.

TV commercials are one of the most effective advertising solutions that reaches the biggest target group – the message is received by a lot of people. The use of video and audio also make it one of the most emotional and colourful solutions, giving you the chance to communicate your messages in a memorable way and with feeling.

A TV commercial is also one of the most expensive advertising solutions in terms of production and media purchasing. This is why you should hire a professional team to make your commercial. Our work starts with the customer’s brief – we review the customer’s options and requests, and make our proposals. When making a TV commercial, you should also keep in mind that the budget of the commercial should not exceed your media planning budget – a good commercial is worth being shown a lot. We will present a couple of ideas to the customer, polish it and come up with the right story. We will ask you to approve the stylistics, casting and locations, voice samples and music before production – we’ll give you the storyboards and descriptions. We will include an external team for the production or do the entire production with a team created by ourselves.

A TV commercial may also be graphic or animated. A graphic solution may be the best for a TV commercial with a simpler sales message and it would also be cheaper than a filmed commercial. Animated commercials are certainly the favourites of the younger target group and make it possible to create completely new fictional worlds and characters.

Nowadays, commercials must not be meant for television at all. They can also be separately produced for social media or cinemas. They say that the bigger the screen, the better the commercial looks!

A good radio commercial is similar to a good TV commercial – it communicates the message in an emotional and interesting manner. Creating a good radio commercial is worth it, as people still listen to the radio a lot in Estonia. Also, the production and dissemination of radio commercials costs considerably less than advertising on TV. Radio is a fast channel, which makes it suitable for the communication of messages that require immediate action. However, to stand out in a block of radio commercials, your spot has to attract interest and catch the ear.

Certain rules apply to the writing and production of radio commercials, as they make the spot effective. It must be clear who the advertiser is, what product or service is being advertised, what the advertiser wants to say about it and what people have to do after hearing the commercial. Once we’ve agreed on all the important points, we must develop them into a creative, original and distinctive result.

We use our professional partners for the production of radio commercials and they help us to create regular as well as more special commercials. The voice that reads the commercial is very important, which is why we’ll offer you several voice samples at the start of the production process. Sound design is also important and there’s a lot of choice here as well – from interesting sound effects to music created specially for the commercial.

The price of the commercial is determined by several factors and the price of the idea for a spot depends on the complexity of the task. The production price is determined by the length of the spot, the number of voices used and the people whose voices are used, sound design and effects.

Our brain processes visuals 60 thousand times faster than texts and an audiovisual work can make us feel different emotions, but texts give us more knowledge. Every day, people watch over 4 billion videos on Facebook alone. Posted images generate 87% more interactions. People get more than 90% of information via images and sound. An effective video clip can make the viewers act, identify themselves with the content, think and buy.

Video clips allow you to quickly communicate the messages currently on your agenda as well as to roll out a story that captivates the viewers’ senses of vision and hearing. It’s not just a message, but the next chapter in the brand’s image.

The work of the production team of La Ecwador Studio starts with the idea and strategy, which lead to the preparation of the script, production plan and vision for effective dissemination. It’s important for us to clarify what the customer wants to achieve with the clip. What do we want to invoke with the video, audio clip or photo? Based on the input, we prepare the message in audiovisual language by carefully selecting the most suitable instrument for creating an emotional connection with your brand in your customers.

“Don’t just talk about your brand or message in the clip – tell a story that moves people.”

– Kaire Russ, Head of La Ecwador Studio

La Ecwador Studio has specialised in the creation of advertising clips, social media videos, radio and audio clips, podcasts and photos. The inhouse photo and sound studio allows us to complete the entire process resource-efficiently and quickly, and effective and working solutions for the achievement of your brand’s objectives are prepared in cooperation with advertising and communications experts and the creative unit.

Employer branding is not merely recruitment communication used to make oneself look attractive and motivate people apply for jobs in the company – this day and age, employer branding means shaping the employer’s overall reputation and awareness. The goal is to assure the current employees that they are valued, appreciated and needed as well as to attract new people, specialists and talents to the company.

Employer branding is a process that involves the human resources, marketing and communications departments alongside the creative agency and in addition to external communication, the results also have an impact on the organisation’s internal communication and its activities.

There is no single strategy or method for employer branding, because each company has its own character, culture and opportunities, which they offer to their employees and the community. This is why employer branding is not developed by the agency alone, but several units of the company also participate in the process. The general pattern followed in employer branding consists of the stages listed below.

Mapping

What is the present employer branding like and how is the company perceived internally and externally – the answers to these questions give us an idea of the starting point and the actual position.

Collecting information from the present employees as well as the precisely defined target group on who the desired and needed employees are is always the first step. For this purpose, the agency organises the necessary workshops and data collection processes.

This stage also includes comparing the collected data to the employer’s goals – the result gives a clear understanding of the journey that lies ahead of the branding process and the exact people it has to reach.

The current ‘application corridor’ and the routes that lead the applicants to you are also analysed to identify their main weaknesses and strengths.

Messages, values and creative solution

What are the messages, promises and value propositions that would attract attention and make you stand out among others? What is actually relative and important in this moment? Which values match the values of the potential talent? These are the questions that lay the foundation for employer branding. Job advertisements and recruitment messages are often overloaded with obvious points, but less attention is given to highlighting the company’s work culture, team and human values that make the applicant realise whether they would like to join the company.

Materials

Various materials, which emphasise the company’s values, mission, vision and promises, are developed to introduce employer branding and achieve the desired image. Materials from job advertisements, videos and commercials to social media solutions and brand carriers.

Strategy

Once the main messages, values and ideas have been developed according to the objectives, the plan for communicating them to the target group must be put in place. No matter whether this group consists of the current employees, the new employees the company is seeking, the community or the general public. The exact action plan for achievement of the desired results is set in the strategy. It may be a traditional recruitment campaign, reputation campaign, communication activities among students, social media actions as more specific tailor-made solutions.

Implementation and monitoring of results

Employer branding is a set of values, ideology, identity and messages, which is not limited to job advertisements and recruitment campaigns, but becomes a part of the company’s daily culture.

Once the employer branding has been developed, the entire solution will be introduced internally and also launched to external communication. Results are constantly monitored for the achievement of results and data are compared to the position at the starting point.

Every contemporary company needs a recognisable face and style in order to succeed. We help create a unique logo and visual identity for a new company or update those of an existing business. We propose various creative solutions, which help highlight the company’s essence and characteristics, and make it stand out in the crowd. In the case of a style guide, we make sure that your company has a convenient toolbox for the future, which sets out the rules of using the logo, its colours and graphics, and ensures the consistency and uniformity of all materials from business cards to digital channels.

It’s your tone of voice – your company’s spiritual guide and heartbeat. Everyone knows that a company must have a logo and some also know that the use of logos is subject to rules. This day and age, we cannot get by without a guide that outlines the image of your company or brand that exists in the heads of the target group. Every step in the daily life of the company, be it the way your secretary greets people to the invoices you submit for your services, represents a part of your branding. They’re all the puzzle pieces that form the image of your brand in the heads of the target group. We make branding your tool that you can use to manage the image that this brand creates in the eyes of the target group.

Your advertising language, which can be recognised in every advert, shop design or party invite, strengthens your brand. By building its brand piece by piece, a company can make the price of its brand rise higher than all of its employees, stockrooms or websites. For example, the estimated value of the Coca-Cola brand is 73.1 billion dollars. No cola factory costs that much, unless it’s made of gold! If you want your brand to be valuable and esteemed, and don’t have the money to build a factory of gold, you can use branding to increase the value of your brand.

It’s a process that involves talking and discussions at many meetings. The first ideas may be nothing more than thoughts that we can shape into a strong and viable brand together. We will help you establish your company’s image and adjust it for various target groups. We have a very precise understanding of the models of perception in society and can therefore suggest various ways of being what you want to be for your customers. Once the initial idea is in place, we will develop the brand values, then move on to brand carriers and, as agreed with you, we can also get down to advertising templates and voices for radio commercials.

Branding is a cooperation project the price of which is agreed in advance. We’ll add up our working hours, determine the necessary activities and reach a number that satisfies both parties.

Graphic design is a visual language of communication. This is the main tool used to make your company’s messages visually understandable, eye-catching and interesting. The designed materials of your company are usually the ones that create the first contact with customers and make an impression – an this impression must be good. They can include well and clearly designed advertisements or posters, the shop environment, booklet or another environment that really catches the eye. Different materials, channels and templates require different approaches.

Illustrations or photos and text are usually parts of design. We will find a solution that corresponds to the idea and suggest the style of photos or illustrations, make them and, if necessary, organise a photo shoot. Every design comes with clear and understandable text, which we will also help you create. We will take your company’s earlier materials and style guide into account when we create the design.

We consider the volume of the necessary work when pricing a design. Whether it’s a single advert or something bigger – the assignments are different and require different approaches. At the start of each project, we assess the volume of the work and then make our proposals and the initial quote.

The lines between the different areas of marketing have become blurred and the share of digital and social media has increased strongly, but classic advertising is still going strong. TV, radio and outdoor advertising as well as the comprehensive planning of a company’s marketing strategy and brand are the things we do every day.

The agency team is the link between the different teams of La Ecwador. “We develop a marketing strategy and an action plan for your company and manage the marketing plan according to your company’s specific features,” says Agency Team Leader Mairi Talving when describing her team’s competencies.

Everything begins with an idea or a copy, and from this point onwards, we’ll be your partners in the development and implementation of creative concepts and advertising solutions.

Our long-term experience with companies operating in very different fields has given us the skill to develop a complete marketing communication solution that is tailor-made for your company.