Why not? When I started BRND WGN way back in July 2006, I challenged everything. Some things I challenged out of choice, others because I had no other option.
Lacking the adequate corporate funding required to build a start-up, I was left with little choice but to think differently, to ask and review every single business decision that was to shape things to come. That constant questioning, and burning urge to rebel against everything that was in existence before the relative ‘now’, drove a number of successful projects on this side of the WGN and, more notably, onto BRND WGN’s clients.
One assignment after the other, one management decision after another, we started to build a reputation of being a different breed of agency. Little did we know we were on the same path of disruption many of the Millennial generation were treading.
Aware that that same disruption, which was transforming the brands we were entrusted with, could also harm the legacy and goodwill these brands had built over the years - we started to truly understand the responsibility we were carrying on our shoulders.
As an agency, we grew both in size and also in terms of fearless maturity. A maturity that pushed a new value driver - honesty. Brutal honesty, in fact.
It became clearer that it is only when one is completely honest that one can safely challenge. Honesty gives the courage to take a leap of faith, yet the strength to stay put when that’s the best tack.
Honesty lets you give valuable criticism without the fear of hurting someone’s ego. Honesty lets you accept that criticism and grow with it. Honesty helps you sleep at night when you finally challenge a mistake you know you might have made and decide to make it right, irrespective of the crossfire you know is going to hit you in the face at the force of a bull on parade.
When we decided to embark on our 2020 path to global expansion, we thought the time was right to finally challenge our very own DNA.
We challenged everything - our values, our identity and our position in the market. We even challenged our own leadership, to the extent that we started to imagine what BRND WGN could be without us.
Besides it being extremely scary to imagine our lives without BRND WGN, it was actually liberating. It was just like imagining our 21-year-old child who finally decided to leave the nest and venture out to build a life of his own.
It reminded us of the truth that our future depends on our present choices and dreams, so we’d better challenge everything now rather than wait till it’s too late.
