Working Undercover
It had been an exhausting month, but this was the moment we’d been laboring so hard for. The chance to see the impact of our blood, sweat and tears and, more importantly, the chance to delight the global audience with an unexpected thrill. The lights dipped low, and darkness engulfed the stage. The audience fell silent then the energy in the room built to a palpable level.
BANG! With a crash of thundering Taiko drums and a synchronized lighting display the opening video played across the 180 by 40-foot screen assaulting and simultaneously delighting the crowd and setting the stage for this year’s big contest. It was awesome to watch the audience jump to its collective feet and to cheer on the countdown to this year’s start. There’s nothing quite like several thousand people all being moved and springing into action by something you helped create. This is the moment we live for. This is the reward. This is the reason. This is the way.
Now, we’d love to tell you more but we’re not in charge of this event so we can’t share all the details. We can’t take off our helmet so to speak. You see, we were “white labeling” our services. In fact, we’re not officially even here. We’re working undercover. We were asked by another agency to help bring their clients vision to life. To help another agency be the hero in the eyes of their client. Does that seem counter intuitive to you? Why would we help our “competition” be successful? Because it’s good business sense. Try it, you’ll like it.
Today’s communication and event technology is constantly evolving. The skills needed are wide and varied and no one has time to be an expert in all of the different areas of production. Sometimes this simple fact is why we get asked to help on big events like the one described above. We have skills that other agencies or clients need to make something new or unfamiliar happen. In these situations, we white label our services and that means we work, as if we’re part of, another agency. For the duration of that event we’re not Four Winds Creative we’re “Agency X.”
Even if we’re not bringing some unique skills to a team that happens to lack that talent, we often supplement another agency (or company with an internal video department), who just happens to need “MORE” of a talent they have, because the scope of the project has expanded, or the complexity of the project has grown beyond what was initially expected. Enter white labeling again. Now we’re on site working along side other producers, creative directors, writers, animators and camera folks. We love this too!
After all, we’re here to help. In each of these cases, we either backstop the existing production staff or take entire sections of the project off the shoulders of thankful staff so no one is overwhelmed and so all aspects of the project can be successful. We win when our clients and customers win.
In this ever changing and complex production world, we find that offering a safe, competition-free solution that helps the end client with their communication or production needs is a recipe for long term success. We thrive on building long term and trusting relationships. We’re always happy to “white label” our services and we strive to make each agency or client company happy that they called Four Winds Creative for help.
We’re here to help no matter who’s armor we’re wearing. This is the way. 