The differentiating factor of Advok8 amongst marketing firms is our process driven and strategic approach. Many marketing firms are just glorified design firms, focusing mostly on the aesthetic of the brand. They are full to brim of young hip designers working out of brick and steel lofts to create visually beautiful print media and logos. At Advok8 we believe that the aesthetic design elements of a marketing and branding campaign are important but that they are only as powerful as the strategy behind them. With backgrounds in sales, engineering, manufacturing and industrial design, we bring a knowledge and skill set to the table which helps us to understand the nuances and technicalities of your business and your clients. This allows us to build a very detailed strategy that informs all of the creative elements we create maximizing their impact and their relevance to your brand.
Building a brand is so much more than picking a font and a color theme. It is about self discovery and figuring out what your business represents. What are your businesses key values and what are the unique problems you are solving for your clients. It is also about identifying your goals, the clients you wish to work with, and what kind of growth you’d like to enjoy. From there, once you’ve discovered these things, we want to create a cohesive and iconic personality for the business which touches upon these discoveries on all levels and with all the content we create. Through the consistent and strategic production of content in all forms reinforcing this brand identity the company can then more easily become top of mind in the market, articulate a level of expertise, and capture the attention of new clients.
STUART DAY – CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Our creative director, Stuart Day, studied fine art and Political Science at Penn State University before switching directions and attending a world-famous fine woodworking trade school. For the next 13 years, he immersed himself in the world of museum quality high-end stringed instruments. Working for internationally renowned instrument makers Stuart honed his skills as a fine craftsman and designer. Stuart started messing around with Instagram when it hit the scene and quickly got into photography so that he could capture and tell his story as a 21st-century artisan. After a few years, he had developed a global audience of 5,000+ engaged followers and was being asked to consult with other companies on branding. Eventually diving into video production as a means to tell stories he has now become an expert at combining visual content and design with digital and social media marketing to differentiate your business from the rest and build your brand through storytelling.
Stuart enjoys learning about our clients’ goals and businesses. Using his keen observational skills he then crafts an overal vision for the brand and marketing. This vision is then incorporated into the analytical strategy put together using Advok8’s process-driven strategies.
Stuart has worked with small businesses, FortuneS00 companies, Multinational companies, real estate firms and has shot photo and video for residential, commercial, and agricultural real estate, product photography, industrial factories, interviews, and documentaries.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Photography is the foundation of great branding. Through photography, we can capture every aspect of the business as well as create an immersive environment on websites and in print media that captures clients and asks them to engage. We use photography to tell stories, as backdrops and backgrounds, to show important details, display value, move people through other content and to prompt certain actions. While we do use stock photography in certain contexts our preference is to create our own photography wit the real people, places, and things involved in our clients’ companies. This brings a level of authenticity to the marketing elements and it builds a powerful connection between our clients and theirs. We like to showcase the locations to make people feel that they are there with you as they are learning about you.
- Corporate / artistic portraits
- Product photography
- Immersive (facility photography)
- Candid and staged marketing photography
- Websites and print media backgrounds
- Abstracts for artistic design details
- Real estate
VIDEOGRAPHY
Videography is so important in today’s digital media environment. It gives us an opportunity to lean on the visual power of the photograph while at the same time providing so much information to clients in a couple of minutes. We can really get into the storytelling of brand building with video as well as explain technical topics that may be harder to digest in written form. It is a powerful tool that has so many uses, and we enjoy the challenge of finding new and interesting ways to use video to help our clients to communicate with their clients. Video is also a very powerful way to get people to engage with you which is crucial when it comes to developing your brand on social media platforms. Video also means we can incorporate music and other sound fx into the mix which really helps us communicate to the emotional side of people. Nothing in branding is as powerful as linking your brand with people’s emotions. Once a brand makes someone feel something, the brand will always be imprinted in their minds.
- Interviews
- Educational
- Commercials
- Web content
- Promos
- Corporate introductions
- Vlogs
- Real estate
DRONE
An extension of both video and photography is our ability to use a drone. We are FAA certified to use the drone in a commercial capacity which means we have broader leeway in using this great technology. The drone gives as the ability to add geographic context to your brand by expanding the perspective as well as really spicing up video production. The drone has come in very handy in situations where companies wanted us to highlight their facilities.
- Added Context
- Hardware / installations
- Real estate / architecture
- Facilities
- Video and photo
- Dynamic actions shots
DESIGN
In many ways design, in the form of logos, web design, and graphic design, serves as the glue that holds all of the other elements together to create a cohesive brand. It is important that fonts, colors, and design details become common threads throughout all the material we create. Our design services do not stop there. We also have backgrounds in production, manufacturing, product design and the design of function and flow of apps and other interactive elements like blogs or client portals.
We have partners in manufacturing and prototyping and can facilitate those services when needed.
- Graphic design
- Logos
- Web design
- Product design
- Lables
- Print media
- Merchandise
- Apps
- Blogs
- Content creation
- Signs
- Prototyping
- Production design