This month marks the beginning of our 5th year of Mighty & True!

Back in 2015, we had the idea that the world needed another agency... Truth be told, back then we just wanted to build a business to help our friends in the industry, build a bunch of good relationships with good people and try to find ways we could help with a problem that wasn't already solved for.

After 5 years of working with clients, partners and pounding away at every form of design, development, animation, video, marketing technology and many many other formats and channels, we found a few common themes that have formed our mission for the next decade.

Speed and volume don't always drive performance

We've found that if there's one thing that doesn't predictably impact performance, it's cranking out a lot of volume at light speed, hoping to get lucky. Not that there isn't a place for speed... but we've seen enough fast production going out at the expense of design and performance to know that making time for more thought at the front-end of the process is better than less.

How things are "designed" matters

When someone says the word "design" the immediate thought is of creative, copy and art. However, marketing done right recognizes that there is "design" in everything we do. The entire brand, advertising and marketing process needs design thinking to drive performance. That includes planning, messaging, audience selection and yes, definitely actual design and creative. The problem is that "design" through the marketing process is often overlooked because it's hard. This is a big problem as often "design" is not frequently a primary discussion when analyzing why things didn't perform as planned.

Nothing works like it should on the first swing

We've seen a lot of time, energy and dollars go into really big "launches" that fall flat. There is a tendency to lean into the creative part of design in big ways without a lot of evidence to back up the investment. What is clear to us is that it's better to launch a lean idea and then the real core idea will reveal itself over time. Said another way, it's really hard to hit home runs at every at-bat... but the faster you get to the plate, the faster you'll learn why you're only hitting singles. Planned iteration early is the key to success. This is one of the reasons we're investing more in our conversion rate optimization tools and partners, as well as our newly launched CRO Lab. We're seeing great success simply by "designing" better experiences informed with customer data.

Your customers will love design-led thinking

In the most successfully designed programs we've built and launched, there is always a common theme. They were all created with the desire to understand and serve the end customer. Providing "utility" or use to our client's customers in the programs and content we create is the X factor in ensuring that programs perform and customers keep coming back.

While the last 5 years have taught us so much, they have further reinforced the idea that the marketing and advertising world needs more design thinking in all we do. That's why we've coined Mighty & True as a brand performance agency and design studio. Design to us is in everything and the primary goal of our design-led processes is to drive performance. Great design performs. That's what MT is about and where we're headed.

What's Next?

We have so much to be thankful for across the first 5 years of our business. So many friends, clients and partners to thank and so much more work to do. All said, it's been a terrific first 5 years and we couldn't be more excited about the new decade and new challenges.