Identity’s Vision for 2020 – Why You Need to Love the Game

In 2016, during our agency’s January biannual meeting, Identity President Mark Winter and I laid out Identity 2020—a forward-looking vision that details where the agency will be a from growth, service and vision standpoints by the end of 2020.

Several years later, we continue to accomplish those Identity 2020 goals—most recently updating the agency on our progress during our July biannual meeting at Founder’s Brewing Company in Detroit. Twice per year, our company gets together away from the office for our state of the company event offering our team an opportunity to connect, regroup and focus in on our agency and individual goals.

We had a breakthrough day. It was an emotional one focused on our future, our opportunity and the vision for this great company. It was also a day where we were raw about our work, our industry and the opportunity at hand as we approach next year as a milestone year for the agency.

Success on Fire

Our agency is living in an incredible moment – we are driving high impact strategies in Detroit and beyond. Our clients shape the news daily. We are tasked with challenging and bold asks that allow us to stretch our creative expertise and move the needle for our clients as their partner. Our reputation continues to lead to bigger, better and bolder work that fires our team up every day. It is a year that we will remember.

And, this is coming at a time where as an industry, expectations are higher than ever before. The definition of what constitutes PR feels like it is evolving right before our eyes. The aptitude of clients continues to increase, and our contacts are becoming more savvy by the minute. But, we are rising to this occasion in a bold and exciting way. We’ve never been stronger or more poised for our next chapter thanks to our talented team and supportive clients.

Passion and Love for what we do = #Gamelover

While Identity has a more than 20 year history of exceeding and delivering on high expectations, our “X” factor can’t be measured or put on a checklist—it lives within our great people.

I’m proud that the average tenure of an Identity team member is more than five years and take pride in our track record of promoting leaders from within. Many of our team members have been with us for 7 or 8 years and several well over a decade. When long days, challenging circumstances and failures happen, it’s the pure love of this work and a pure love of the game that keeps them going. We call these amazing pros #gamelovers.

A #Gamelover—The Identity definition:

A gamelover embraces the journey, believes in this work down to his bones, understands her impact and just LOVES THIS SHIT. It is that love for the game that propels her through the tight deadlines and drives him to deliver on challenging client asks. It makes her constantly ask “what’s next?” and “can we do it better?” Gamelovers savor the sweet moments of success that only THIS WORK can provide. Because he EARNED it. And when the victory celebration is complete, she does it all over again.

Our people are on a constant quest to kill it – to do more that matters than the day before, to do better work, absorb and apply industry trends and deliver  an experience well beyond expectations. They know how to rally when asked, and show up when needed. All of this informs the razor-sharp expertise that we expect from ourselves and the industry expects from Identity.

Our July 2019 biannual was a day full of real emotion—personal stories of triumph, failure and the tales from the front lines about the love of the game.

It isn’t easy. Many have sacrificed to live some incredible memories as a result of their work. Our day wasn’t solely focused on our annual goals, rather, about what drives us, inspires us to get out of bed and how we can harness that raw energy to become better and stronger in every aspect of our lives.

The feedback from our team is that the discussion and narrative about the importance of loving this game resonated—it was a day of inspiration and walking away feeling refreshed. We wrapped the meeting at Founder’s, had a toast at the Detroit Shipping Company and enjoyed what the Identity Way is all about—relationships and being a badass group of professionals.

With an agency full of #gamelovers, our future is bright, and in the coming weeks we will be announcing some exciting news about #Identity2020. Stay tuned.