Innis Maggiore

Positioning Is Our Position: At Innis Maggiore, we bring a positioning perspective to help our clients win mind share against competitors, to drive their success and build equities of long-term loyalty and market value. We believe positioning is the most powerful way to market, now more than ever.

We commit never to advertise on a whim; rather, to execute on the basis of sound brand positioning, integrity, and good judgment, combining the best of our strategic and tactical talents to deliver results. We value the utmost integrity and ethical service to our clients, with dedication to our faith, families, and service organizations for the betterment of society. As such, we do not accept work we believe to be detrimental to our society.

Founded more than 35 years ago in Canton, Ohio, Innis Maggiore remains independently owned, and today is ranked in the top 10% of the nation's AAAA agencies. The Canton, Ohio ad agency was founded in 1974, with growth for our clients steady and strong ever since - particularly since the appointment of Dick Maggiore as the agency's president in 1989. The mid-1990s marked an acceleration of national business, as Innis Maggiore began to build its reputation as the leading agency fashioning actionable strategies and creative grounded in positioning strategy. Innis Maggiore has tripled in size since 1997, with more than five years of double-digit growth.

Advertising Age named Innis Maggiore "Ohio's Fastest Growing Agency" in 2002 and 2003. In 2004, that publication also cited us as "Northeast Ohio's Fastest Growing Agency" for the third year in a row. Innis Maggiore was awarded the National Gold ADDY® in 2004 in the Consumer Print advertising category.

Active participation in professional associations also reflects our commitment to the art and science of advertising and marketing, including:

• American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA)
• American Advertising Federation (AAF)
• American Marketing Association (AMA)
• Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)

How we match up against competitors

Job shops or art/design studios. This type of agency is a good resource to just execute pre-defined assignments, but does not provide the associated strategy. The client is left either to define its own or be willing to create "stuff" without building it around that core need. Thus, this represents executing with no strategy. Innis Maggiore executes, but only after providing the strategy as based on its recommended positioning.

Branding identity agencies. This type of agency creates logos, iconography, color schemes, and other elements of visual identity for new companies or brands as well as updated looks for established entities. Unfortunately, this is most often executed without including a strategy component - instead using the shape/color combinations as suggestion of a basic, general idea. Thus, this represents branding with no strategy. Innis Maggiore brands (and has branded corporations, retailers, products, and services quite successfully), but only after formulating positioning-based strategy.

Consulting agencies. This type of agency does just what the name says - consults - leaving any application of its recommendations to the client. Of course, this can only take you so far; good consultants provide the high-level thinking that can point a client to a differentiating position. They cannot, nor do they even imply that they will, execute against that position. And if positioning is the single most powerful concept in marketing, that power can only charge your business if the power button is pushed. Positioning only exists in meetings and boardrooms (rather than in front of actual prospects) if it is not applied to marketing communications materials, deftly and appropriately. Thus, this represents strategy with no execution. Innis Maggiore focuses on positioning, but only within a full context that includes implementation dramatizing the position.

These three competitor types all provide useful pieces of the process, but part of what makes Innis Maggiore uniquely qualified as the nation's leading positioning agency is that we link the strategy's development with its execution.

Our work isn't done until we act on your positioning strategy in real market conditions (beyond simply "intellectualizing"). As such, our definition of "full service" means we must be able to help our clients deliver on the promise of the positions recommended.

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