How This Small Team is Helping Brands Get Lean
Chaos, change, and unprecedented challenges have swept not only our nation but all around the globe. In its wake, almost every company, brand, and industry across the board are feeling the quake of Covid-19. Amidst all of this, one small team is using this change as a force for agile impact that has long been needed in our current and post-covid age.
“It’s been a very hectic environment especially around the defense industry side since it’s the first time that people have been forced to work from home and it’s now a requirement, so our industries have to change and adapt very quickly in the most agile and lean way possible to survive and continue to thrive in this environment,” says Nathan Cushing, the co-founder of Arazo Media.
Cushing has been working hard since the inception of this pandemic and has been a big proponent on agile workflow for many years prior-to this event.
“We’re heavily advocating companies large and small to speed up and diversify their workflow. This can be in a work-culture sense of making the decision processes less vertical and more horizontal, to really do a deep-dive analysis of the overhead and company finances as a whole to look at what you really need and what’s a commodity.”
The Defense Industry as a whole is having a difficult time pivoting and remaining agile in these circumstances, so now is really the time to ‘do or die’. We’re seeing across the board how new branding and communication strategies are being implemented as well to stay on top of the news, changes, and policies that are vastly outgrowing the structure within those same companies.
“Social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram, Instagram TV, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and even TikTok have been heavily underplayed by the defense industry for far too long.” Says Artem Koker, the other co-founder of Arazo Media. “We are helping companies large and small jump faster on those platforms, brand themselves properly and start producing quick and efficient content that can be easily distributed across the board, to not only communicate what your company is doing during these hard times but also leverage the vast networks of people they have at their disposal that has largely been untapped.”
Having a background in marketing and content creation, Koker has been avidly helping companies pivot, get leaner and start rocking their social networks to bring their people, brand, and impact to the next level.
Cushing adds “Most companies in the defense industry also don’t realize that they already have so many advocates within their walls that are ready and already excited about becoming brand ambassadors. Companies just need to create an agile strategy that can stir and mobilize their people to start producing, sharing, and getting more involved on social media themselves. This can help produce more content, more buzz around your brand and actually create a loyal, vocal fanbase that is ready to advocate and promote you”
In these trying times, having a new fresh perspective from a younger generation can be a great outlook on the current structure that has been a bit outdated for a few decades now.
“When we started Arazo two years ago in 2018, we really wanted to create something that will make a lot of impact on the world in the way of strategy and branding. So when it comes to content creation, there are many agile approaches that companies just haven’t been taking. These can be very simple things like when you’re filming a brand video for your company and you’re interviewing key stakeholders, why not also add a few questions about your services? Why not add another question in there about what you’re doing during this pandemic and have a call to action at the end?” says Koker. “On top of that, while you’re filming, add another 2 people to do photography and behind the scenes. That way, you can have multiple pieces of content that can be rebranded and redistributed across every network that you have.”
Every time I’m in the room with bright minds and industry disruptors, I always get a little excited to see what new strategies and takes they are doing to lead that new change. I think we can all agree that in today’s day and age, we really need every new angle to not only survive but get ahead of the curve and look towards the next five, ten and twenty years.
Arazo Media is currently in the midst of helping companies rebrand and position themselves amid this crisis while simultaneously promoting their new Covid-19 documentary called Affected: The Story of US, which is currently in consideration for over 29 different film festivals including Tribeca, South by Southwest and Sundance. Their film has won Silver at Latitude Film Awards, along with Best Documentary and Best Social Awareness Film at World Premiere Film Awards. The documentary explores how everyday people from all kinds of walks of life have been affected by the pandemic and what their version of reality looks like, allowing the viewer to see a different side of America through their eyes. For more on Arazo, visit their website and to learn more about their documentary, click here.
