Our Small Advertising Company Has Big News

UpperNinety is Proud to Partner with Kaplan Early Learning Company

Last December, UpperNinety was invited to participate in its first RFP response. We’ve been working toward this next rung of the success ladder for nearly a year, and we were delighted that word of mouth helped us punch our ticket to the competition. That said, it was our first time going through the process as our own advertising company. We’ve all been a part of these things before under the roofs of ad agencies, but we’ve never run the operation on our own. The company that put out the RFP was Kaplan Early Learning Company, located just outside of Winston-Salem. The ask: a complete brand refresh.

We were very proud of the thinking that went into our response, as well as its overall design. But we also know that the average win rate for an agency is around 30 percent, so we didn’t get our hopes up on our first attempt. Instead, we worked hard to ensure we came across as best as we could, and we prepared ourselves to use the process as a learning experience. But a funny thing happened as the holidays approached: we learned we’d won. We even beat out at least one much larger, established agency in the process. We joked that we needed to shut UpperNinety down, and go out with a 100% win rate.

But then we thought about what a successful RFP response really meant. Not in business terms, but in our approach to marketing.

Advertising the Advertisers
Responding to an RFP is one of the few times an advertising company is forced to take stock of itself. The response is, in essence, a long-form ad directed toward a single customer, and that’s the way we approached the assignment. After deciding that, yes, we wanted to be a part of Kaplan’s search, we got to examine our strengths and put them into a creative format to help persuade that one customer that they should choose our services over other, more-established groups. But most of all, we took calculated risks.

We took a chance in how we showcased who we were. Instead of keeping things rote and informative, we we playful. When we put together our case studies, we showed we had a sense of humor, even in the face of serious business. We put our brand personality on full display, and we found our customer as a result.

In a moment where UpperNinety was its own client, we stayed true to ourselves, and it paid off. Just like any brand should do.

Don’t be Afraid to be Yourself
By becoming our own client, we had to put our money where our mouths were. We were asking ourselves to take the same risks we ask our clients to take. And the lesson was one of perseverance. So long as what you are telling your customer is true to who you are as a brand, and that message is delivered in a captivating way, you’re doing everything you can to build and grow your business.

In the end, we got to enjoy the same result we’ve delivered to our clients. We identified our audience, identified what they needed, and we showed how we were the advertising company that was going to be the best match through our own brand personality. It was a great reminder to always think of how our clients should be perceived by their audience, as well as to not be afraid to take smart, calculated risks to grab attention.

More to Come
We can’t wait to show you the incredible brand work we’ve been creating for Kaplan Early Learning Company. They have a new mission, a new vision, and, soon, a new look. Because UpperNinety is built to scale up or scale down based on our clients needs, we were able to hit the ground running with the right team in order to meet a very tight deadline. Stay tuned to see the work we’ve done in the coming weeks.