It's inspiring to meet people who work for companies that really understand what brand development means.  Over the last couple of weeks I've enjoyed getting to know a local market research company, yet even as I write this it seems unfair to place them in that category.

At the risk of this sounding like a restaurant review, I'll describe what I found.

What I have experienced is a company filled with some of the most fascinating people I've met in a long time, who together create an atmosphere that is infectious.  From the moment I read their website I was drawn to them.  Upon entering their offices I felt like I was stepping into someone's home, and from the first introduction it was clear I had found a diamond in the rough.

There are no mission statements or corporate values on the walls, but everyone has had a hand in crafting them, and each person I met truly knows what they mean and lives them everyday in their work.  No Madison Avenue advertising agency was hired to create the brand, but it is very much alive. 

In discussing what we might do for this company, I was delighted to discover that for this team and this company, it truly isn't about the marketing.  And it really never should be, should it?  But all too often I see companies whose taglines are more impressive that the product itself - where the company, the people, and the product or service can't live up to the hype.  In fact, it needs the hype to get in the door.

Here, at this tiny little boutique research shop, there is no need for gleaming signage, billboards and television commercials.  There will be no mass communication strategy designed to blanket the country with buzz.  The role of the marketing programs we deliver will simply be to let the good stuff out.

We won't be creating the story; the story already is, and it grows as new pages are added everyday.  At most, we'll bring some structure to a message that has taken on a life of its own.

What's exciting is that this company has done it in the right order.  They've taken something as old and potentially boring as market research and innovated the solution to such a degree that clients get to know their customers in ways they never imagined.  They quietly built the product first, then tested it, perfected it, wowed clients with it for years, developed an experience around its delivery that can't be had elsewhere, and created a magnetic force around them that draws onlookers in at rates the best sales executive would drool over.

Brand development wasn't an initiative.  It's what happened when a small team set out to do something great.  And it's become a movement with serious momentum.

Now they're ready to let some of this story out.   Now they're ready for marketing, and humbly, marketing will take its place as the enabler - not the reason for being in the first place.