Center-Brained Marketing Is the Best of Both Worlds
Most marketing agencies lean one way or the other: all numbers and no nuance, or all flair and no focus. We ask: why not both?
Brands deserve a marketing agency partner that uses its whole brain. Here at EMB, being “center-brained” is a core part of our ethos. We’re more than just meticulous analysts and sentimental creatives—we’re all of the above.
Our team deeply believes that creativity without data is simply art, and data without creativity is numbers. Art and numbers are great, but they don’t drive your goals or growth. What you need is what’s in between: insights.
What it means to be center-brained
Being center-brained means intentionally considering both the logical and emotional parts of marketing at all times—making decisions based on the data, and implementing those insights with highly creative output. While the idea that the left side of the brain is solely logical and the right side is solely emotional is a myth, the results we get are completely real.
A marketing agency driven by data
We start each client engagement with our proven Discovery Phase, a process that starts with our Digital Mindmap and ends with our Roadmap.
The Digital Mindmap is a one-hour session in which we explore a brand’s marketing goals, budgets and business opportunities. It’s a critical, foundational step for our team. Knowing how you want to scale and setting clear key performance indicators (KPIs) to get you there from the get-go is so important.
The third and final step in the process is the Roadmap, a digital deep dive into a brand and its competitors’ online landscape. We leverage multiple digital marketing software to peek behind the curtains and set data-driven expectations that empower us to build a realistic roadmap for success. We also explain everything in plain language during a one-and-a-half-hour meeting and deliver a transparent report that can exceed 80 pages, depending on what we discover. (Yes, really.)
Our software runs for the duration of the client relationship, too, by the way, so the data is always there to guide our marketing strategy.
A marketing agency inspired by creative
Between our Digital Mindmap and Roadmap, we host a one-hour Creative Mindmap—a fun and informative session that builds consensus around the brand’s identity and perspective. Unlike the other sessions, this one is super improvisational. We create exercises and lead the conversation based on your identified marketing goals and what we see in the numbers.
Once a brand is signed on as a client—because why wouldn’t they—we continually revisit the insights from our Creative Mindmap to ensure campaigns and content are aligned with our collective vision. You can expect interactive brainstorms and playful idea pitches on the regular.
We’re a “what if” and “why not” kind of crowd. With a small and nimble team, we can get creative not only with your content but with your process and operations. Larger marketing agencies come with red tape and hierarchies; we laugh in the face of limitation. That’s the true essence of creativity: novelty and flexibility.
A marketing agency that does both
We’re not just a full-service marketing agency because we offer a comprehensive suite of services; we are the total package because we balance data and creative at every step of the process.
And our team? The best! We don’t hire data nerds and creatives, we hire creative data nerds. Each person is center-brained, so there’s never any conflict between two perspectives—all perspectives are represented all at once, at all times.
Here’s what really sets us apart:
Brand Identity & Strategy
Your brand needs to be stunning, but it also needs to be backed by strategy. Before we design a single logo or social post, we look at what the industry and the reports have to say. Brand drives the “why,” data drives the “what,” and creative drives the “how.”
Creative & Conversions
Your content should stop a user’s scroll dead in its tracks. It also has to encourage a user to engage—because at the end of the marketer’s day, creativity has to lead to action. We conduct high-velocity A/B testing constantly to see which creative output converts.
Content Development & UX
Your audience craves content, and so do the algorithms. If you’re designing for quantity over quality, or listening only to the head and not the heart, you’re not really building relationships. We market to real people and speak to the human experience.
How our approach elevates your brand
As a process-oriented and relationship-driven brand, we do our best every day to take the ego out of marketing. Part of that ethos is leading with a center-brained ideology. We bridge art and analytics to generate true insights that build brand, bends to meet the audience’s needs and stays true to a business’s superpower—its people.
Whether you're launching something new, leveling up your legacy brand or simply ready to stop wasting money on marketing that doesn't move the needle—we’re your people.