Imagining the Future: How Creativity Powers B2B Strategy at The Frameworks

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James, welcome to the show. I’m so pleased to have you on today.

Thank you for having me. To get us started, tell us about Frameworks and your role and responsibilities there.

Yeah, sure. So I’m James Strohman. I’m partner and general manager at Frameworks. So I’ve been working with B2B companies, sort of imagining and delivering their brand and marketing strategies for, well, it’s just over 20 years now. So yeah, it’s been a while. The Frameworks itself, we are a specialist B2B marketing agency. And from this year, we’re actually proudly employee-owned as well. So and the Frameworks was founded about 35 years ago. We’re based in the UK and the US, but we work with companies all over the world. So providing brand strategy, business strategy, campaign, and content strategy and activation.

Well, before we get too deep into it, I’d be remiss if I didn’t congratulate you and the Frameworks team on your recent six wins at the Telly Awards.

Well, that’s very kind of you. Yeah, we’ve had a good start to the year actually from an awards perspective. So not only the Telly Awards, we were double platinum winners at the Hermes Creative Awards and a gold Muse Creative Award as well. So it’s great to be able to celebrate those successes with not only the team here, but our clients as well.

Excellent. Yeah, I mean, if that’s not a record, I don’t know what is. I’m not sure anybody knows what the record is, but for the purposes of this conversation, that’s the new record.

B2B marketing is an interesting space to me just because we don’t often have guests on the show that are operating and creating in that space. Tell us what sort of challenges does that present that maybe a B2C agency wouldn’t necessarily see?

So two parts. One is, you know, a lot of the B2B organizations that we work with, the likes of IBM, for example, they operate in quite a complex space, communicating sort of complex products and offerings across a wide variety of audiences. And I think that’s where we excel in understanding that complexity and effectively communicating in a very clear, engaging, and impactful way the impacts of what B2B companies do and how they can support their clients.

The second part of that is really trying to think about how we humanize the stories that we tell. It’s incredibly surprising, a lot of the conversations we have where our B2B clients are very much focusing on the speeds and feeds, the product information, but actually not really thinking about the human impact that they have. And I think, again, that’s one of the things that we focus in on is trying to talk about the humanity, the impact, the ripple effect that their products and services have from a B2B perspective. I think those are the key things that we hone in on and focus on for our B2B clients.

What role would you say does imagination play in the day-to-day business with y’all at the Frameworks?

Imagination and creativity, I think the two words are really interesting. So, you know, we see sort of creativity as an output, a result of imagination. The way we see imagination is sort of the engine, the process, and ultimately then creativity is the expression of what that process produces. So where we’re speaking with clients and trying to explore with clients is really helping them to envisage possibilities. And it actually boils down to one sort of question that we use when we’re working with clients is around, you know, what if scenarios. So helping them to brainstorm things that don’t already yet exist. And then from there, actually, creativity is how those ideas that are imagined are actually brought to life. So in a business context, imagination sort of gives direction and purpose to creativity. It’s not just creativity for the sake of it. It’s actually built on something that’s meaningful, that’s strategically aligned. So if you look at imagination and creativity, you can think of imagination as the why and what could be. And creativity as the how it comes to life. And what we’re keen to do and work with our clientsis to support them in the process of really being imaginative organizations. I love that you make the distinction between the two because in our industry, as you probably well know, we’re constantly talking about creatives. And I’ve always sort of internally found that a little bit amusing because what you’re really saying is you have a lot of people making things, which, well, of course you do. You’re not really telling me anything. But was it imaginative? Was it great? Was it even good? It’s a whole separate question entirely.

Is that something that has been sort of a framework, for lack of a better word, mantra this whole time? Or is it fairly recent? I would say it’s fairly recent. I think we’re, like I say, we’re 35 years old. I think we’ve developed as an organization. As we become more strategic in how we approach our work, then what we’re doing there is stepping back and thinking about the possibilities of creativity and thinking about the possibilities of how our clients can not only reimagine how they communicate to the world, but actually now even more so, probably over the last couple of years, is actually thinking about how clients can reimagine their business, their model. How do they go out to the world?

And I think how we’ve developed, especially in the last couple of years, is just going up that chain into branding and content strategy, but then into business strategy and thinking not only from a branding communications perspective, from a business point of view. And I think that’s where agencies like ourselves and creative agencies and design and brand agencies actually can provide a lot more input for businesses around business strategy. It’s not just, it shouldn’t just be the role of a specific business strategy agency. I think there’s a real role for creative agencies like ourselves to help businesses reimagine what their future looks like.

And when you’re speaking with clients, new or old, what would you say are the key ingredients for using imagination within your work with them? So one of the things that, you know, imagination as a term is sort of, it’s great, but it’s also difficult to truly understand what that means. And I think one of the things that we were doing is sort of brainstorming around, you know, what are the holistic behaviors and processes that can help a business or a business be imaginative? It’s not just a case of you’re imaginative. What actually does that take? And we sort of defined sort of four behaviors and processes that holistically work together to help a business be imaginative. Now, we can support a business to an extent, but actually it needs to have those processes and behaviors in place to be an imaginative organization.

The first one is collaboration. So imagination is just not a solitary activity. It’s about bringing people together across an organization. It’s about considering the challenge or the opportunity. It’s about sharing ideas and sparking new ones.

The second one is about failing fast, looking to the future. So as I mentioned, imagination is fundamentally about sort of thinking about different possibilities, exploring scenarios that don’t actually exist. So it requires an openness to new ideas, but it also requires an appetite for risk, but not to carry on with something that if it’s risky, then the ability to pivot and to change quickly.

The third one, sort of again, these all work together, is letting ideas come from anywhere. So it’s not just about imagination coming from leaders at the top of the organization. It’s about everyone or many people across the organization exposing and bringing forth new ideas, alternative ways of thinking about the world. We all have life experiences. We all come from different places. We all have different areas of expertise. And true imagination comes from the combination, that diversity of thinking.

And then finally, to make all of that work, it’s important for businesses to invest in creativity. So when you’re thinking about investing, it’s about allowing for time. It’s allowing for budget. It’s allowing for attention. It’s also sort of people communicating the importance of imagination. So those are thefour sort of behaviors and processes that we identified. All those make sense. The one I’m actually most curious about is the final one, the investment part of it. When you’re working with partners, and this is kind of a two-part question. Number one, how resistant are they to investing in imagination and creativity? And secondly, what could they expect to get back when they put value and resource into both?

Yeah, so three of the key challenges that we’ve seen or identified, or both from the research that we’ve been doing, but also our own experiences. I think the three of them is, I talked about risk. You know, organizations, many organizations can be quite risk averse. So, you know, they sort of build a culture of conformity. So, you know, stick to familiar methods instead of exploring bold, imaginative ideas. So risk aversion is one to get over.

And I think, you know, when we talk about collaboration as part of one of those four, actually, that’s help, and also the diversity of ideas, that is an antidote to risk because you’re involving more people. You’re exploring, you’re testing, you’re getting inputs. So that’s really important.

I think process, especially in larger organizations, so there can be quite rigid structures, siloed systems. So actually thinking about the process. And also when you, you know, in many organizations, there’s a real focus on making decisions now in the moment. And sometimes that has an impact on being able to step back and actually being imaginative about what the future is.

And then thirdly, one of the most important ones really is leadership support. So, you know, if that’s not championed and actively championing imagination and experimentation, it is difficult for teams to, I suppose, challenge the status quo, to come up with visionary ideas, to test things. So, you know, those are sort of the three challenges:

 

 

Risk aversion.

 

Process paralysis.

 

Lack of leadership support.

And when it comes to the benefits that they could potentially reap from unlocking all of those, what do you see there or what should they see there?

Yeah, so, you know, based on the research that we did, you know, the value of being imaginative is starting to be recognized. Businesses do need to commit to embedding it across their culture. So businesses that sort of out of the research that classed as highly imaginative, you know, very willing to take risks, place significant emphasis on potential future scenarios, making people feel comfortable, you know, do better across a range of measures.

So:

 

 

58% grew considerably in revenue.

 

63% are performing significantly better than their peers.

 

76% see their business as more resilient to changes and dynamics.

 

84% are very confident they can seize new opportunities.

Now, those are sort of the stats from a success, but there’s also other things about imagination and the connection between the purpose of an organization and actually the, also the happiness and delight of people to give them the ability to imagine new ideas. And I think there’s a real importance in that skill and that activity for employees within an organization.

So if I’m a business leader, which I’m not, but let’s hypothetically say I am just for the purposes of this conversation. If you wanted to provide me with some insights or, you know, let’s call them tips to get me on board with the imaginative process so that I could reap those rewards, what would those insights or tips be?

So just thinking about those four behaviors, there’s a range of things that leaders can look to do. I think, and also within the report, we talked to some leaders about what they’re doing within their organization. So some tips:

 

 

Running regular cross-functional workshops, so workshops that include different people from different parts of the organization and have a future focus on that. And that doesn’t need to be about reinventing the industry with which they operate, but it can be quite discreet sort of focuses around products or services or solutions, whatever they’re doing, but have those cross-functional workshops with that future focus.

 

Pilot small scale experimentsto foster a culture of testing and learning. So out of that could become something to test and experiment and see how that develops. Allocating dedicated time for creative thinking, stepping away from routine tasks. And sometimes that’s actually taking people out of their current physical space or situation, doing it separately. And we do that quite a lot with clients, and that’s important. So it’s a step away from their regular tasks and allow them that creative thinking time.

 

Empowering all levels of employees to contribute ideas and also thinking about how they contribute ideas. So, you know, utilizing like yes and techniques and making people feel safe in terms of coming up with ideas. No idea is a bad idea. Let’s build on that idea. So always that yes and.

And then, you know, we haven’t talked about AI, but I think there’s a real opportunity for AI to amplify and support that imaginative things. And therefore, you know, encourage employees to utilize AI to explore and explore new ways to use it in relation to imagining new ideas.

That’s a great segue. My next question was actually around AI. I was going to ask you, are you using AI at the frameworks now? And if so, in what sort of applications? So, yes, we are using AI. And, you know, with our heritage, we’re working with IBM and many other sort of technology organizations. We’ve been exposed to AI and the development of AI for many years. And obviously in the past sort of couple of, you know, year or so, or possibly even even less. You know, there’s been quite a, you know, increase in hype there. And rightly so.

From our perspective, we use it sort of twofold really:

 

 

Firstly, it’s to support the work that we’re doing. So whether that’s helping us come up with ideas and to support our own ideation, whether that’s actually from a creation perspective as well. So from an image generation, one of our clients that we that we work with creates AI generated voiceover as well, actually built from real voice, human voiceovers. So we’re very close in supporting them. So using it as a tool to support our own ideation, but also production in some instances.

 

The second part is actually creating AI tools for our clients. And an example of that is a tool that we created for a client of ours called USC, who are promoting their own services, their digital transformation organization, promoting their own services around AI. So what we did is create a tool that allows organizations, allows people to connect their own LinkedIn profile. And based on that, the tool asks questions and then comes back with information based on the things that they should be considering in terms of how AI can support their industry, their role. And then that segues into how actually the USC services can support that. So previously we’ve created those tools, those assessment tools. They’ve been very linear. There’s only so much you can do. But now what AI can allow you to do is be very personalized, be very specific in terms of how our client services can support you in a particular role, in a particular industry, in a particular geography with particular challenges. So there’s twofold really. It’s supporting the creation of content, but also creating AI solutions for our clients.

That’s super interesting. For my last question, I like to do sort of a crystal ball. Looking ahead, say over the course of, bearing in mind the industry moves incredibly quickly, far quicker than I can keep up with. Looking ahead the next year, what do you see as the potential challenges and perhaps even the potential opportunities that the larger industry might face and including yourselves at the frameworks? Well, you know, we talk here in terms of, you know, looking at supporting businesses and the businesses thatwe support. But we have to obviously look inwardly as well at our organization. You know, we’re facing the same challenge. We’re facing the same challenges that our clients are facing: the unpredictable nature of technology, environmental impacts, geopolitical, economic impacts. So we all as businesses need to thrive and need to respond to those challenges.

And I think where imagination comes in is actually thinking about what those possibilities are, where you can support your clients better and imagining what that future is. So I think for our organization, I think we’ll continue to develop. We’ll continue to imagine what next, where we can support our clients.

We talked about where we’re doing more from a business strategy perspective now from an AI production point of view, but that’s going to change even further. We’re speaking to clients, the impact of AI on their own corporate websites. So actually thinking about the traditional, so to speak, work that we were doing, how is that going to change? How does that need to respond? How are those experiences going to need to change?

And in order to respond to that, as we talked about today, we need to not rely on the past, not rely on the data that we might already hold. We need to imagine what that future looks like. And then we need to take that risk, see if it works and respond quickly.

And I think more and more, our organization, our industry is going to need to do that to remain relevant.

Well, James, this has been fantastic. If one wanted to find out more about yourself and the frameworks, where should they go?

So, yep, you can come and see what we do and who we do it for at www.theframeworks.com.

Excellent. Well, thanks so much for taking part in this. It’s been a pleasure.

Great. Thank you, Richard.