“We found ourselves breaking machines to give our clients what they needed,” recalls Jenna Franconi. “There was a strong focus on digital and large-scale content, and we needed a new model to deliver it effectively.”
As the founder and president of Trade School knows all too well, the past decade has been a tumultuous time for marketing. That's to say the least. Jenna has spent the better part of this decade serving as a leader in “large, integrated, his AOR-type” agencies, so he's no stranger to what's going right with the traditional agency model and how times have changed. I now have an intuitive understanding of where I need to move.
Based on that diagnosis, Trade School was born. As its founders state, the company is an agency rooted in “solving modern problems for modern marketing.” This explains the company's embrace of in-house production, influencers, data-driven personalization, and technology that enables content creation at scale.
That vision became a reality in 2020. And now, Jenna continues to emphasize the importance of adaptability and reinvention. Because, as she sees it, the industry is undergoing a new fundamental transformation and needs to respond with entirely new, fresh ideas and imagination. Many of Trade School's early forms have changed to match the pace of change in the industry, “but what remains is the idea of building for what comes next,” she says. says.
“I would argue that the central challenge to be solved now is how to inject humanity into technology,” she told LBB. “Having the ability to create content at scale is one thing, but is your brand tangible and visible through every touchpoint of the customer experience? We value humanity.”
Looking for an example, Genna mentions AI, a hot topic in the industry right now.
Artificial Intelligence and Personalized Craft
It’s easy to see how AI can enhance an agency’s ability to both produce and personalize content at scale. But for Jenna, that doesn't even scratch the surface of the technology's potential.
“Many people are afraid of AI, and we all need to think about how we consider it,” she says. “It's easy to chase in a superficial way, through gimmicks that might generate some headlines. But my sense is that the real value lies in driving, managing, and providing quality assurance for deliverables. It depends on how we develop the human skill sets needed to
Fortunately for the Trade School, there is an intersection between its challenges and the approach the institution has pioneered over the years. Called “adaptive branding,” it’s the idea of going far beyond linear advertising and finding ways to express a brand’s identity in different ways. Eschewing the idea that a 30-second TV ad is the only platform that can tell a brand's own story, Jenna and the team at Trade School transformed a brand's values and personality into a more inclusive and inclusive brand. I found a way to express it in form. experience.
“I think our industry has been telling itself a story that is too safe for too long,” she says. “The idea is that if you can change people's minds with advertising, you can create lifelong value for your customers. But this has little to do with how humans actually connect with and think about brands.” , or nothing at all.”
So it's time to rethink how brands demonstrate their value in today's society, Jenna argues. “Well, that might mean highly technical, cinematic advertising that tells a traditional kind of story,” she says. “But we also need to find ways to connect with the young mother who wakes up at 4 a.m. to take care of her child and just realized she needs more diapers. The brands that can successfully solve her needs are the ones with the high-volume brands. It will create love.”
And it is in more dynamic moments that Genna feels AI can have the most powerful impact. After all, the advent of smartphones has radically diversified the everyday moments in which we interact with brands.And its scale and The quality of the content needs to be increased accordingly.
“Don't get me wrong, brand loyalty still exists,” says Jenna. “But the way we build it in 2024 will be very different than before and will require a more comprehensive customer experience.”
Connect through humanity
While Jenna's outlook may sound ambitious, it's not an afterthought for the trade school founder. The idea of creating connections through human storytelling is something the company has been developing for years, and can be seen in its work with major clients like The Home Depot and FedEx.
In the case of The Home Depot, Genna mentions How To Undo, an inventive campaign that began as an effort to upend YouTube's popular “how-to” tutorial scene. “If you search online, you can find how-to videos for almost anything,” she says. “But when you make a mistake in a DIY project, it's nearly impossible to learn how to undo your mistakes. That's where we saw an opportunity.”
Collaboration with influencer Mike Montgomery (aka) Modern build for Instagram), this idea eventually blossomed into a full YouTube series of thoughtful, funny, and genuinely useful videos of branded content, totaling 23 episodes and over an hour of viewing time. And everything was conceived, produced and edited in-house through Trade School's general production department.
For FedEx, the agency wanted to shine a spotlight on how essential the brand is to revitalizing small businesses across the country. “Every FedEx small business partner has a story — a story of grit and sacrifice,” says Jenna. “We created a content series that tells these stories and focuses on the defining attributes that make small business owners special.”
respect the hustle This is another example of Trade School focusing on the human element of a brand's appeal and building a story from there. The magic of this approach is that it becomes a recipe for instant relevance, making the brand tangible not in the context of marketing trends, but in the lives of all of us. We all make mistakes when it comes to DIY projects, and we're all about helping small businesses succeed. Trade School's magic trick is to take these universal themes, put the brand at the center of it, and extend that idea across audiences and platforms in a unique way.
Now, the company's challenge is to find a way to perform the same trick in what is known as the post-AI era. At the end of the interview, LBB asked her Genna what next year will hold for Trade School. “We're all going to have a skin in the knees dealing with AI,” she predicts. “It's going to be a learning process, and no one can confidently say they're an expert on how to get through it.”
But Trade School's journey thus far at least provides a blueprint. “For some of us, this is not the first time we have encountered the digital revolution,” she concludes. “My hope is that we can learn from the first challenge and take responsibility for solving it in a more thoughtful and humane way than before.”
