Sharon McLoone's great article about us (free but registration required) in the Washington Post last week was right on target on just about everything.  It was a great experience and she was able to draw out a lot of what makes us who we are in just a limited number of column inches. 

We did scramble to file two corrections shortly after publication that I'd like to make public so folks don't get the wrong idea. 

First, Katie McIntyre - our recently promoted, recently graduated with a Masters in Linguistics from Georgetown University - Director of Creative Services was listed as "Senior Project Manager" (her previous title.) I can't blame the press for not keeping up, really. Her responsibility seems to grow daily. I'm thinking her next title is going to be "Force of Nature."

Second, as thrilling as it might sound, we do not have a 150 step branding process. We do have an analytical tool we developed that has 150 data points that we use to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of brand elements for our most involved projects.  (Our standard evaluation depth is about 50 points and our basic has 20.)  Any company that is able to both develop and successfully market a brand development process with 150 steps has people smarter than me working for it. I can't imagine how someone could promote something like that...

"Your brand made easy as 1-2-3. Fifty times."

I've honestly never bothered to count the actual number of steps in our branding process because we haven't ever used exactly the same process to develop any two brands. We have a philosophy upon which everything we do is based, and a series of phases that enable us to bring teams on and off the project as it rolls through the creative process from strategy to verbal to visual to production. The individual steps change based on how quickly we establish the core strategic identity, the direction it takes when we discover it, the design elements we deliver, the ad campaigns requested, etc. While there might not be infinite iterations, it's higher than I'd like to count. (But to be fair I don't like to count very high. Stay in school kids)

So, to sum up. Wonderful article. Great experience. Katie's a director. And 150 steps is too many even for us.