Given how fast we consume digital content today, staying relevant can sometimes be a race against time. This urges brands to rely on agile strategies to adapt quickly and capture fleeting attention spans.
DesignRush talked with DA Creative founder Daniel Azarian, who explained how the company keeps its branding strategies super adaptable.
He also revealed other strategies for brand success, including how a partnership with Wix helped them reach clients like Sony Music and Netflix.
Who Is Daniel Azarian?
Daniel is the founder of DA Creative, a creative agency specializing in branding, web design, and video production. Daniel has directed award-winning campaigns for clients like Netflix, QVC, The Drew Barrymore Show, and 3M, along with other successful projects like the acclaimed documentary "A Day in the Life of Lolita, the Performing Orca."
Since 2015, DA Creative has been a Wix Agency Partner, and in 2023, it was honored to be featured as a proud Wix Agency Partner and ring the Nasdaq opening bell.
In light of this, I asked Daniel how this long-term partnership and recognition have influenced the agency's growth and client relationships.
He points out that this collaboration has been the cornerstone of their success and growth and has boosted their technical capabilities, allowing them to deliver top-notch services tailored to their clients’ needs.
Originally, DA Creative was a video production and creative agency. After embracing Wix's no-code platform for its designer-friendly tools, it expanded its services into web design smoothly using its creative skills without forming a large development team, he explains.
“The recognition we received at the Nasdaq ceremony was a massive and proud moment for DA Creative. Being featured during Wix's 10th anniversary as a public company and having the privilege to ring the stock market opening bell alongside Wix CEO Avishai Abrahami showed our commitment to excellence and innovation in web design.”
Per Daniel, the partnership with Wix has fueled numerous successful projects, enhancing their work with clients like Sony Music and Netflix and enabling them to exceed creative boundaries and surpass client expectations.
Watch our video to discover new, long-term opportunities for your web development business with Wix.
He explains DA Creative redesigned The Accidentals' website for their new album, "Odyssey," after they signed with Sony Masterworks.
With an anticipated larger audience, the site needed to be visually appealing and align with the album's theme. "Odyssey," symbolizing growth and adventure, was represented through the beach and abandoned building photos of the band and constellation artwork from the album.
The design incorporated these elements, adding illustrations of birds and navigation tools to enhance the theme. The result was a cohesive, immersive website that resonated with The Accidentals' growing audience and reflected their artistic journey.
Understanding Clients' Perspective Is Paramount
As a creative agency, DA Creative is dedicated to helping brands express their identity. Given this, Daniel shares the two key steps the company takes to identify the unique strengths of a brand:
- Diving into the brand's current public presentation: This step includes thoroughly reviewing its website, articles about it, key player bios, examples of its work, and other public information.
- Formulating targeted questions: This step helps understand the brand’s current status and future goals. The questions focus on the brand’s value proposition, audience, benefits, and what makes it unique.
Daniel highlights that directly communicating with company leadership is essential as it helps capture the brand’s perspectives accurately and prevents assumptions from leading to oversights.
“We are hired as the experts, but it’s important to remember that our primary goal is to please the client. Yes, we bring our expertise to the table, but understanding the client's perspective is paramount. It's about getting to know them well.
Often, a brand comes to us for guidance without knowing exactly what they want. By asking revealing questions, it usually becomes clear they already knew what they wanted; it just needed to be brought to the forefront,” he adds.
Craft a Personalized Plan for Every Client
Having delved into the thoughtful process DA Creative uses to discover a brand's unique identity, Daniel shares how these insights are translated into action, focusing on the factors considered when creating a personalized plan for clients in an omnichannel world:
- Channel specifics: Deep understanding of each platform's strengths and challenges to ensure effective branding.
- Flexibility: Adapting the core brand identity to suit different channels, creating variations that resonate with each audience.
- Pace of consumption: Updating branding strategies to remain effective amidst the rapidly increasing speed at which content is consumed.
“The pace at which everyone consumes content has increased tenfold. People zip through content so fast now, much quicker than they did five years ago. This shift means we need to keep our branding strategies super adaptable.
It’s all about finding the balance between changing things up and keeping them consistent. We’re here to ensure that even as trends come and go, our clients’ brands stay connected and engaging across all touchpoints,” he adds.
Daniel explains how DA Creative ensures consistent brand communication across all channels:
- Brand guidelines: They start by defining the brand's core characteristics and establishing flexible guidelines for tone, style, and visuals.
- Adaptability: In a fast-paced environment, their guidelines are designed to guide rather than restrict, allowing for creativity and spontaneity.
- Ongoing partnership: DA Creative maintains close, long-term relationships with clients, actively contributing to continuous development and updates to keep the brand evolving and relevant.
