Zion & Zion Integration Process

In our industry, pretty much every “full-service” agency claims to be an “integrated ad agency” or an “integrated marketing agency.” You’ll notice that I put the aforementioned terms in quotes. And, if you detected a little sarcasm, then you’re perceptive and get a gold star. Maybe even two. The reality is that “full-service” and “integrated” are dramatically different things. A company with lots of “divisions” can be full-service because they have multiple “divisions” providing multiple services. But therein lies the rub. Much of the key to the rift between being full-service and being integrated comes from that single word “divisions.” Division with respect to functions, division with respect to skills, division with respect to career growth, and division with respect to P&L. Divisions compete. Divisions war over client budgets. Divisions inherently don’t understand each other. And divisions limit the ability of an agency to develop highly collaborative, cross-functionally aware, T-shaped people.

So, instead of just talking about full-service vs. integrated, how about an example illustrating that we practice what we preach—namely integration.

Here at Zion & Zion, when it comes to integration and collaboration, we really walk the talk. Not just for our clients, but for ourselves as well. So, what do we mean by “integration?” Thanks for asking. We’ll show you.

Zion & Zion Graphic Designer Scott Biersack set out to hand-letter the 200 sq ft chalkboard in our agency’s Café. And while he did, Social Media Account Executive Ashley Oakes Scott and Video Editor Pat Birks filmed it. Then edited down the hours of footage into one concise video to share with everyone.

Behind the scenes, Senior SEO Analyst Ben Holland worked to optimize the video for search engines and once complete gave the Social Media team the go ahead to start sharing.

The chalkboard inspired Zion & Zion Senior VP of Strategic Services Peter Juergens to write a blog post about “Where Business Meets Creative” our agency’s mantra, touching on T-Shaped vs. I-Shaped individuals – what’s that? Hang on, you’ll find out.

Ben recommended that since Peter’s blog post was going to need a hyperlinked reference to a resource explaining T-shaped vs. I-shaped people, instead of linking to Wikipedia, we knew enough about the topic to be our own citable source.

So Aric, our CEO, whipped up a 667 word (yeah, we counted. With SEO, ya gotta) blog post on T-shaped vs. I-shaped people (Wikipedia, eat your heart out).

The gist of which is shown here.I shaped people are functional experts. But T-shaped people have the vertical stroke that represent skills and awareness that make them cross-functional and awesome team players and collaborators. The I’s may have it elsewhere, but you’ll only find T’s at Zion & Zion. Oh yeah, where’d the infographic come from? Well that was Zion & Zion Content Developer Kristi Bielewicz’s idea and Art Director Kenna Watters’ artistic creation.

That’s integration.

That’s Zion & Zion.