Have you ever cried at a TV commercial, out of laughter or sadness? I have. That is marketing: the ability of a message to connect with the consumer.

Marketing is a multifaceted world that extends far beyond creative expertise.

Before I started at Brand 21, I believed marketing was rooted in creative. You come up with an idea, design it, put it into the marketplace, and voilà! Onto the next print ad, logo, or splash page. Imagine my surprise when I arrived and was greeted by an influx of strategy and process long before pen hit the paper.

Where was the art director wearing a Hawaiian t-shirt ready to design an edgy new logo for Red Bull?

That was how marketing worked, right? Wrong. Upon my debut at Brand 21 I embodied Anne Hathaway’s character in The Devil Wears Prada. Thrown into a foreign industry with an ill-conceived notion, but low and behold within a month fully submerged in the details (and loving it).

I learned the beauty of the discovery and now understand that the actual root of marketing is in the foundational research. What makes marketing successful is not just a creative idea.

It is a balance between the development of a brand’s core message and the creative execution of that message into the marketplace.

Marketing is everywhere, at every touch point. Even so, many people know little about the actual strategy that makes it such an art. The truth, 95% more work goes into it than meets the eye.

The most successful ones make it look effortless.

In the past three months I’ve boiled it down to this: marketing is the strategic communication of a brand’s essence to the consumer, designed to leave a lasting impact, one that keeps them coming back for more.