I remember when I was 9 years old and contemplating the idea of turning 10 the following year. Double digit was a big thing back then for me but it’s not so much of a big thing anymore… Anyway, I really felt like I would soon become a real man.

Well, Xclamation Marketing turned 9 on March 12^th of this year. Far from me is the idea of drawing parallels between my manly worldview of the time and our agency. It’s true that experts say testosterone levels tend to grow exponentially in a boy’s body around his 10^th year but we certainly propel ourselves with a different fuel at Xclamation.  The fuel we use was extracted from the variety of work we’ve done and the values we now share as a team. It was also greatly influenced by the privilege of having interactions with our client’s audiences throughout the years.

So I must say that in recent months, we’ve gone into “soul searching” mode.  Challenging, questioning, reassessing.  By experience, I can now assure you that when you start engaging in an authentic “soul searching” exercise with your team, as a leader you not only have to be ready to listen. You also have to check your set of beliefs at the door, be willing to embrace new ones and act upon them.

We first established that we love to “wow” people. As a matter of fact, we earned a few stripes with our “wow” concepts since we started, so we made sure brilliance remained at the core of everything we do. Almost simultaneously we found out that we despise entitlement but we are all in complete alignment when it comes to accountability. Why not put that at the basis of our performance based model?  Going deeper in the exercise we searched for our common motivational trigger. Why are we in this together? Where is the juice? What is the juice? Turned out, significance is the juice and it immediately started blinking before our very eyes in bright colors.

The latter quickly lead us to develop internal programs, work with clients and partners on initiatives that are completely aligned with what we stand for. Such internal programs include giving away 1% of our billings towards local and international charities supporting the environment and general well being.  The team has also put in place a plan called the Xclamation Days. Those are days where we all collaborate to create and participate in a fundraising event for one of our preferred charities.  We recently held our first Xclamation Day, a spinothon, for the benefit of the LiveStrong Foundation. It was lots of fun!  Another initiative that we are very proud of is Aquanomy, a water conservation program. We also highlight other mandates of significance on our site, go check them out.

So are we wise beyond our years at Xclamation? I don’t think so because we still do a lot of silly things. I’m the best guy to judge being the Chief Silly Officer… However, I can strongly affirm that we have grown to get to a very different place these last nine years. A place driven by our beliefs. A place where brilliance meets performance and significance.  And today we are proudly unveiling it. Welcome to Significance Marketing.