Hi friend – Rob here.

Integration is like teenage s*x: everyone talks about it, but how many actually do it?

So let's talk about some basics of how to do integration, minus the insanity of it all.

If you cringe at "do some cutdowns for social" or "we'll PR the ad", this is for you.

Let's get into it.

🚨 Problem:

Integration is an exercise in architecture that's treated as a change in wallpaper.

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💡 Solution:

Determine what's fundamental, fixed and flexible across the entire media mix.

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🧭 Execution:

Let's look at each of those parts.

What's fundamental?

The fundamental stuff is anything the brand wants to keep reinforcing long-term.

It's the glue that holds integration together, without which things don't make sense.

They're the things that should be recognisable as being from that brand, not another.

Let's take Headspace as an example.

"Meditation made simple" is a fundamental brand ethos for everything they do.

And no matter how they do it, that bit hasn't changed for years – and it likely won't.

What's fixed?

The fixed stuff is what we want to land through medium-term interventions.

The fundamentals reinforce the brand, the fixed parts reinforce a campaign.

Let's take Liquid Death as an example.

"Murder your thirst" is a fundamental, long-term brand line.

"Greatest Hates" is a fixed, medium-term campaign idea.

Which leaves us with the last bit...

What's flexible?

Kantar talks about "fresh consistency".

The flexible parts are what they mean by "fresh".

It's the executional stuff, that you want to keep creative, contemporary, compelling.

Let's take McDonald's as an example.

"I'm loving it" is a fundamental brand line.

"Celebrity meals" is a fixed campaign idea.

"Collab with BTS" is a flexible execution of it.

Bringing it all together.

The reason this matters: you can now apply this level of thinking across media too.

And you can make it as strategic or tactical as you'd like, or need.

Let's take a final example of a campaign i worked on for O2 and Love Island.

• Fundamental: landing O2's roaming proposition with Love Island fans
• Fixed: the "Roam On" toggle which was consistent with the core campaign​
• Flexible: creating a physical toggle that islanders could use to answer questions

Approaching it this way allowed us to know what to do about questions like:

• When should we be explicit about the roaming message, vs implicit?
• When should we say we're official network sponsors, vs show it with talent?
• What types of brand elements do we prioritise in short dwell formats?

You get the point.

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📝 In summary:

When thinking about integration, always ask yourself:

1. What's fundamental? (Strategic level)
2. What's fixed? (Creative level)
3. What's flexible? (Channel level)

You'll have a bit less wallpaper, and a bit more architecture.

Purty.