More digital platforms
DH added media platforms to our repertoire in 2024. Twitch is a live streaming platform that’s helped us reach young males and other hard-to-reach groups in statewide campaigns. Reddit runs as a massive discussion forum that helps us tap into niche communities. We’ve also integrated Disney+ and Amazon Prime into clients’ campaigns — making more connections with engaged audiences in real time.
Transcreation
Great marketing builds emotional connections, which vary across communities and cultures. Transcreation is the process of adapting content from one language or culture to another, while preserving the message. To that end, we often collaborate with members of communities we want to reach. And in 2024, DH added a multicultural specialist role to our team. Denys Lopez helps ensure content reflects communities’ values and customs in campaigns like the Washington State Health Care Authority’s Friends for Life.
Digital asynchronous research
“Digital asynchronous research” is one way to collect information online that we embraced in 2024. Digital platforms like message boards and surveys allow audiences to share thoughts at their own pace, providing clients with more in-depth, diverse responses.
This approach will help us better understand how patients manage their prescriptions as we develop opioid-misuse campaign materials for the Washington State Hospital Association.
Understanding financial trauma
In 2024, we got inspired about trauma-informed financial services — which help financial organizations (and their communications partners) build trust and better serve business owners facing financial challenges linked to trauma. Native communities, for example, live with the fallout after governments and others stripped their resources. Our work with Community Development Financial Institutions starts by listening to folks in communities (see the BCO Fund). We look forward to bringing a more trauma-informed approach to the conversations.
New recruiting
When our team brings different lived experiences to the job, DH clients get more engaging, empathetic and effective work. That’s why we intentionally nurture talented people from underrepresented communities in our apprenticeship program. In 2024, we focused on reaching future job candidates in nontraditional ways. One example: We built relationships with community-based organizations to ensure our job postings reach a wider and more diverse audience. It’s a tactic we often use on clients’ behalf — now we’re using it to strengthen our own agency, too.
Environmental branding
We’re thinking big picture when it comes to brands, finding more opportunities to show our clients’ identity and values in their physical spaces.
By incorporating branding in workplaces and public spaces, we helped clients tell their stories and create engaging and cohesive environments.
Behavior chains
To make campaigns that change behaviors, we have to know what holds people back. Behavior chains are models that help identify those barriers. In 2024, we invited clients into our model-making process, including the Washington State Conservation Commission and its partners. For a campaign to promote healthier lands along waterways, they told us many owners feel unmotivated to improve their land when the benefits can take years to see, for example. So educating people on those benefits, including in the short term, could pay off big.
Midjourney
Storyboards are meant to show clients and focus groups what a video “would” look like. But, typically as a series of sketches meant to show scenes and action, they can be hard to follow. In 2024, we used Midjourney, an AI tool, to create custom, photorealistic imagery and edited these images into rough video drafts. We can move faster and provide a clearer vision of the final product, so clients can focus on evaluating the concept rather than interpreting it — and we all face fewer revisions later.
Influencer interviews
We took notes during campaign season as political candidates leaned into chats with influential social- and community-media personalities — reaching diverse audiences with more genuine conversations. Along with community media, influencer media offers a chance to dig into specific issues that audiences care about. In 2025, we look forward to exploring strategic influencer- and community-media partnerships to help clients reach diverse audiences on a deeper level.
ChatGPT
Brainstorming sessions bring up new ideas and help get us unstuck. In 2024, we gained a teammate who’s always around: ChatGPT. Whether we need someone to bounce ideas around with, help organize our thoughts or generate questions we’ll need to answer, this language model is quick to offer help that keeps us moving.
opt-in data
In 2024, DH prioritized opt-in data in our digital media buys for clients, a more ethical option than other methods of data collection. This is information people intentionally share with companies and organizations by signing up for emails or filling out a form, for example.
Using this more precise, secure data helps our clients build trust and comply with data privacy regulations. They reach their audiences while reinforcing their brands’ integrity — and reducing wasted effort.