Joining it all up
How to stop brand becoming a sacrificial lamb?
When your back is against the wall, the last thing you need is someone moving the ground beneath your feet.
August 2024
Your budget has been slashed. The pressure builds to rein-in brand-building activity and refocus on direct marketing. Here’s why you’d be right to push back.
Brand is an economic moat
Brand is a super power, it opens doors
Keeping your brand activity turned on, keeps your customers tuned in
A strong brand builds confidence, and confidence is contagious.
Let’s pull a name out of a hat.
You’ve got pedigree and limitless funds to raise awareness of your new company, what does it matter what it is called?
August 2024
Your company name is a valuable asset. Not investing time and energy into creating the right name is tantamount to taking a multi-million-pound product, wrapping it in a remnant of last year’s Christmas wrapping paper and sending it to a hot prospect in July in the hope that they (or their PA) share your love of Christmas/recycling/the obscure, and that they don’t have an overly zealous security team who enjoy destroying suspect packages.
You just wouldn’t, would you?
How do you find the right creative partner?
We’ve helped marketing and commercial teams find brand identity, advertising and PR agencies, and sustainability experts.
July 2024
Most small or medium organisations don’t have in-house brand strategists, why would they? Good brands are built to last. Yes they need management but that’s a different skill set.
So when it is time to re-brand or refresh, the natural thing to do is to look externally for an agency to help. But how do you pick the right agency if you’ve not led a re-brand before? Should you even look to just one agency to do it all - strategy, identity, execution? When’s the best time in the process to recruit the different experts? How much should you budget? What’s the smartest and most cost effective approach?
How to avoid going round in ever decreasing circles?
Struggling to build consensus? Happens to us all (unless of course you follow our top tips).
July 2024
The reality is, building consensus takes concerted effort and time. But it is always worth the effort when the alternative is death by a thousand cuts or going round in ever decreasing circles. Here are our top tips to building consensus…
Can you outgrow your brand name?
Your brand name needs to work for you, not against you.
July 2024
Your business has evolved. Your brand name hasn’t. Should it?
Unsurprisingly, the answer is, it depends
How to adapt your brand to a change in strategy?
Your brand is only a couple of years old, when the Board announce they’re changing their business strategy. What do you do?
July 2024
Your brand is only a couple of years old, when the Board announce they’re changing the business strategy. What do you do? Rip up your brand guidelines and start the pitch process all over again. New strategy means new brand. Or does it?
Assuming your business isn’t pivoting to totally unrelated market, your brand doesn’t necessarily need to be thrown out with the proverbial bath water. The right solution might be a less radical but effective brand realignment – or brand stretch, in laywoman’s terms.
What does good look like?
You don’t know what you don’t know, but luckily we do. Three top tips for running a good brand process.
June 2024
You need to know what good looks like to achieve it. If you don’t know, really know, what a good brand is then it is difficult to shoot for the stars, manage the expectations of your Board, secure the right budgets, appoint the right partners and maximise the power of your brand to drive your business forward.
A genuinely good brand is genuinely good for everyone. A good brand helps you deliver your commercial strategy, attracts and retains the people you want to work with, creates clear water between you and your competitors – makes people choose you.
Is data your friend or foe?
We’ve highlighted five things to watch out for, next time you and your team are reviewing brand and marketing performance data
June 2024
Data presents a huge opportunity for business but for many organisations being data-driven is more of a leadership aspiration than a reality. Despite the gap between ambition and capability, there is a growing expectation that data will inform decision-making – which can present a number of problems for brand and marketing teams. Here are 5 things to watch out for.
Strategy
Sharpen your proposition using intelligence, insight and intuition.
Research & insights
Positioning, purpose & values
Architecture & naming
Messaging
Stakeholder engagement
Engagement
Empower and inspire by making the brand meaningful to those that matter most.
Strategic planning
Workshops
Launch events
Staff communications
Training/coaching
Direction
Keep strategy front and centre so your brand is always relevant and distinctive.
Brand reviews
Agency workshops
Pitch management
Implementation planning
Strategic consultancy