I’ve recently been doing some B2B research, I looked at 34 large corporate entities. They were all a certain size, with average revenues in the $3bn mark, a global footprint and more than 1,000 employees. So, they’re not mom and pop shops.
At Good, we’re of the view that if clients want to spend money on brand, then they should have a right to know what it’s likely to do for them.
The UK government recently announced that there’s legislation pending on the thorny topic of sustainability.
The last 2 years have been mad. We’re all doing things differently and business has never been as strange. One thing we’ve noticed in our consulting is that some clients reviewing their brand values in house. And I get why.
I think that content v branding is like David v Goliath. Branding gets all the headline billing and razzmatazz, but content is ruthlessly efficient in getting the job done.
In our time as a brand firm, we’ve done our fair share of work in the whisky sector. And the one thing that has been consistent across it has been that all the brands seem to be saying more or less the same thing.
Every month we get, on average three new business inquiries through the website. What’s interesting is how these inquiries vary in terms of approach. Some are highly professional, others… well, leave some things to be desired.
When you take on a brand project with a global business, the thorny issue about how to deal with the various regions and the language translations is always there, sitting just below the surface.
Post pandemic, it feels like the sustainability trend is going to dominate. For a tired old brand cynic, it’s the next cab off the rank for brands to fetishise now that AR, QR codes and social media seem to have normalised.
There’s a formula for brand success and it’s really no different from that tried-and-true recipe you always go back to. When it comes to brand, we know what works – simplicity, quality and consistency – and it’s what’s worked for a very long time.
The world of branding is notorious for making changes to brands all the time. It's as if we need to keep changing to attract attention, when in actual fact, it's the opposite that's true. The more brands stay the same, the more recognisable they become.
We’re delighted to announce the launch of our first product from Good, the Clarity Report. We’ve been working on creating these reports for about eight months now, so it’s a relief to get it out in the world.
From a business perspective, the pandemic’s been shit. It’s forced lots of businesses to close, increased layoffs and generated tons of debt. At Good we were not spared. We stared into the abyss along with everyone else and wondered…will we make it out?
There’s loads written on tone of voice and it’s an important component of a successful brand. I want to go a bit further and say that language is about more than just TOV, it can work harder for brands.
I’ve been thinking a wee bit about what happens to brand in this digital world, and one of my conclusions is that it’s being overpowered, and we’re now “branding by algorithm”.
One industry I think is particularly behind the curve in the brand space is recruitment. They misunderstand the value of ‘brand’ and the disproportionately important role it plays in customer interaction which happens primarily in the digital sphere.
I like the term ‘leaking value’ when it’s attached to brand. For me, it perfectly encapsulates the idea of what happens to organisations when they have a brand problem that’s hidden from view.
For us, I suppose the reality is that it’s somewhere in between.
There’s not necessarily a right or wrong answer here. But in my opinion, the fewer, the better
This is going to sound controversial, but many of the written briefs we receive are crap and aren’t worth it.
Brand architecture challenges are the branding equivalent of pulled muscles. They cause pain and frustration, but they don’t create enough of a problem to take you entirely offline to focus on the fix.
I've got an old school pal who has a cracking family business. It's the oldest craft bakery in Scotland and has been in his family for 190 years. (No pressure there then).
One of our worst habits as a business is trying to make things brilliant, when they only need to be good.
Let’s talk about paranoia in branding. It’s something I’ve noticed a lot over the years - mostly with clients overestimating how much equity there is in their brand.