Our Brand Thinking

Articles by Stewart Steel

Article | 18th Mar 2026

Why your B2B brand isn't generating leads

Pipeline's stalled. Marketing is generating traffic but not enquiries. Sales says the leads coming through aren't the right fit. Everyone is looking at the wrong thing.

Article | 4th Feb 2026

When Does a B2B Company Actually Need to Rebrand?

The word 'rebrand' gets thrown around a lot. A new logo here, a colour refresh there, and suddenly it's a rebrand. But for B2B companies, a true rebrand is a significant strategic decision. And getting the timing wrong can be costly.

Podcast | 15th Jan 2026

Bursting the AI Powered Bubble

In this episode, Stewart, Julie, and Chris dive into the pervasive problem of "AI-powered" marketing in 2026. Sparked by observations from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the team discusses how lazy product marketing has reduced AI to a meaningless badge, plastered on everything from battery chargers to computers without explaining actual customer value.

Article | 13th Jan 2026

War Games: Why PSKY’s Hostile Bid is a Brand Disaster

What a soap opera. For years, I've been enjoying William Cohan's coverage of the industry over at Puck News. All the struggles, the intrigue, the… well, nonsense. And now, these giants have given us exactly what we want: A crossover event. To. The. DEATH.

Article | 27th Nov 2025

The Win Rate Illusion: Why Brand Strategy Should Be Repellent

We received a brief recently from a great client. It was full of gnarly problems and interesting challenges. The kind of brief you want because the client is genuinely looking for growth. Then I looked at the KPIs.

Podcast | 25th Nov 2025

Has Lululemon Lost Its Soul (And Is Your Brand Next)?

Lululemon built an empire by obsessing over community, culture, and the women they served. Then something changed. The stores lost their personality. The customer workshops disappeared. The soul got diluted.

Article | 11th Nov 2025

Pricing Power vs. Volume Addiction: What Your Margins Say About Your Brand

On a grey Thursday afternoon, a CMO and a CFO sit in a glass meeting room, looking at the same chart and seeing two very different stories.

Podcast | 3rd Nov 2025

The Bridge Builder's Guide to Brand Success

Most brand projects fail not because of bad creative work, but because of poor internal groundwork. In this episode, we sit down with Robert McKechnie, MD of Starrett Europe and a veteran of successful brand transformations at organisations including Core (Scottish Power) and Norbord.

Podcast | 1st Oct 2025

What Happens When Price AND Quality Don’t Differentiate?

Something's coming over the hill! In this episode of The Good Brand Podcast, Stewart sits down with Chris and Julie to tackle a thorny question: what happens when “cheap imports” aren’t cheap or inferior anymore, just good enough, well-priced, and increasingly well-branded?

Podcast | 17th Sep 2025

Brand at the Top: Why CEOs Can’t Ignore Brand

In this episode of The Good Brand Podcast, we sit down with Catherine Connolly, Executive Chair of Prime Light Group, to explore how brand shapes boardroom decisions and business strategy.

Podcast | 27th Aug 2025

Beyond the Logo: How One Business Uses Brand to Make Decisions

In this episode of the Good Brand Podcast, we sit down with Caroline Jones (CJ), co-director of Anatomical Concepts, a Glasgow-based company providing rehabilitation technology and personalised services for people following life-changing illness or injury.

Podcast | 14th Aug 2025

Why Brand Gets Left Behind in B2B - Lessons from Our Survey

In this episode of the Good Brand Podcast, we unpack the findings from our latest B2B brand survey — and they’re telling.

Article | 11th Aug 2025

What's that coming over the hill? Is it a brand eating monster?

Clients used to talk about “cheap asian imports” as a distraction. They were, as the name implies, cheap. Cheap in cost but also in quality.

Podcast | 30th Jul 2025

Why Smart Firms Sound Stupid: 5 Hard Truths About Branding in Professional Service

Why do so many professional services firms, full of smart, capable people, sound like they’re trying to confuse you? In this episode, the Good team dives into the five hard truths that explain why professional services branding so often misses the mark.

Article | 16th Jul 2025

A CFO’s Guide: When to Invest in Brand vs. Sales Enablement.

When sales flatten, most CFOs reach for the obvious fix: pour money into sales enablement. More decks, more training, bigger incentives. But here's another point of view.

Podcast | 9th Jul 2025

A Trillion Left on the Table: Brand in B2B

A trillion-dollar value gap. A C-suite that doesn’t get it. And why “brand” still feels like a dirty word in B2B. Stewart, Chris, and guest Teri Nicklin get real about why brand is misunderstood, underfunded, and harder than ever to prove. Expect honest takes, stupid questions worth asking, and a push for braver brand thinking.

Podcast | 23rd Jun 2025

Why Your Best Work Isn't Winning

In this episode of the Good Brand Podcast, Stewart, Julie and Chris get stuck into the real reason your best work isn’t cutting through. It’s not a branding problem, it’s a business problem. From product-led blind spots to muddled messaging, they unpack the "recognition gap" between what companies think they’re selling and what customers actually value. Expect plain talk on why brand is often misunderstood, why internal bias wrecks clarity, and how to close the gap with positioning that drives real, measurable value. If you’re still leading with technical specs and calling it strategy, this one’s for you.

Article | 15th May 2025

Growth stalling? It’s Probably Not The Market

You know how it goes. When sales slow down, the default diagnosis is always external.

Article | 9th May 2025

Why Your Best Work Isn’t Winning

We’ve worked with businesses through some of their most demanding product launches. It’s an intense process. Every detail gets scrutinised, from the design studio to the factory floor to the first customer experience. Everyone’s all in.

Article | 2nd Apr 2025

If Your Products Are Complex, Your Brand Shouldn’t Be

In B2B tech, complexity is often treated as inevitable—even desirable. The more advanced the product, the more convoluted the brand becomes. But that thinking is flawed. Complexity might be part of what you build, but it shouldn’t be part of how you explain it.

Podcast | 31st Mar 2025

Why B2B Tech Brands Keep Getting It Wrong (And What To Do About It)

B2B tech is booming. But most of the branding? Dull, confused, and disconnected from what actually drives growth. In this episode, Stewart, Chris, and Julie dig into Brand Dynamics in B2B Tech: The Current Landscape - our new report that finally puts it all in one place.

Article | 7th Feb 2025

What Do Brand Consultants Actually Do?

Most businesses don't realise they need brand consultants until facing a brick wall. Maybe growth has flatlined. Perhaps the leadership team is pulling in different directions. Maybe the market has shifted, leaving your brand feeling like yesterday's news.

Podcast | 3rd Dec 2024

Beyond the Buzzwords: When AI Meets Brand Strategy

Join the Good Brand Consultants team as they tackle the challenging intersection of AI and brand positioning.

Article | 19th Nov 2024

AI in Branding: Moving Beyond the Buzz

AI is everywhere. From marketing to product design, brands are rushing to slap “AI-powered” on their offerings, hoping to ride the wave of technological intrigue. But here’s the thing: it’s not enough to say your product uses AI. Customers aren’t dazzled by buzzwords; they’re looking for something far more fundamental—clear, tangible value.

Podcast | 5th Nov 2024

Beyond Features: How Brand Positioning Drives B2B Sales Success

Shifting from feature-focused sales pitches to value-driven conversations through effective positioning helps B2B companies demonstrate real business benefits to prospects.

Podcast | 30th Sep 2024

Aligning Brand Consistency Across Channels

Chris, Julie and Stewart dive into one of the most common challenges businesses face: how to communicate their brand consistently across different channels, regions, and markets.

Podcast | 11th Sep 2024

Taming the Product Portfolio Beast: Simplifying B2B Offerings

In this episode of The Good Brand Podcast, hosts, Chris Lumsden, and Julie Murdoch and Stewart Steel dive into the challenges of managing complex product portfolios in B2B businesses.

Podcast | 1st Aug 2024

How Should You Update Your Brand?

Going through a brand refresh is fraught with challenges.

Article | 12th Jul 2024

Digging For Business Trends

Trends. You can't escape them, and you are certainly influenced by them. One way we look at trends affecting what we do here at Good is to look at the types of enquiries we're getting in and see how they change over time.

Podcast | 20th May 2024

The Theory and Practice of Brand Architecture

The theory around brand architecture is well documented.

Article | 12th Mar 2024

Building Brand Leadership

Over the years, we’ve been lucky enough to work with brands that are all on board with what brand can add to their business.

Article | 7th Mar 2024

Do You Need Advanced Brand Strategy?

Ever opened a head? Like, a human head. With a bonesaw. Then gone in and fixed that brain inside the head? No? Probably because it sounds hard, like brain surgery. It is hard. It's, you know, brain surgery.

Podcast | 4th Jan 2024

Brand Guideline Guidelines

We chat with Mike Hunter, our associate design director here at Good, about the dos and don'ts when it comes to what many businesses see as the end of the brand process, the brand guidelines.

Podcast | 30th Oct 2023

The Power of Positioning

Stewart's in the US! Chris is at home! Julie is at home!

Podcast | 28th Sep 2023

Tales from the Brand Trenches

We're not playing around, we're diving deep into the trenches of practical brand strategy.

Podcast | 15th Aug 2023

The Value of B2B Brand Values

In this barnstormer, Chris researched the brand values on B2B websites. He was underwhelmed.

Podcast | 13th Jul 2023

Brand Clarity: Simplifying Your Portfolio

In this episode, we tackle the issue of 'brand confusion' and its impact on sales.

Article | 20th Jun 2023

What to do when your sales team stop selling

Let's start by setting the scene with a couple of assumptions.

Podcast | 20th Jun 2023

Why Doesn't Private Equity Get Brand?

We work with private equity businesses that understand the value of a clearly articulated brand.

Podcast | 22nd Mar 2023

Brand Mistakes Made By B2B Tech Firms

We've been looking into the world of business to business tech firms, and we've noticed some patterns in how they deal with brand that could be losing value in their business.

Podcast | 14th Feb 2023

What's Your Real Competiton?

Your competition is another company; it's the status quo.

Podcast | 9th Jan 2023

The Brand Workshop

Too often, we focus on the end result when it comes to brand. Instead, it's helpful to reflect on one of the critical milestones in the journey, the kick-off session, the brand workshop. We dive into what makes a good brand workshop, the reason for doing it and how to improve the session's outputs to ensure great work is built from it.

Podcast | 21st Nov 2022

The Mission's Critical

Everyone swoons at a vision. Everyone gets into the value. But the mission? It's the middle child that people love but don't understand. We get into what we mean by 'mission', why it's central to a brand and how it should be used within your business.

Podcast | 24th Oct 2022

Why Brands need a Serious Brand Strategy

The title says it all. We go into the brand strategy, what it means to be serious about it and why we think there needs to be more critical thinking around it.

Article | 4th Oct 2022

Better Branding During a Recession

As I sit here in October 2022, it looks like we're heading into a recession.

Article | 29th Sep 2022

Setting out your Brand Mission

We've been going through our brand definition process, going into some detail with vision and values. Now we're getting into the meat of that brand sandwich, your brand's mission.

Podcast | 13th Sep 2022

Creating your Brand Vision

Defining your brand starts with your vision. We look at the best approaches to creating a meaningful vision that's ownable to your business.

Podcast | 2nd Aug 2022

Do You Need a Brand Purpose?

We talk about brand purpose. Is it useful? Does it help? What's the point? Where does it work well? Where doesn't it? We talk it out. Let us know what you think.

Article | 27th May 2022

Perfect Your Product Positioning

Once upon a time when it came to product marketing, it was about going beyond the features. Features meant nothing. NOTHING! It had to be all about the benefits, I'd yell. Give me the benefits, and let me create magic for you.

Article | 9th May 2022

Create Your Brand Vision

Discover how to answer the question ‘What is a brand vision?’. A year‑to‑year guide built on your mission and values. Learn how to create an inspiring, ownable vision that stretches your brand toward its future.

Podcast | 20th Apr 2022

Brand Strategy is Business Strategy

If you're looking to put a brand strategy in place it makes sense to know what the return is. The best way to do that is to tie the goals to the overall business strategy. Makes sense. So why is it we don't see this in operation as much as we'd like? Chris dives deep into what it takes to tie brand to the business goals.

Article | 5th Apr 2022

What is Brand?

We've done many, many articles in this journal on how we see brand working in your business. From how it manifests itself in content to the need for strong brand architecture, we've covered many bases.

Article | 8th Mar 2022

Can Brand work with Performance Marketing?

The most alluring aspect of digital marketing is the ability to get the right message to someone when they're looking for something. Intent is powerful. Someone wants something; you present an option to them.

Article | 3rd Mar 2022

Keeping your brand project on track

Yes, a post from a brand consultancy about how to keep your brand project on track. Now, the easy post would be about hiring us to get it done. Easy but not useful.

Podcast | 10th Jan 2022

Building Sustainability into Your Brand

We've talked about how sustainability can destroy brands, the trick is then to understand how to make brands work with sustainability. Especially as a number of proposals are on the table about how brands should report on their sustainability efforts. We have a chat about the repercussions of Sustainability Disclosure Requirements and what it means for branding.

Article | 17th Dec 2021

Do you need a Brand Purpose?

I don’t think that there is a more contentious element in the wonderfully weird world of branding right now than the notion of “Brand Purpose”.

Podcast | 11th Nov 2021

Brand Definitions

Do you get confused between your mission and your vision? Are you tripping up over the values and a purpose? Can you tell the difference between a brand key and a brand onion? Are you asking why this is so hard? So are we. Here's our approach.

Podcast | 14th Oct 2021

Content vs. Brand

Brand's where the fun is, content's where the work is. But what's more important? There's is only one way to find out. FIGHT!

Article | 29th Sep 2021

How to Create a Brand

The purpose of our brand consultancy work is to build the perceived value of a business so that you can increase the margin of a product or increase market share — ideally both. But to start to create that perceived value, you must understand your brand.

Podcast | 20th Sep 2021

What's Love Got To Do With It?

We're looking at the thorny issue of "Brand Love". Is it something useful? Is it nonsense? Can it be measured? We chat it through. Chris, Julie and Stewart try to get to the bottom of the phrase, "brand love".

Article | 24th Aug 2021

Can’t Buy Me Brand Love

So, Aladdin gets into the cave and finds an old lamp. Aladdin rubs the old lamp to give it a wee clean and out pops a genie. A fucking genie. Genie has three wishes that he can bestow on Aladdin...

Article | 20th Jul 2021

Content Strategy and Why You Need One

Since I started at Good, the one thing that has shifted has been the need for brands to move from pretty straightforward advertising around their product or service to becoming content publishers.

Podcast | 15th Jul 2021

Is Sustainability Damaging Brands?

Yes, that’s right, you read that right. Sustainability is important, we’re not arguing that, but are brands getting their messaging around it right? We’re seeing some trends and we’re not encouraged. Oh, we also have our longest prepod but trying to edit it was a nightmare so, yes, five minutes of ‘banter’ before we get into the good stuff. Let us know what you think. About the sustainability chat, not our prepodding.

Podcast | 21st Jun 2021

Apple Brand Lessons

Sure, they're the biggest company in the world with budgets that would make your eyes water. But we can still learn so much from Apple, no matter what size the budget or what business you're in. We got talking about it. See what you think.

Podcast | 5th May 2021

Getting Clarity Around Brands

If you communicate coherently and consistently with your customers, you'll outperform your competitors. We wanted to prove that this is the case, so we started to get insight from data to prove it. And, lo, Clarity Reports were born. We chat through what they are, why we think they’re useful and how the reports can be used to guide brands.

Article | 4th May 2021

Brand Lessons from Apple

I feel for clients as they go around their agencies—presentations, suggestions, observations and, occasionally, insights. And then, when talking through a particular challenge, they are brought up. The Jesus of Modern Branding: Apple.

Podcast | 25th Mar 2021

Branding By Algorithm

The hippies won!!!! Branding is fully democratised! This is the future, now! Everything is awesome. We think. We'll have a chat about it. We see massive upsides and a few potential banana skins.

Podcast | 17th Feb 2021

Bloody Luxury

Recorded just before Christmas, we were bombarded with the perfume ads which led to a chat about branding and the luxury market.

Podcast | 12th Jan 2021

Brand Bollocks

We're in another lockdown. We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore. And it starts with those branding theories we just can't stand. We picked three knitting rippers to start with. We could've picked more. A lot more. We're raging. But still staying positive.

Podcast | 9th Dec 2020

Your Website is Your Brand

Your website is the most apparent, transparent, accessible, immediate and influential asset you have. But sometimes brand isn’t applied to your site as well as it should be. Why is this, what’s the consequence of ignoring brand here and what can you do to make sure you’ve got the best experience going? We go through it all. We also introduce the Salami of Trust, probably the biggest branding buzzword of 2021. No problem.

Article | 25th Nov 2020

Understanding Share of Search

There’s been some buzz recently around an interesting new metric that claims to be a quick health check on your brand.

Podcast | 16th Nov 2020

You Get The Agency You Deserve

We've implemented a new client policy and we're interested in chatting it through. We're really interested in what you think about this. What have we missed, what are your concerns, what do you like? We're keen to learn. Drop us a line at [email protected] Oh, and a terrible Sean Connery joke told terribly.

Podcast | 12th Oct 2020

Pure Quantum

Julie's back! Tired sharks! Boris jokes! What is content? How to create a content strategy! Ill-advised Sean Connery impressions! Pointed questions! Shameless/shameful self-promotion! Scream if you want to go faster!

Podcast | 22nd Sep 2020

Stop the Digital Doing

Julie's not here. Chris channels a young David Frost. Stewart mentions books he's read. All about how digital doing is easy but doing digital right takes some planning.

Article | 16th Sep 2020

Stop The Digital Doing

Have you ever been in a reporting meeting, a meeting that is reviewing the digital marketing activity and found yourself wondering how your life turned out so... wrong?

Podcast | 24th Aug 2020

We Have Lots of Names For You.

After a very impromptu sweary start that couldn't be edited out for reasons that will become apparent, we board the good ship Orca and set sail to treacherous waters around the Seven Watchouts of Brand Architecture.

Podcast | 28th Jul 2020

The Value of Brand Values

Hold on to your hats. It's Chris versus the universe as we get into a heated discussion over brand values and their usefulness within a business.

Article | 20th Jul 2020

The Five Signs of Brand Leadership

Brand Leadership. It’s a term that we use at Good when we start working with a client to understand just how much they “get” brand.

Podcast | 13th Jul 2020

Five Points of Brand Leadership

How can you tell if your company is taking the brand seriously? Chris, Stewart and Julie sit down and chat through the top five signs of brand leadership that we think you can gauge if your business is taking brand seriously.

Podcast | 22nd Jun 2020

Back to Basics

Social distancing! The future! The basics! The business! The pub openings! One star reviews! Forgetting statistical sources! Meme reading! All this and more on the Internet's favourite three-star branding podcast.

Article | 19th May 2020

Brand Building Basics

Welcome to yet another article about how to prepare for the end of the pandemic. You gotta get ready, you gotta be ready for the new world, and how everything's changing and you gotta get ready.

Podcast | 11th May 2020

Where Have All The Women Gone?

In this barnstorming episode from your favourite three-star podcast about branding, we're joined by a very special guest and great friend of Good, Nat Maher. We're chatting about Nat's role as founder of Kerning the Gap, an equality network for the design industry. We cover it all, we discuss the founding of KtG, the launch of the Scottish chapter, confidence in women, how men fit in, world leadership and much more besides. So much in fact that we had to cut Nat's predictions for the pub openings. Her guess: September!!!! Enjoy!

Podcast | 29th Apr 2020

The Fortune Telling Business

Special guest time, we're joined by Chris George, marketing director for UK and Ireland for Electrolux. We talk about Corona (sorry), branding, consumer confidence, yellow and when the pubs will be open again.

Podcast | 7th Apr 2020

Struggling on the Kid Front

We promise that this is our last Corona focused podcast. But as the bomb is still going off, we chat through what the hell is going. We hope it is useful though, we're all in it together. Take care of yourself. And each other.

Podcast | 27th Mar 2020

Endorsed by a Superhero

All professionalism leaves the building as we do our first podcast from our homes. We talk about how the business is doing in Corona time, what we're not doing and what we think brands should be thinking about doing. Then we chat to some of the team at Good to see how they're feeling. Feel free to leave us a 3-star review. We know. It'll be better next week.

Podcast | 18th Mar 2020

Corona Time

When we decided to start this podcast we wanted it to be about brand, not about an agency. That was two weeks ago. How times have changed. We just wanted to chat through where we are, what we’re feeling and what we’re doing. No great insights here, just thought it would be good to share. Stay safe.

Podcast | 13th Mar 2020

Beware those Branded Wasps

We're going for an easy one. What is brand? Chris, Julie and Stewart thrash it out. Hopefully. Let us know what you think, we're up for a chat.

Podcast | 7th Mar 2020

Starting up is fun to do

Here it is, the first episode of Good's podcast, the Good Round Up. Chris and Stewart chat through some posts that have gone up on the Good site. We're covering reporting, some insights into brand architecture and how you can get the best from your agency.

Article | 25th Feb 2020