Article | 30th Jan 2026
How the Halo Effect Causes Businesses to Misread Brand Performance
Businesses often judge brand health through short-term performance. That’s a mistake, and it leads to the wrong decisions at the wrong time.
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Brand Strategy
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.
Article | 24th Nov 2025
Why B2B Brands Mishandle Change (and What Banks Can Teach Them)
Two emails from two banks show how simple, clear communication can turn a moment of change into a trust-building advantage. B2B brands rarely treat change this way, even though they should.
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.
Article | 7th Nov 2025
Why indecision is the silent killer of branding
Branding projects rarely fail because of bad ideas – they fail because no one makes a decision. Indecision creeps in quietly, draining momentum, confidence and belief.
Article | 21st Oct 2025
5 Reasons Internal Brand Understanding Matters More Than You Think
Most businesses focus on how their brand shows up in the market. But the real test is how well it’s understood inside the organisation. If your people don’t understand, believe in, and know how to use the brand, nothing else will stick – not campaigns, not culture, not consistency.
Article | 29th Sep 2025
Why Measuring Brand Results is So Hard
Measuring brand should be simple in theory, but in reality, it’s often messy, political, and difficult to pin down. Here’s why it’s so hard – and why doing something, however imperfect, is always better than nothing.
Article | 26th Aug 2025
Measuring Brand: Leading and Lagging Indicators
Brand is one of the most important levers a business has, but it’s also one of the hardest to measure. Twenty years in, we’ve learned that proving the value of brand is less about magic formulas and more about setting clear expectations. Here’s how we think about it.
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.
Article | 5th Aug 2025
You Don’t Have a Brand Problem. You Have a Brand Belief Problem.
We asked senior B2B brand leaders where brand breaks down. The issue isn’t strategy – it’s belief. Most have clear brand foundations, but they’re not being used. This piece explores why brand gets sidelined and what it takes to build belief where it matters most.
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.
Article | 30th Jun 2025
Professional Services Branding: 5 Hard Truths Every Firm Needs to Hear
Too many professional services firms confuse complexity with credibility. They sell expertise, but their brands don’t show it. In this piece, we share five hard truths firms need to hear – from fixing muddled messaging to breaking free from bland, lookalike branding. If your firm is serious about standing out, start here.
Article | 25th Jun 2025
Why Most Agency Strategy Isn’t Strategy at All – It’s Synthesis
Agencies say strategy. What they really mean is synthesis: the skill of turning noise into something clear, useful and true. Let’s call it what it is.
Article | 19th Jun 2025
10 Signs You Might Need to Rebrand.
Something feels off. The brand doesn’t quite fit anymore. You’re not sure what’s wrong, but you’ve started wondering, do we need to rebrand?
Article | 21st May 2025
Why Brand, Not Sales Tactics, Could Be Killing Your Conversion Rates.
Let’s get one thing straight. Sales performance isn’t just a pipeline problem. Or a training problem. Or even a strategy problem. These things matter, yes, but if your sales team keeps coming up short, chances are the real problem lies elsewhere.
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 | 6th May 2025
If a 5-to-1 ROI Isn’t Enough, What Hope Do We Have?
I was listening to The Rest Is Politics: US the other day, and they were discussing the latest round of government cuts in America. One point jumped out – federal funding for R&D is being slashed, despite the fact that for every $1 invested, the return is estimated at $5 or more.
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.
Article | 24th Mar 2025
Brand Strategy Isn’t About a Clean Slate: Here’s What Really Works
Stop waiting for perfect conditions to fix your brand. Most branding projects don’t start from scratch. They start in the middle of the mess - while a website is already being built, a marketing campaign is in progress, or a leadership team is debating next steps.
Article | 14th Feb 2025
What Does Brand Positioning Really Mean?
Brand positioning isn’t just a tagline, it’s about owning a distinct space in customers’ minds. Without a clear strategy, your brand risks blending into the noise. This article explains what brand positioning is, how it differs from product positioning, and how to make it work for your business.
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.
Article | 31st Jan 2025
Why B2B Tech Branding is the Key to Unlocking Growth
In the competitive world of B2B tech, branding is often an afterthought. Companies tend to focus on technical features, leaving their brand foundations weak and messaging fragmented. But without a strong foundation in B2B Tech Branding, even the most innovative technologies struggle to resonate with customers and drive growth.
Article | 21st Jan 2025
The Outcomes of Branding: Beyond ROI
In our 20 years of working with B2B brands, we’ve learned a simple truth: branding’s impact is rarely immediate, linear, or easily captured in a spreadsheet.