Our Brand Thinking

No fluff, just straight-talking insights.

This is where we share honest takes on branding, backed by years of experience. If you’re after real-world thinking that cuts through the noise, you’re in the right place.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Article | 11th Sep 2025

How to Refresh Your Brand Without Losing What Works

Refreshing a brand doesn’t always mean starting over. Done well, it’s about subtle evolution – strengthening what already works while removing the clutter that’s built up over time. In this piece, we look at why boards fear brand change, why that perception is wrong, and how we approach brand refreshes, so they build confidence rather than cause chaos.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 | 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 | 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 | 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.

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 | 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 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 | 10th Feb 2025

Why Marketing Campaigns Fail – And How to Fix It

You’re pouring money into your marketing, ticking all the right boxes, but the leads just aren’t coming. The campaigns aren’t landing, and the ROI isn’t there. Why do marketing campaigns fail?

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.

Article | 11th Dec 2024

Emotion in B2B Buying

Emotion is a word that’s thrown around a lot in branding, often associated with happiness, joy, or love. In B2C, it’s easy to see why.

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 | 26th Nov 2024

Brand Bike Shedding: Why Avoiding the Big Brand Questions Costs You More

Branding often mirrors a curious behavioural quirk in decision-making: Bike Shedding. It's a term coined by British historian and writer Cyril Northcote Parkinson in his 1957 essay on organisational inefficiency.

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.

Article | 1st Oct 2024

81% of B2B Ads Fail: Here’s How Better Branding Can Fix It

A recent study by the B2B Institute in partnership with MediaScience reveals a shocking truth: only 19% of an ad’s audience can attribute it to the correct brand.

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.

Article | 20th Aug 2024

B2B Branding: What Happened to “Hello”?

In the rush to showcase technical prowess, many B2B brands forget the simple yet powerful act of introducing themselves. Without a proper “hello,” even the best products struggle to make an impact.

Podcast | 1st Aug 2024

How Should You Update Your Brand?

Going through a brand refresh is fraught with challenges.

Article | 22nd Jul 2024

The importance of storytelling for B2B Tech brands

B2B Tech brand marketers must learn to step away from a technical features approach and embrace a brand-led storytelling to stand out and differentiate their products.

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 | 7th May 2024

5 signs your brand needs a simplification audit.

In our experience, B2B portfolios are too complex and create a lot of confusion. Here are 5 tell-tale signs that your portfolio needs to be simplified.

Article | 22nd Apr 2024

The Practical Side of Brand Architecture: What Theory Doesn’t Tell You

A recent uptick of enquires around specialist brand architecture projects has prompted me to reflect on the complexities these businesses face and how theoretical understanding impacts practical application.

Article | 8th Apr 2024

Navigating the AI Revolution in Brand Consulting

In a recent discussion, Sam Altman suggested a future where AI could automate 95% of tasks traditionally performed by marketers, agencies, and creatives offering instant, nearly perfect outputs at negligible costs.

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.

Article | 13th Feb 2024

Decoding Brand Confusion: Aligning Agency Expertise with Executive Vision

We’re often brought into branding projects when things have gone wrong, or a previous branding project has run out of steam.

Article | 10th Jan 2024

The Lost Art of Brand Naming

Like deciphering coffee menus, obscure business branding can lead to confusion, affecting sales.

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.

Article | 4th Dec 2023

Does Your Business Need a Sub Brand?

This is a recurring issue in the B2B work we do – and our answer to the question ‘should we create a new sub brand?’ is almost always ‘no’.

Article | 1st Nov 2023

Brand Guidelines: How to get the most out of them

When executed well, a brand’s guidelines are an essential tool that facilitates consistent and effective application of its visual identity. The problem is when they’re not done well, they do the exact opposite.

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.

Article | 29th Aug 2023

From Frivolous to Fruitful: Agency Challenges in Promoting B2B Brand Characters

We recently had an agency debate about which brands had the best brand character. Over the course of a week, we voted on different options and Captain Birdseye won. (A fine choice, don’t you agree?)

Article | 23rd Aug 2023

Does evolving your brand always mean changing your identity?

The short answer is no.

Podcast | 15th Aug 2023

The Value of B2B Brand Values

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

Article | 10th Aug 2023

The Power of Simplicity for B2B Tech Brands: Less is More

Exploring the why and how of B2B tech's fear of simplicity

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.

Article | 21st Mar 2023

Why do Private Equity firms ignore the role of brand in creating value?

This is the question that’s been keeping me up at night. I’m slightly scared to ask it publicly, but I’m genuinely struggling to answer it.

Article | 6th Mar 2023

Brand mistakes made by B2B Tech firms

These mistakes may not be brand killers, but they could cause yours to bleed value and equity and feed the competition's business.

Article | 6th Mar 2023

Reflections on a 10 year client partnership

Agencies aren't partners with their clients unless they share in the commercial risk of the enterprise.

Article | 23rd Feb 2023

Helping B2B understand why it should invest in brand

I think that outside the realm of B2B marketing, clients generally have a poor understanding of brand and why they should invest in it. I also think that’s because we (agencies) do a bad job of explaining why.

Podcast | 14th Feb 2023

What's Your Real Competiton?

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

Article | 7th Feb 2023

ESG has a brand problem

We don't claim to be experts in ESG but we do know a thing or two about brand. And as more and more clients come to us with projects that include an aspect of ESG, we’re seeing the two worlds collide.

Article | 25th Jan 2023

B2B Tech Firms must dig deeper to differentiate

It feels like every other B2B tech firm I look at conforms to the same visual and verbal convention.

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.

Article | 23rd Nov 2022

Why the status quo is the real competition

Even if we offer customers something new, better and cheaper it’s not necessarily the case that they’ll jump at it straight off the bat.

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.

Article | 9th Nov 2022

Tips for a good brand homepage

One thing we’re always telling clients is that the clarity and coherence of their organisation needs to come through in the first contact with the brand. Often, this first contact comes via a company’s website.

Article | 7th Nov 2022

Tips on how to run a brand workshop

I had an experience recently that forced me to boil down the essence of a brand workshop to its constituent parts, so that we could be through it in an hour. This wasn’t particularly easy, given that we usually run these sessions over a half day period.

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.

Article | 17th Aug 2022

Why Brands Need a Serious Brand Strategy

When businesses decide on a growth strategy, there are several options open to them. Growth through acquisition is a commonly chosen path. Shopping lists are written and deals are done, often in quick succession – a demonstrable commitment to growth.

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 | 1st Aug 2022

How brands can make their ESG meaningful

ESG is making a bigger impact on brands than ever before. But the challenge is that many of them just can’t leverage their ESG credentials in a credible way. I wanted to take a look at why and what can be done about it.

Article | 20th Jun 2022

Creating the vision for your brand.

Creating a vision for your brand seems straightforward when looking at other companies. They seem so self-evident, so obvious.

Article | 30th May 2022

The Purpose of Personas

At some point in a brand project, we’re faced with a persona. These can have many names, marketing/buyer/user persona, but they are usually a one slide archetype that represents an idealised customer.

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 | 17th Mar 2022

The Value of Brand Values.

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.

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.

Article | 2nd Mar 2022

Brand Strategy is Business Strategy

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.

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”.

Article | 14th Dec 2021

Target markets: defining who you’re really talking to

Every once in a while, I’ll read a brief and stop in my tracks when I get to the target audience section. I can’t help but think, “you think you know… but you have no idea.”

Article | 22nd Nov 2021

Sustainability Disclosure Requirements: What it means for brands.

The UK government recently announced that there’s legislation pending on the thorny topic of sustainability.

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.

Article | 5th Nov 2021

When should you hire a brand consultancy?

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.

Article | 5th Nov 2021

Research. Is it worth the time and money?

What people do, what they say and what they say they do are three very different things. When it comes to understanding people, context is everything. When it comes to effective research, it means using the right tactics and asking the right questions.

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.

Article | 24th Sep 2021

Why content is more important than brand.

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.

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 | 17th Sep 2021

Why Are All Whisky Brands The Same?

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.

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 | 12th Aug 2021

How to Buy Branding Services

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.

Article | 6th Aug 2021

Branding for global, local or both?

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.

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.

Article | 2nd Jul 2021

Brand Research Tips

Research. It’s a polarising topic. Rarely do we see research apathy: you either love or hate it. If you love it, chances are you’ve seen the value – it’s given your brand clarity or strengthened your marketing strategy. But if you hate it...

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.

Article | 11th Jun 2021

Sustainability is Damaging Brands

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.

Article | 9th Jun 2021

Brand Building Recipe for Success

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.

Article | 18th May 2021

The Most Important Aspect of Modern Branding? Discipline

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.

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.

Article | 27th Apr 2021

Your Employer Brand is Your Brand

To understand what it takes to create an effective employer brand, it’s essential that we’re on the same page about what exactly an employer brand is, and why it's important.

Article | 22nd Apr 2021

Introducing Clarity Reports

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.

Article | 15th Apr 2021

How We Found Clarity During the Pandemic

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?

Article | 13th Apr 2021

7 Reasons Why Brand Language Matters

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.

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.

Article | 25th Mar 2021

Branding By Algorithm

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”.

Article | 23rd Mar 2021

Six Ways Recruitment Firm Brands Bleed Value to their Competition

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.

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.

Article | 11th Feb 2021

The Problem with Disruption

Today’s marketing landscape is more complex and crowded than ever. Combined with the fact consumers are busy, distracted, and have enormous demands placed on their time – how do brands achieve that much longed-for ‘cut through’?

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.

Article | 25th Nov 2020

Avoiding the Brand Bollocks

The world of brand is filled with buzzwords designed to make us sound clever. Both agencies and clients are guilty of using them – seemingly relishing the art of making simple things complicated. We call it Brand Bollocks, and the industry is full of it.

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.

Article | 29th Oct 2020

How to Tell if Your Brand is Leaking Value

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.

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!

Article | 23rd Sep 2020

Do clients choose us or do we choose them?

For us, I suppose the reality is that it’s somewhere in between.

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.

Article | 14th Aug 2020

How many products does a brand need?

There’s not necessarily a right or wrong answer here. But in my opinion, the fewer, the better

Article | 14th Aug 2020

Do you need to write a brief?

This is going to sound controversial, but many of the written briefs we receive are crap and aren’t worth it.

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!

Article | 29th Apr 2020

Time to Review Your Brand Architecture

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.

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.

Article | 15th Apr 2020

Understanding Business Change During Coronavirus

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).

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.

Article | 18th Mar 2020

Good is Good Enough

One of our worst habits as a business is trying to make things brilliant, when they only need to be good.

Article | 16th Mar 2020

The Challenge of Rebranding in Sports

A few weeks ago, I was sat in a local pub enjoying a jam-packed afternoon of sport. A pretty good day, you might say.

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.

Article | 9th Mar 2020

Brand Paranoia

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.

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

Getting Started With Reporting

Getting your reporting structure right is key to the continual improvement of your marketing efforts. Here's some tips.

Article | 25th Feb 2020

Getting the best from your Agency

Help us to help you.

Article | 3rd Feb 2020

Brand Architecture - Don’t forget the due diligence

When businesses merge or acquire other businesses, they don’t spend enough time thinking about what to do with the brands, products and portfolios. This is our experience anyway.

Article | 28th Jan 2020

Brand Partnerships. The good, the bad and the tasty.

Brand collaborations, how they work and why it has something to do with peaches and steak.

Article | 9th Jan 2020

Brand Consultant vs Management Consultant

Is it ridiculous for us to consider ourselves a management consultancy?

Article | 26th Nov 2019

Digital and Brand

This is a bit of an unusual post as it talks more about us and our approach to digital.

Article | 26th Nov 2019

Starting your Content Strategy

Strap in. We're going to talk about the latest, most fabulous digital marketing experience. Creating content that people want to look at, read and engage with.

Article | 25th Nov 2019

The Good MBO - Learnings From The Journey

We recently completed a Management Buyout at Good. Keith, my co-founder and partner of 15 years, left the business and I now have four new partners from the management team.

Article | 29th Oct 2019

Good Advice on Succession Planning

By the time this hits our blog I’ll have left the design company I helped start. And that’s a good thing.

Article | 29th Oct 2019

The Challenge of Brand Equity: To Kill or Keep a Brand

Measuring the value of your brand is one of the hardest judgements in marketing. And one of the most dangerous.

Article | 29th Oct 2019

Digital Strategy: Stakeholders

So many digital strategy documents, created with the very, very best of intentions, end up lonely, forlorn and forgotten. I hate that.

Article | 23rd Sep 2019

The Importance of the Customer Journey

Relax. This isn't an in-depth look at how to create a digital strategy for your business. Great Guns, no. We both don't have the time.

Article | 17th Sep 2019

Tips on Working Internationally

When we started, our first ambition was to open an office in London. It’s an inconvenient truth that we needed to have an office there in order to be taken seriously by clients. (Thankfully, I think it’s beginning to change now).

Article | 11th Sep 2019

Good Advice on Embedding Sustainability

My recent ramblings on good branding, featuring our client Interface, got me thinking about a topic there's no escaping. The environment. How, as businesses, can we do our bit? How can we embed sustainable practices and behaviours in our organisations?

Article | 27th Aug 2019

Setting your Digital Goals

The challenge when looking at digital is that it is seductive to fall for the lure of the big numbers. There is comfort in big numbers, especially if it comes at a low price.

Article | 14th Aug 2019

The Importance of Brand Expertise

I’ve been asked to prepare a presentation on how Good has come to appreciate and sell the value of design. When I sat down to think about this journey, it was hard to plot how we got to where we are.

Article | 25th Jul 2019

Go Beyond Digital Transformation to Digital Maturity

Digital Maturity is a term to describe how developed a brand or business is within the digital environment. It’s important because the most digitally mature brands communicate best with today’s digital-first customers.

Article | 11th Jul 2019

Good advice on Good branding

So far in this series on what we feel constitutes Good branding, I’ve talked about Filson and its reach with the far-flung members of its family. And, I’ve waxed lyrical about Nike’s discipline in using brand to drive decisions where others wouldn’t.

Article | 24th Jun 2019

How to build a brand: Start with words

From time to time we face an interesting moment during that first client presentation when we’re introducing a new brand. We’ll take them through values and positioning matrices. Through the insight we’ve gleaned to give the brand the best possible start.

Article | 3rd May 2019