Tone of Voice, Branding & Strategy Blog

A non-essential word or two from us

14 / April / 2020

Back when London’s lockdown was beginning, writer and journalist Rhymer Rigby tweeted that his daughter described his job as ‘the opposite of a key worker’. Well, quite. It feels odd to take the coronavirus on as ‘content’ with tips and tricks on other ways to write about ‘unprecedented times’. And yet it feels just as […]

ONES THAT GOT AWAY PT 2

15 / May / 2019

Museums and galleries have a tried-and-rarely-strayed-from formula for campaigns. There’s nearly always a lead picture (that has tested well with focus groups), alongside the exhibition’s title. Any five-star reviews get added on later and there’s a last “final weeks” push before the exhibition closes. Often, though, that way of doing things preaches to the converted […]

ONES THAT GOT AWAY

02 / May / 2019

The first in an occasional series of ideas clients didn’t go for. This one’s for Duppy Share rum and shows you how we write stuff on social. You can read more about the tricky business of content in our new how-to guide. Our take is that a lot of what brands post on social is […]

MAVERICKS: ELLA'S KITCHEN IT AIN'T

28 / January / 2019

“Would you like to try our new snacks for kids?” said the nice man with a big pot of tasters, somewhere on a high street in south-east London. We had target audience written all over us: on the school run, in a hurry, pushing a buggy. Small child hears the magic word SNACKS, sticks her […]

BUSY BUSY BUSY

13 / February / 2018

“Are you busy?” It’s the meeting equivalent of being asked “Going anywhere nice?” in the hairdresser’s up-and-downy chair. And the answer’s yes. We have been busy. Too busy to update our blog for a while, in fact (at least that’s our excuse). Here’s what we’ve been up to:

PURPOSE: SELF-HELP FOR BRANDS

19 / June / 2017

“Find your love”, “Be driven by a higher ideal”, “The sky’s the limit”… These smoochy words aren’t a pep-talk from a well-meaning, high-fiving parent. To find these – and many more like them – go to a bookshop. And while you might think you’re heading straight for the self-help section (via a pit-stop to buy […]

Famous for 15,000 likes

16 / January / 2017

We’ve seen the future and it’s a selfie starring a mum, a dad and some screaming kids with the hashtag #parentingtheshitoutoflife. But this is no ordinary post from one of your real-life friends (remember them?). This has 32,000 ‘likes’ from some 400,000 followers and counting. It’s A Strange Thing for our times when ordinary people […]

When charity isn't a quick fix

11 / January / 2017

Every marketing department has a sacred cow. In charity fundraising, it’s the image of the doe-eyed child asking you for help. Charities go back to this image again and again because they know it works. But for children’s charity Railway Children, getting kids off the street is only the start.

When everything stops

16 / November / 2016

When is a Christmas hamper not a Christmas hamper? When you’re Gail’s Bakery and you put together a ‘survival kit’ to see you through the oh-so-slow bit between Christmas and new year. Perfect for those of us (us) whose first-world problems go off the scale when there’s no way to get a perfectly-steamed flat white […]

ELDERBROOK: THE NOT SQUASH

13 / September / 2016

Gluten-free, sugar-free, dairy-free, fun-free, free-free… It’s all healthy this and deliciously that at the moment. So what’s a new drinks brand to do to get heard above all the noise, when the cold-pressed brigade are doing a healthier-than-thou thing and even the big sugary drinks brands are singing about joy, happiness, health and ‘choice’?