Tone of Voice, Branding & Strategy Blog

Made in Britain: 2014 via 1950

07 / October / 2014

Last weekend we went to Best of Britannia (BOB), part pop-up department store, part celebration of independent brands designing and making things in Britain. On top of ideas for Christmas presents, it made us think a lot about ‘brand Britain’. Many companies at BOB were selling an idea and image of Britain as well as […]

The problem with management books

18 / August / 2014

Jill Lepore’s take-down of ‘The Innovator’s Dilemma’ by Clayton M. Christensen (a management book popular with Silicon Valley types) in the New Yorker is worth a read — all 6,000 words of it. Here’s a (bit of a chewy) taster: “Disruptive innovation as a theory of change is meant to serve both as a chronicle […]

Strategists! Step away from the acoustic guitar

17 / July / 2014

Here’s what I want from Airbnb. I want a website and app that work beautifully. I want to find an apartment so I can pretend I live in Brooklyn (even if it’s just for a week). And I want to make a few quid from my own apartment on the side. Here’s what I don’t […]

Something wonderful in Frome

11 / July / 2014

An uphill cycle race, a proposal to turn the town into an obstacle course, an art gallery and cafe in a loo, mysterious slogans graffitied on walls and pulled along by airplanes. Welcome to The Independent State of Frome. Since we worked on the branding project for Shrewsbury, we’ve been on the lookout for other […]

' Find your happy ' makes us sad

12 / June / 2014

At first glance it looks normal. It looks like a line. It sounds like a line. It reads like a line. Kind of. Because it isn’t normal at all. It’s been brandified. ‘Find your happy’. You can see how they got there. Rightmove is all about finding a home, but research probably told them that […]

The Turing Test for brands

20 / February / 2014

In 1950, computer scientist Alan Turing came up with a test for artificial intelligence; what became known as The Turing Test. Could people tell if a machine or a person was ‘talking’ to them? If a computer could fool someone into thinking there was a person in charge, it passed the test. We’ve ctrl-alt-deleted the […]

Rob gets moody about mood boards

07 / February / 2014

As part of the Ideal Client, a project from It’s Nice That and Represent:

Why brands need to stop going on about 'content' and find something worth saying

24 / July / 2013

We came across our first ‘content strategy’ just after we started We All Need Words. A planning agency had been hired by a big (non-sporty) brand to sponsor the sort of sports events that Nike do. Their twist on this was to support the spectators – the families and friends who go along to things, […]

Wild Lime Bar & Kitchen

02 / June / 2013

Move over All Bar One, Slug and Lettuce and JD Wetherspoon. A new high street bar brand is in town. High street pubs – especially those outside London – haven’t moved on much since the mid-nineties. Chains like All Bar One, Pitcher & Piano and Slug & Lettuce have struggled to reinvent their formula of […]