Tone of Voice, Branding & Strategy Blog

What's the big idea?

11 / June / 2012

Branding types love to talk about ‘the big idea’: a thought that makes you feel differently about something or see things in a new way. But most so-called big ideas aren’t really that big and they don’t have much of an idea behind them either. It’s much easier to come up with touchy-feely slogans than […]

Apologise unreservedly seems to be the hardest word(s)

09 / May / 2012

Oh dear. Diageo have got themselves in a bit of bother with small brewers BrewDog. You only need to look at Diageo’s apology to see how they got into trouble in the first place (and why BrewDog deserve to win more awards than them). Diageo’s at-arm’s-length statement vs… A Diageo spokesperson: “There was a serious […]

When small independents learn big companies' tricks

01 / May / 2012

As of today the contents of my fridge have changed. Bye-bye big name labels and uniform vegetables. Hello real food delivered from local shops by Hubbub. If you haven’t come across them already, Hubbub is roughly what you get when you cross the good bits of buying local with the convenience of ordering from Ocado. […]

Tone of voice. No tone of voice.

25 / April / 2012

What is tone of voice? And does it really matter? We can show you. All we need is some butter and a Jedi Master. TONE OF VOICE A humble ingredient, no more: a rousing tone for Lurpak plays on how you feel when you’ve baked something yourself. Clever. NO TONE OF VOICE Spend £££s to […]

The day we went to Selfridges. To speak not to shop.

12 / March / 2012

Here’s Rob talking about stopping brand slop in Selfridges at an event set up by It’s Nice That. We were tickled that the soundbite flying around afterwards on Twitter was: ‘If you feel like a berk saying it you shouldn’t write it down. – Rob Mitchell’. We’re determined to bring the word berk back into […]

Once upon a time we didn't need strategic storytelling

01 / March / 2012

Once upon a time stories weren’t called ‘narratives’ and we didn’t need a process, archetypes or rules to help us tell them. And most authors of books, plays, films and the like (ie real stories) didn’t use them either. So why have so many agencies started banging on about the power of storytelling all of […]

A tea by any other name

09 / January / 2012

Spot the difference between these two boxes of Teapigs tea. They look the same; they taste the same. The only difference is their names. Once upon a time this ‘Everyday Brew’ was called ‘English Breakfast’. After all, this is Teapigs’ signature blend and their tea is fancier and tastier than PG Tips. But some of […]

Jargon isn't the problem and 'Plain English' isn't the answer

09 / December / 2011

About this time every year the Plain English Campaign has its gobbledegook awards. It goes roughly like this: they pick some prize pieces of incomprehensible twaddle, which fill some easy column inches in a few newspapers. We roll our eyes at all the rubbish jargon and business clichés we use at work nowadays and then […]

An open letter to Sir Richard Branson

18 / November / 2011

Hello Richard, A lot of newspapers this morning are talking about how you’ve bought Northern Rock for a bargain price at the expense of us taxpayers. We’ll grumble to the chancellor about that. But seeing as you (and some private equity suits) have bought it, we hope some good will come of it. Richard, this […]

Edit

20 / October / 2011

Sales are down. Research shows you’re squeezed on all sides. It’s getting harder to pigeonhole your customers into a neat ABC1234 PowerPoint. Meanwhile, brighter, smaller, more nimble companies are snapping at your heels and stealing your thunder. So what do you do? Outwit your competitors and start developing newer, shinier products? Or do you edit? […]