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Whether you’re just setting off, changing course or maintaining speed, we make sure your ultimate destination is always in view – and bring your people along for the ride.
What does a great brand have in common with The Mousetrap in the West End? They both tell a great story. But unlike The Mousetrap, whose ending is the best kept secret in theatre, brand storytelling works better the more you give away.
As someone who studied theatre, I regularly get attacks of guilt that I don’t see more on the stage. When that happens, I go browsing theatre websites, account details in hand, ready to book the first thing that sounds appealing.
I dive head first down the sales funnel, in other words. But you’d be surprised how often the funnel spits me back out again. Here’s one of the plot synopses I ran into last time this happened:
An unexpected meeting at an airport leads to an intense, passionate, head-over-heels relationship. Before long they begin to settle down, buy a house, juggle careers, have kids – theirs is an ordinary family. But then their world starts to unravel and things take a disturbing turn.
This might not be a bad synopsis, technically. It might accurately describe the plot of the show. I wouldn’t know; I didn’t book. Because it avoids specifics so carefully that it might well describe the plot of any number of other shows, as well. Countless plays deal with relationships unravelling, and this doesn’t say what makes this story different.
By trying to make the story of the show sound universal, this teaser copy leaves out anything distinctive – making the story sound generic instead.
And because it’s trying not to give too much away about what happens, it doesn’t give the audience enough information to decide whether the show is for them.
Brands make these mistakes in their storytelling too.
There are no universal stories
At the early stages of brand definition research, companies sometimes try to tell us their target audience is “the public”, or better yet, “everyone”.
It never turns out to actually be true – and that’s a good thing. Audiences don’t want to hear what your brand can do for everyone; they want to hear what you can do for them, specifically. For some audiences, that’s “nothing”, or “nothing right now” – and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Any brand can try to tell a universal story. Your brand should aspire to tell a story no one else can tell – one based on your unique strengths and capabilities.
“Spoilers” don’t spoil brand stories
More and more brands are using storytelling to articulate their personality and purpose in the world. These big-picture narratives help audiences understand which brands share their values and worldview – but that’s only the start of the story.
Unlike The Mousetrap, your brand story doesn’t depend on a surprise twist ending to deliver value for your audience. So there’s no need to be coy with the details. As well as why you’re here, your brand story needs to tell audiences clearly what your organisation will do for them.
You’d be surprised how often this crucial chapter gets left out of the brand story. Sometimes businesses are worried that specifying what they do is like admitting there are other things they don’t, or worse, can’t. Others think of their actual core business activity as being separate from their brand. You can see this thinking in action on any company website where “About us” and “Our services” are separate sections.
When your audience engages with your organisation, your brand story becomes about them as well. They’re more likely to engage if they know the story ends well for them. So don’t leave them hanging; when telling your brand story, make sure it’s the whole story, ending and all.
Matt Boothman
Writer – Strategist
A friend of mine recently changed her surname to her husband’s. I found out on social media and was surprised to be reminded that this practice, which traditionally indicated that a woman now belonged to her husband, is still so common today. According to a New York Times survey, only 22 percent of women married in recent years have kept their names.
It reminds me of when brands merge, and the new organisation takes the name of the partner with the most financial power or the strongest reputation. It is a clear signal of who owns whom.
Changing your name is a major rebrand, signifying a major change of status: in the case of my friend, a change from single to married. But I wonder, is getting married really such a significant change? Does it change either partner’s personality or their world view? And if that’s the case, what about the husbands? Didn’t their lives change enough to justify a name change?
Personally, I believe there are other experiences that change you much more fundamentally, like graduating, moving out of your parents’ home, becoming a parent or climbing Kilimanjaro. Why is marriage seen as a reason for a rebrand and these occasions are not?
Sociologists argue patriarchal marital tradition and societal expectations are to blame. It is the idea of ownership, the idea of hierarchy – one being more important than the other – that I find most problematic. Hierarchy and power should not define a relationship. And this is true for both personal and business relationships.
One of my first projects at Redhouse was to create a brand as a result of a strategic merger. NHG and Clinicare joined forces to create one of the leading care home suppliers in the UK. They decided that naming the new organisation after one of the partners would send the wrong message to both customers and staff. Neither partner was taking over the other; they were forming a brand new organisation together, greater than the sum of its parts. They decided on a brand new name, Blueleaf, and a radically different brand identity.
In business and in personal relationships, keeping your name, adopting your partner’s and creating a new one together are all valid options. But which option you choose should be a conscious decision, not based on assumptions about which partner is the most important. Before making the decision, you should reflect on the situation and understand what each option would mean for you and the people around you, whether that’s your family and friends, or your employees and customers.
At the end of the day, a Teapigs cup of tea wouldn’t taste the same if it was called Tetley, and neither would an Innocent smoothie if it was called Coca-Cola.
Dionysis Livanis
Creative Director
The recent news of Waitrose launching a packaging-free trial at their Oxford branch was greeted with much excitement and fanfare online. Given the impact our food packaging is having on the environment, this was an exciting development from one of the major supermarket brands. It was a huge PR win. So much so that it got me thinking of the well-publicised difficulties they were facing (£) this time last year.
Waitrose seem to have realised that the way to today’s consumer is by being a force for good. It’s a true reflection of a purpose driven brand in action: the brand, sustainability and packaging teams all working in perfect harmony to deliver on their brand mission of ‘Partners making the difference’.
People care – it’s not just a fad
Over the past few years, a considerable amount of evidence of a new generation of more ethically, socially and politically minded consumers has been publicised.
With an estimated eight million tonnes of plastic waste being dumped in the world’s oceans each year, we are all responsible. Smart corporates (and governments) are acting quickly to ensure they remain on the right side of public opinion.
A great example of a brand embracing this type of change is Evian, who announced last year that they’re going carbon neutral and plastic free.
In fact, looking beyond climate change, there is mounting evidence that doing good is actually smart business. An important piece of research from B Lab, revealed last year, showed that in the UK, certified B Corps (businesses that meet B Lab’s standards for transparent and ethical performance) are growing 28 times faster than the national economic growth of 0.5 percent.
I, for one, am hoping that this generation will continue this evolution to tackle the most pressing issues facing society right now. In climate change and plastic pollution, we have two critical issues. Brands that help facilitate a societal shift in how we deal with these issues are bound to win the hearts and minds of this generation of ethical consumer.
A really lovely example of this type of ethical brand in action is Adidas selling a million shoes made out of ocean plastic in 2017. A huge win for the bottom line, the planet and also the Adidas brand reputation.
This generation votes with their wallets, so brands with empty promises within their shiny new purpose statements should take note!
On the other hand, brands with sustainability at their core are starting to see the benefits of a virtuous circle: do good, capture hearts and minds by doing that good, which leads to growth and the space to do more good.
But don’t just jump on the bandwagon
With sustainability and brand purpose so inextricably linked, it’s important for any smart brand strategy to ensure these two elements are true and relevant.
We all saw what happened when when Pepsi’s tone-deaf campaign commodified and trivialised the #blacklivesmatter protests to sell soft drinks in 2017. When this goes wrong, it can take years to rebuild a reputation.
As Jeff Bezos once said, “your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room”. Brands that understand this spend considerable time and effort embedding ethical behaviour and innovative thinking within the business, the culture and the operation. It creates a real point of difference. And when brands embed that point of difference within not just their visual identity, but also the behaviours and attitudes of the team, they really start winning.
Jonathan Walker
Client Partner
According to Forrester Research, we’re in the middle of a marketing renaissance. But the Renaissance is remembered for a return to humanism – and for many brands right now, that’s an ingredient that is sorely lacking.
It’s true that today, it’s easier than ever for brands to connect with people. Our ever-increasing data footprint maps our every want, need and fear online for brand managers to segment and use. But with the 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer telling us that only 56% of people trust business, clearly something is going wrong in this quest to win customers.
If the marketing world wants a real renaissance, interactions between businesses and their customers need to start feeling human again. And that doesn’t have to mean less automated; it just means the same personality and purpose should infuse every interaction.
Basically, it means getting your brand in order.
Here’s what to bear in mind when getting back to basics with your brand.
A strong brand gives everyone in the business a shared purpose and shared values to get behind. Then, every customer they interact with gets to experience what matters to the business, first-hand.
And the benefits of uniting your team behind a strong brand don’t stop there. Wellbeing and belonging research shows that the most effective and productive teams are those with a shared vision for the future. The 2018 Great Places to Work survey found that when employees believe their company has a high-trust culture, they’re 22 times more likely to want to work there for a long time. And the same survey found that millennials who like their workplace are 59 times more likely to strongly endorse the company to family and friends.
So it’s no surprise that businesses who are investing in their brand, their culture and their team’s wellbeing are raking in both top talent and brand loyalty.
Consider carefully how much of your brand’s customer interaction is going to hinge on artificial intelligence.
There’s no doubt that automated interactions have real value – customer service chatbots enable consumers to carry out such a wide variety of tasks, bots now account for more internet traffic than humans!
But they go wrong in so many ways, large and small, like a few years ago when a bot seriously embarrassed Microsoft. I can’t be the only person with a regional accent that Alexa, Siri and the local cinema booking line struggle to understand. And when that happens, I want a human I can turn to for help. In the age of authenticity and transparency, this is going to be all the more important.
The marketing renaissance idea assumes that people welcome online tracking and personalised advertising, but that isn’t always the case.
When it’s personally relevant, it can be really welcome. Amazon peppers its sites with product recommendations based explicitly on users’ search history, with hardly any backlash. I recently found out Stevie Wonder was playing Hyde Park this summer, thanks to a Facebook ad based on a search I’d made, and I was grateful for the heads-up.
But one study showed that when websites tell users their activity is being tracked, ad click-through rates drop significantly. It’s a fine line to tread.
A clearly defined brand includes a clear purpose: who you’re here for, what you offer them and when. Knowing your purpose will help you tread that fine line with confidence and conviction.
The relationship between businesses and their customers is always evolving, but get the basics of your brand right and that relationship will be coherent, well rounded and far more human. It’s a short step from there to trust and brand loyalty.
Jonathan Walker
Client Partner
