What is Brand, REALLY? A CMO's 5-Step Framework - Marketing Unfiltered Brand Mini Masterclass

Welcome back everyone. I've got Harry

with me today. Harry is my co-creator of

Marketing Unfiltered. We decided we were

having a chat about what what's sort of

needed in the market and Harry and I

thought with the way that the world is

evolving uh and the way that it's been

really confusing for a lot of marketing

leaders, we should do a brand mini

masterass. So, to put Harry on the spot,

Harry's gonna put on his uh his brand

hat and dive in and and give us answer

loads of questions and give us loads of

inspiration hopefully. So, Harry, you

good with that?

>> Yeah, I'm going to try my best.

>> Perfect. Right. So, Harry, the question

I think everyone's going to really want

to know is what is brand really now and

why do so many people say it so many

different things?

Um, I think

I was going to think about this question

and do some sort of clever science

answer to it, but then I got tracked

back into the back history, you know,

sorts of branding in the first place and

it was the, you know, steaming stamp on

a piece of cow's ass and that's how you

identified your property and it was

differentiated between different herd of

cattle blah blah blah blah. Um, but it's

not that at all these days. It seems

like a rather redundant story. um

effectively why it's so difficult is

because it's so expansive um what it can

be, what can influence it, what can

affect it. At its very source for me,

brand is all the good bits about what

you're producing um that potential

customers and current customers like

about you, but it's in many ways

ethereal. It isn't the product because

the product is the product. Um it isn't

the price because the price is the

price. It's effectively all the

wraparound stuff. It's the feeling they

get where they interact with you,

whether it be a social media post or a

CRM email or a sponsorship you've been

doing for 10 years with teams that you

might love. It's the way you talk to

customer service. More often than not,

it's the negative experiences you have

as a customer with a brand when things

are going wrong, how they interact with

you, how they treat you. Those are the

opportunities to make a really

significant difference. So spending lots

of money on a big brand campaign, which

I think is the sort of most naive

perception of it, you know, go on TV, it

isn't direct response. U go, it's a

brand campaign. That's one arm in a sort

of 80 armed octopus. And all the bits of

it are effectively trying to do two

things. Make people think more warmly

about you than they do about the

competition.

and two gener generate that incremental

brand fame. And I really like someone

very clever sort of framed it as such.

It is about generating fame. As much as

I dislike the cult of celebrity we live

in now, what we're all trying to do with

the brands we're involved in as

marketers is make them as famous as

possible within the constrictions of the

budget and the markets we're in and

within that capacity as being known.

That alone is quite a good start because

you can't buy something from someone you

don't know. You got to be aware of them

to start with and then beyond that

awareness trickle down all these

different customer touch points which

generates

theoretically the warm cozy feelings

that make you feel safe, secure, loved,

appreciated.

All of those things are generated

through these touch points. And equally

all the bad vibes get generated through

those touch points. Your goal as a

marketer is to have way more warm, cozy

touch points than there are negative,

horrible ones. And the net result of all

of that is, okay, I'm making a

purchasing decision at some point. I'm

buying something boring. I'm buying a

kettle. Who am I buying a kettle from?

And you've done a you've done a great

piece of work on this, Danny. We might

link it into the bottom of this, but

it's looking at the new realm of touch

points. And first of all, you probably

go online. Either you go to GPT or you

go to Google and you look at best rated

kettles UK, right? And it'll give you

Morphe Richards, Kenwood, Phillips,

bunch of other lists, a couple of

Chinese brands that look amazing, you've

not really heard of, but they're

incredibly cheap and they're user

reviews are great. And from that

platform, you then might get a deep dive

into some of them. It might be review

sites. It might be UGC content. It might

be a YouTube video with someone testing

10 of them. It might be which a trusted

brand who does a lot of reviews

supposedly independently and you'll go

through all these different zones and

then at the end of it purchasing

decisions happen now to get a head start

in that game you'll be known Philillips

it's a good brand it's Dutch it's been

around forever my dad had a Philips TV

etc etc versus Sang tit kettles from

Taipei never heard of them but their

price is way down there and it looks

like a cooler kettle. So, there's good

bits over there, but there's a really

good bit over here with I trust that

brand. I think they make good stuff and

my dad's telly was around for 30 years

and didn't break. The brand stuff

elevates you as a start point. And then

that's why when I look at brand

marketing, you know, it is this rather

cheesy brand x performance phrase of if

your brand marketing is going well, then

it will incrementally lift your

performance marketing. If you don't

invest in brand marketing, if you just

go, "Yep, it's price, products, and um

placement, then whatever you put in

budget-wise into your direct response,

you'll get a static line. And if that's

okay, if the ROI is okay, you do that

forever and ever, um no one's going to

give you an award. No one's going to

promote you unduly, but you'll stay at a

job." Brand X performance is where the

brand sentiments lift the performance of

your performance marketing into realms

which other people can't touch. And

that's where the likes of Phillips and

Ko and Red Bull understand continual

investment in brand is harder to

attribute which means it's always a

difficult conversation with CFOs and

CEOs. it tends to be cut early and we're

in this whole realm now where senior

marketers and CMOs tend not to last the

five years required to see a full thread

of brand investment come to fruition. So

some somebody wrote something the other

day I saw which is interesting about why

should we care about brand when we're

going to be judged and then probably let

go or move on before that investment

comes play. Why should we care? Why do

we just go in for fast and dirty

performance-driven channels? It's a

fascinating premise. We'll probably dive

into a bit deeper later on, but the net

effect is brand is the ethereal good,

warm, cozy stuff that lifts your ability

to perform on all your paid channels

elsewhere. And if you get it right, then

you will go above the competition. And

tip kettles, whilst incredibly cheap and

have a market of their own, they're

never going to be able to catch up with

you. They'll never be able to charge the

40% extra price point that you're able

command with 25% incremental margin.

They won't touch that. They might touch

it because they produce so cheaply, but

they'll never touch it on an ongoing

concern across multiple markets. That's

where in a roundabout way, brand is so

important. There was a lot in there and

I think something that uh there was a

few things that I was going to pull out

was if you speak to anyone who's based

and working in performance

the one thing that they struggle to

understand often is the moment you go

from being unknown to known and very

often when I say to someone you know

you're a brand is when someone searches

for your brand name and then the

keywords or like variations of keywords

for you to appear in search or on any

sort of platform or work and then you

know when you really hear is when

someone searches for your brand and then

the product name or the brand and then

product variations and I think that's

something that uh is often lost now with

like DTOC or performance based brands or

you know even let's call them companies

and that's something that I think isn't

necessarily explained very well and

often is lost in conversation basically

because like you said the brand x

performance conversation

and the tenure the tenure conversation

and the struggles that people have

within uh within CMOs or marketing

leader roles has really hindered how

people construct and build and build

build their scaffolding and the

foundations for for the company to to

evolve and move forward. So with all

that said, one of the questions that I

came up with for you before we hit

record was, is brand bigger than

strategy?

It's a toughy. It's probably one of the

ones I wanted to just pull the rip cord

on because I I didn't want to get it

totally wrong. Um, but no, I mean, for

for me, for me, there is a clear answer

and strategy supersedes everything. You

know, strategy is the all-encompassing

and within, if we do one of our lovely

pyramid diagrams,

strategy is right up there at the top.

And within that strategy is a

conversation about brand, about

performance, about product, about

pricing, about everything else. And the

interlinking

factors between all of those and there

are those are conversations between all

of those things. You can't have brand

above everything is a sort of god

floating along with angel wings and

shooting down wonderfulness and then

strategy feeds off that like some weird

lizard. That doesn't work whatsoever.

You have to have strategy at the top of

the tree and then brand in the

conversation and then understanding what

are the implications of what you need to

do with brand and what you need to do

with for your customers on their behalf.

what the product needs to do to meet the

needs of the market as it is now, what

you can do with your brand piece to

facilitate that product conversation etc

etc etc. So for me it is that simple

answer of strategy sits at the top of

the tree.

Yeah. The one the one challenge I'd have

to that is when you're creating your

annual plan, what a lot of people call

their strategy and it's evolving is

often they need the the guiding light. I

don't love Northstar because it gives

people often it misdirects how people

should should move forward with their

marketing or with their company. So one

thing I often say to businesses is your

brand should be your it's the almost

like the the big circle that you want to

sort of feed in towards as opposed

because your strategy will change over

time. You know I always say you should

uh think five years ahead uh plan three

years ahead and action the one year

ahead of that. So often I'll say brand

should be the thing that that guides you

and if your strategy is moving away from

moving you and your customers away from

>> brand there's probably a bigger problem

at play rather than your brand should

try and put be the guardrails for a lot

of lot of strategy it shouldn't be more

important but it should act as as the

guardrails so that's that's why I sort

of asked the question is more how do you

see it and as someone who has built many

well-known brands and help many

companies. That's something that I think

is is another area which is lost in

conversation or is lost in translation

often.

>> Yeah. Yeah. And but

it's all going to change anyway. I mean

ideally you'll do a whether a brand

refresh or a brand positioning and an

architecture at one point and you want

to largely keep on that track for a

three minimum five year period. Not

least because it's so bloody expensive

to refresh everything. It's confusing.

Customers don't know where they stand.

So you want to have a long-term for the

positioning and architecture piece.

Sure, strategy. There's going to be

strategy within every facet. You know,

the the brand strategy as you move into

new markets, as the world changes around

you, as channels emerge. If you had a

singular strategy 3 years ago, even or

no, 5 years ago, going back a long way,

that would have been redundant within

two years, and that was before AI got

its claws into the entire world and

shifted how we all operate. You imagine

if you were know performance-driven 10

years ago and PBC and a little bit of

paid social was your thing and you said

right this is us strategically 5 years

the brand's going to do this it's going

to be executed through these channels

and communicated in this way that

becomes redundant within four months 5

months so I think there's such a thing

you know looking at the business

strategy which is what we need to

accomplish as an entire organization

marketing as a as a vertical as

discipline feeds off that or has to feed

off that and go right in order to

accomplish this is what we need to do.

Our brand needs to be reset to meet

these market needs and these customer

needs to get that sort of commercial

return in those markets. We're going to

shape that and we're going to have this

as a long ranging brand architecture

strategically on the brand. We are going

to basically pivot how we communicate

that in the different channels and that

isn't tactical pivoting that that's you

know annual strategic pivoting. What

happened last year? what channels work,

where do we get the most impact, you

know, and whether it's brand tracking,

whether it's um NBS, whatever you're

using, that's going to influence how you

then reposition. And those are strategic

choices. They aren't sort of tactical

pivots done daily. So I think underneath

that business strategy, you can have a

long range brand structural piece which

you want to stick to and be confident in

and lead the way as all the great brands

have done because they haven't changed

some of them in decades in in the nuts

and bolts of what makes them them. I

mean you look at Coke, it's you know

what 50 years it's barely changed to

Josh. Um but then how you communicate

that and how you take that through into

the other channels into the market and

into new markets is very significant and

then looking at something the brand

influence you know recently we've seen

how people are trying to go into geo

with content marketing and how until two

days ago uh Reddit was the be all and

end all and no one quite knew understood

it and it was it was that hilarious

thing of everyone running around going

no idea how it works but it seems to be

that Reddit's being picked picked up by

the Gen AI and by the LLMs. Do

something. Just dive in there. It was

all hilariously car crashy and then

suddenly that seems to be over. Looking

at the traffic two days ago, they've

stopped. They they they pivoted how

they're getting their their their source

information. Now, that's part of your

brand strategy is your content

marketing. And strong brands who've got

good content in multiple sources, they

would have come across very

authentically. They would have probably

done very well so far. and the ones that

have done a really deep mapping of how

their brand comes across across multiple

significant and well-loved channels,

they will still continue to do well in

the AI space. And that's it's an

interesting one because if anything,

this is something to put an onus back on

brand being pragmatically important as

well as an ethereal important factor is

if you don't invest very very heavily in

website content, how you feature on

socials, how you feature in content,

Reddit and beyond Reddit, if you don't

feature heavily in those in an authentic

manner that is then replicated by real

people around the world in their

hundreds and thousands, you won't come

up at all. And Genaii is a closed book

for you. And that's going to get

terrifying fairly quickly. If you look

at the rate with which Genai search is

is biting at Google's heels and quite

frankly, how Google will pivot

themselves with their AI products.

You've got to be in that fight. Even if

you don't know what it looks like,

you've got to be testing now. And that

that's brand work. That's how your

brand's represented in these ethereal

channels that aren't hardcore

performance driven. say sorry long

answer to a to a concise question but I

think you can have that longranging plan

for rearchitecture and I think you can

stay with that it's important to be

consistent so people know what they're

getting you know you you you build your

castle and you guard it but I think how

that's communicated and the way with

which it's communicated that will change

in light of regular strategic updates

and then trickle down into your tactical

activity

>> I think that is part But um this is like

the core of the mini masterass. I think

this is something that's been lost for

such a long time that

the architecture piece is something that

people don't necessarily really

consider. I think the more traditional

marketeteers have have an idea and

understanding and want to roll this out.

I think whereas some of the newer breed

um whether they've become they were

specialists and become more generalist

is something that uh was never really

passed down. I don't think it was kind

of policed downwards as opposed to coach

downwards or around them. And I think

when you, you know, you might have,

you've probably experienced this, when

you go into a boardroom and you go into,

you know, senior leadership meetings or

ELTs and you start, you go down the the

the alleyway of brand, you just lose

people really quickly because it's just

something that has never really been

proven. It's really difficult for people

to understand and get get real feelers

around the value of it. And it feels

>> what it is. It it it sounds and I'll be

the first to admit it. It sounds like

marketing because you look at

look at the phrasing brand vision, brand

mission, brand personality. It sounds

like like know like posters on the wall

of a gym in the 1980s, you know, it

sounds until you understand the

sort of science behind it and the

rationale behind all those elements. And

this is the reason I sort of got more

into doing brand consultancy 10 15 years

ago. Um cuz I I was involved in a

project doing a a brand refresh that the

budget had gone past €2 million euros

and I'm sure I've talked about this

before um with you and one of the pages

of the architecture book which was you

know 8 in thick one of the pages was

astroturf because in the words of the

Austrian design studio you could feel

the brand at which point I sort of spat

out my cool flakes. I was like, "What?"

And that's the sort of that that

really got that brand architecture piece

in trouble is people were becoming

comfortable billing bigger and bigger

amounts of money, which they had to fill

up books with more and more to

justify it. And now, you know, that's

big business. This isn't just sort of

small brand design agencies. All the big

network agencies have the function to do

this. And the bigger the brand, the

bigger the budget they feel they need to

spend in it. And my my premise on with

brand architects was doesn't really

matter how big the brand is. It's not

like a bigger book is required for a

bigger business. It's not like Coke

needs 8 million pages because it's Coke.

A brand architecture really should be

accomplishable within eight pages. And

then your design style guidelines

obviously they might roll out quite a

lot because you might have lots of

subbrands and lots of different market

needs. That's fine. Take the design

piece out of it. the core structure

which for me is brand vision brand

positioning

um brand mission

uh personality tone of voice um well

there's elements within personality

including tone of voice but there's

basically five pages there all of which

are linked together and the first bit

brand vision is where you want to be in

five years time it's called a vision you

know it's a vision statement it's like

right with a fair wind and a lot of

effort and all of us just cracking this.

We can be there and it's difficult and

it sounds scary but that's that's in

your words the the northstar effort

right and um underneath that vision is

like well okay so positioning it's like

how do we need to frame our brand where

are the opportunities in this space for

us to stand out for the customers that

exist out there what are they going to

be most motivated by what do we need to

look like to appeal to them the most for

the longest period of time there's your

positioning and it's differenti

appreciated and then underneath that the

mission is an internal facing piece and

I' everyone does it different which is

part of the problem because there's no

universal way of doing this but my

mission statements maximum five would be

internal facing put them on the wall

these are the things we do every single

day and if we do these we accomplish

that positioning and if we do that then

in five years we can get to the vision

so very much a ladder upwards from there

and those mission things they're your

actions Every day we do this with our

product, with our people, on behalf of

customers, we will get to the

positioning statement that we aspire to

have. And that leads us to the vision

and then underneath that it's it's the

it is the tactical elements is how does

that look in everyday life? What's our

tone of voice? You know, what's our

personality? Those are the tools which

every designer, every copywriter, every

AI agent takes on board. So everything's

consistent. But not as consistently,

it's the good version. It's the best

version of your brand every single day.

And that consistency breeds efficiency

because you have none of this wastage,

none of this like, oh my god, that

social post sucks and it looked boring

and we're just doing it because we need

to do something. No, no, no, no, no. The

rules are here. We always exceed

expectations. We always put a smile on

people's faces. Everything has to make

our customers and our potential

customers in the world have a smile

because of what we're doing. For

example, if you follow the rules, and

I've done that conversation, yeah, you

can tell it's a bit of a speech. I've

done 26 brand refresh or brand

guidelines from scratch projects in the

last eight years. And in house, I had to

do that speech multiple times in each

organization I was in because people

don't get it. And the one takeaway from

this for anyone who's going through it

or wanting to go through it, it's a bit

like the hook and hold of writing social

posts or, you know, trying to write

viral posts or whatever. Invest half

your time in the hook. Invest half your

time in the education and the talking

through and the taking people on the

journey with you. Half the time, maybe

more than half the time. The rest of it,

quite frankly, is relatively easy to do.

But if you don't invest that time at the

beginning to get everyone on the journey

with you, then you start losing them.

Like you say, people start mentally

leaving the room. It becomes easy to

vilify. It looks costly. Why should we

be doing this and not this project

that's going to make us some money next

month? All of these things are filtering

in like evil little leeches and sucking

the blood out of what your your long

range project is. So invest that time

wisely into the key decision makers, the

CEO, the CFO, department heads, the team

members who are going to have to do

this. And one of the easiest ways to do

it in in my methodology is when you're

doing the workshops to build out all

these elements and you're playing the

games and doing all the fun stuff to

bring the bits together. Bring in

representatives from across the

business. Definitely have the CEO in

both workshops. probably have the CFO.

He or she will be totally useless, not

contribute anything of interest, but at

least they're in the room understanding

how you got there and at least they're

in the room having the opportunity to

have their voice heard. So when they

about in the future, you might not

point a finger and say you literally

were there and you had a had a chance,

they know that. and and on a more

positive lil they should understand much

more deeply why you're going through the

process what the end result is and how

you got there and what it means

commercially

all those bits put together I'd say are

some of the most important parts and

then no the brand refresh the

architecture the design style you know

once you finish the first part the words

you then turn that into a design brief

and then that should be a very strong

design brief for your design team your

agency to go okay I completely

understand who you're targeting, what

you're trying to do, where you're trying

to be, and here's the design concepts

for your brand that that really will get

you there because it's designed for that

future purpose, not for today's purpose.

And that's one of the other mistakes

people make is, you know, they're a

brand that's 20 years old, never been

touched, and then it's like, oh, we

should sort of keep these bits and we

should really, oh, that bit, you know,

someone really liked back in the day.

No, nothing is sacred. things do stay,

but everything needs to have its tires

kicked. So, it's there on merit, not for

traditional sentimental reasons. So,

that's that's kind of the summary thing

I found after after doing a few of

these.

I think what we'll do is we'll dive into

like your layers of of brand and what

you do in your workshops and uh what

we'll do is we'll flash up if you're

okay with it the slide that you go

through because I think that visual is

just going to help so many people who

aren't as confident in brand or not.

There's a couple of things I just want

to add to

>> it's fine.

>> There's a couple of things I'd like to

add. I think what some people aren't

doing enough is pulling out the free

states of companies, what we used to be,

so what we were before. So it's telling

people we were. It's telling people what

we are today and understanding and

giving people guidelines, not rules, cuz

humans believe rules are made to be

broken. Guidelines keep them on the

straight and narrow. And then what we're

going to be. So if you can tell people,

yes, we were that, but today we are. and

where we're going to be and how we're

going to get there, I think enables

people, especially from a brand and

marketing perspective to understand

that. Like you said in the workshops, if

you bring the CFO or FD or the

equivalent within your business into it,

there's no surprises when they see next

year's budget. So, if you can keep

reminding them shortterm we're doing

this, midterm we're doing this, longterm

we're going to be doing X, Y, and Zed,

there's no surprises for them. And if

you're if you're smart and use PQ as I

call it, political intelligence, take

them on the journey and just remind them

and get closer to they'll buy into it

because they've seen the the data.

They've seen the results. They

understand the path that you're going

on. When people overexlain and

overdefend, that becomes the problem and

it becomes like a surprise thing for

them. So that's that's the extension I'd

give. And on something else that you

said, I think if you can understand

where your brand truly influences

um the rest of the business, you can

then start building out your comm's

plan. And say for instance, after the

workshop, what I tend to do is if you've

got people who are great on camera or

great on podcast,

as quickly as possible, get them on

other podcasts and get them talking or

whether you start recording your own and

doing small videos, whether it's Tik

Tok, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc., and get

them talking around the brand because

it's fresh in their mind. They'll

connect it to what they're doing and

it'll be more holistic. Whereas what

tends to happen is they're not involved.

So they go off and they don't ever talk

around it. So it just feels disjointed.

And the more advocates that you have,

the better that the the story becomes,

the more investment it is and the less

that it becomes an executive fight as

opposed to something that everyone's

bought into and calls out a lot.

>> Yeah. very much agree with that.

>> So in your in your workshop you and

we'll flash it up on the screen and

it'll be on the supporting newsletter.

Something that you're very clear is on

the on the layer. So if we were to think

of it from a pyramid from bottom to top

you have your brand vision, your brand

personality including tone of voice.

Then going up the the uh pyramid you've

got brand positioning, your missions and

like you said maximum of five. And then

you have what's really important is the

benefit in supporting information. So

the emotional benefit, the rational

benefit, the brand history, and the

brand vision. And then you have your

core brand benefits. Do you think some

of that's been lost a little bit more

recently or it's sort of degraded a

little bit because of the short- termism

of a lot of companies at the moment?

>> Um, yeah, potentially. I mean, I I think

everyone does this a different way. I

mean, that's literally the sort of

things I plucked out as being the ones I

think are most useful. And in its

simplest form, where is it most useful?

It's most useful in a brief. How much

briefing happens these days, you know,

compared to compared to like when I got

my trousers on in in agency life 20 odd

years ago, that was everything. You

know, briefings encompassed

understanding the customer,

understanding the product, understanding

the market, understanding the media,

having a budget, and then crafting out

for a creative team or a media team,

what the intention was, and giving them

all the information possible so they

could then take it away and be on brief.

That was the whole point about being on

brief. I don't know how much that ever

happens anymore. I I rarely wrote briefs

in my my last permanent roles apart from

big projects like this when I'd go to

absolute town on it. You know, the brief

itself would be a project. Um so I think

elements probably have been lost and

again it comes to understanding of if

people are thinking short term and

thinking right and we've seen it quite a

lot you know recently with lot of sort

of senior markets being let go. We've

seen some structural shifts where CEOs

are like, well, why can't the heads of

or the senior managers of the channels

just execute because they're good at it

and they understand it and we've given

the money and they plug in and

theoretically everything carries on on

the curve it's been doing. But it

obviously removes one big dose of a

strategy and b integration and pieces

don't talk to each other. People who are

heads of a channel tend to be really

really really good at strategy and

execution tactical execution of that

channel but have very little experience

of any of the other channels. So how can

they possibly understand what the best

way to connect those pieces are? So the

sum becomes greater than the parts. The

same thing would apply here if you are

missing sort of key elements like the

vision is there to give everyone one

point to aim for. It's also there as

part of this exercise of of brand

refresh for example to go okay the first

thing we'll do is the vision because we

want to just get a really big mega

statement in our minds and that is

everything else we do if it's not

contributing to getting us there it's

not right and the same thing with

positioning. You get the positioning

which is designed to then feed in to get

us to that mission to that vision

underneath that the mission bits etc

etc. the the ladder is there for a

reason and it basically allows for self

validation through the process. The

pieces are missing. It's like well yeah

we know where we're going in five years

time and we're going to execute channels

like this with channel strategy.

Okay well a how are the pieces going to

join together? B what happens when

things change? You know do do we do we

lean entirely on the channels that are

working? That's quite a naive approach.

Do we invest in testing and um research

around new ways to execute the current

channels? What do we do with the brand

positioning when the positioning doesn't

fit the world at large anymore? That you

know that can happen too. So I think

having it in that formal structure which

covers all the facets building into each

other all the way down to an execution

level that's really clear and it's back

to that consistency breeds efficiency

point I made before and I use that as a

slide in it right in the workshops

the moment you stray away from

consistency then you have wastage and

the biggest enemy we have we have enough

wastage we know our data is normally a

bit rubbish we know Google's data is

normally a bit rubbish. We know

performance marketing spends and the

feedback loops are not accurate or

timely enough to be really perfect.

They're often far from perfect. Wastage

is everywhere and most of us are

operating in a world where if we're

doing 50% of the potential capacity,

that's probably still a profitable line

of attack and we're kind of okay with it

because we've got used to it. Now this

is an opportunity to mitigate wastage.

One of the few until we get single

source of truth data and it's perfect

perfect and the wonderful world that

exists in the future that I dream of.

Until then mitigating wastage is

absolutely

the highest priority because you're just

chucking percentage points away and we

can't afford to do that. I mean, there's

very few businesses that are flying so

high they literally can afford to do

that because it's it's not worth their

time to spend time looking inwards

because looking forwards is making them

so much money for everyone else. And I

think that consistency of keeping

structural plans on your brand strategy.

That's how you do it and do it in what

whichever form works for you. But some

of those elements are key elements in my

opinion.

>> Exactly. So with all of that said,

brand, if we had to break it down, when

would you recommend I think this is a

question that a lot of people struggle

with is, and this is, you know, a

LinkedIn foder for a lot of people, is I

think brand reintroduction, brand

refresh, and a rebrand are all things

that I've I I'll explain it. And what I

mean is reintroducing the brand the and

the products in a light way, not having

to spend loads of money. A brand refresh

is is like when you um you give your

house a lick of pain and um you put new

wallpaper up and a rebrand is obviously

the all singing or all-encompassing

uh very expensive project that a lot of

people want to undertake. When do you

recommend the sort of brief? So what

about a brand reintroduction? how how

frequently or how often do you think

people should should do it?

I

>> think you should be assessing the status

of your brand constantly and that's why

brand tracking etc. I think you should

be looking at it as a deep dive and if

you're lucky enough to have a brand team

that should be annually because when

you're building your brand strategy out

where where are we how are we doing how

is it being received is it still current

um so that should be at the very least

annually it doesn't require a brand

reintroduction but it might do it might

be that the findings of that um that

piece of work say actually we're behind

you know our competitors are leaping

ahead in all these ways and so we need

to do something about is so I think the

assessment should be at the very least

annual but I think the tracking should

be constant and the reintroduction is

needs must if that annual annual audit

suggests it is appropriate that's when

it takes place

something you said Harry you you sort of

mentioned that if all the brand signals

that's coming in suggest a

reintroduction

do you not think with a lot of the

products uh if you're a company it has a

lot of products and you're releasing

them often, do you think you still need

them then or do you think your products

are working hard enough for your brand

or does that come from from your

tracking and all the intel that you

have?

>> Um, if you're the sort of business that

releases products regularly, then your

brand strategy should be able to stomach

that. You know, that should be part and

parcel of the toolkit and Swiss Army

knife methodology of the brand strategy.

Whether you're a house of brands or a

branded house, whichever one you've

chosen to be, your brand strategy and

architecture should be able to handle

that without any sort of refreshing. The

product should sit comes to be under

that. If suddenly you pivoted into an

entirely new product line that requires

a rethink, then I think you you need to

assess whether you need to sit a new

subsidiary within the brand family. But

you c certainly shouldn't limit your

options because the world's offered you

an opportunity on the product side and

you've taken it and you go, "Oh

now we need to redo the whole brand

thing." That's a baby and baths

decision. I think um if you're releasing

regular products and that's what you've

done for the last 10 years or 20 years,

then your architecture should allow for

that. And then you position the product,

it goes into the family, it has certain

structures that allows it to fit and

then you roll from there. And if it's

entirely brand new, then maybe

subsidiary within the family and it

takes its own roles or becomes an

independent standalone brand supported

by the mothership. But you don't want to

be robbing or you don't you don't want

to be making a mess of things for

neatness sake. I'm a big advocate of

pragmatism that if the world's changed

and innovation has allowed you to do

something new and snazzy, do the best

version of that. let it be the best

thing it can be and fit it into the the

Brown family. And if it feels a little

bit like a bastard child, that's fine.

No one's got a gun to your head for

neatness in this stuff. They have got a

gun to your head for commercial payback

and ROI, but they haven't got one for

neatness. So, just be pragmatic and say

what's the best for the business and for

the entity. And if it's something you

can plan in advance for because it's a

regular product release, it should fit

in seamlessly. it should have been

planned for. It's brand new. Then let it

live in its own little entity and have

the benefit of being in the family but

not be hamstrung by it.

How about a rebrand? That's obviously

the the question everyone wants to know

is is when should you or when when is it

appropriate to do a rebrand?

Well, with this sort of consultant's hat

on who does a lot of brand architecture

projects, I mean every two weeks clearly

every business should rebrand and hire

expensive consultants in um the better

answer um the less facitious one is

something needs to be significantly and

clearly not working you know and it it's

funny I'm a living cliche having sort of

joined in x number of businesses over

the last 15 years you CMO or know VP or

marketing director roles and I've done a

brand refresh in five of them over 15

years. I think it's five. But I did them

not because I like doing brand refresh

projects even though I do I enjoy doing

them. I did them because what was

inherited or what was present sucks. It

was either non-existent, you know,

written on one page by an agency 10

years before, completely out of kilter

with what the business actually did and

what the customers actually looked like

and everything else about it was wrong.

So something needed to be done and so

the refresh was kind of a you know

polish a turd exercise. Um or the

business had significantly greater

plans. It wanted to be in a bigger

place. It had access to more funds. It

was big investment and the shape of its

brand didn't allow for that. It was

wearing it little boy trousers and it

wants to be putting a suit on and

getting into big business.

Those are good reasons to do it, but you

don't do it. I mean, the the idea that

it's like, oh, you should refresh every

5 years. I I say maybe have a look at it

every 5 years as a as a rule. If you're

lucky enough to be a CMO who has a job

for 5 years, then yes, have a look at it

and go, you know what, I think it's

working fine, but we haven't looked at

it under a microscope. We looked at it

tactically. We looked at our NBS scores.

We look at that as part of our BAU, but

we haven't really kicked the tires. We

haven't spent six months and a bit of

money seeing what this could be in a

world and then putting that in front of

customers in quote unquote research.

I think that exercise every 5 years is

good business and I suggest you'll

probably find that some form of refresh

is going to be appropriate because back

to my original point from a while ago

the world's moves so quickly and has

moved on and a business operating 5

years ago I mean take COVID out of the

equation so business operating seven

years ago

is in an entirely different world you

know digital products operating Now app

stores are different, social media is

different, content marketing is

different, AI is present and a million

other things are new and the audience is

different. You know, if you're if you're

a business targeting 22 to to 30 year

olds, you know, your 22 year olds with

15y old teenagers when you put all this

stuff together, what are they thinking?

What are they needing? How how do they

perceive the world? What what matters to

them? So, I think, you know, if you

aren't doing it every five years, you're

you're missing a trick because you're

probably going to find enough for a

reason. And, you know, point of a brand

refresh. It isn't wholesale. It isn't

the buy a new house and burn the other

one to the ground. You might not change

the logo because the logo is perfectly

fine. And why spend lots of money on a

new logo when everyone knows and loves

yours? The consistency of logos is

important. So really you want to be

careful about chucking that out because

you've got to design whim and you want

to go for some nice lunches in Soho. So

protect the assets that still meaningful

and motivating and and means something

to the world and customers at large.

Maybe it's the periphery. Maybe it's the

positioning. Maybe it's the personality

doesn't really fit in the modern world.

maybe you know being a ladish sort of

lad mag style thing which worked for you

in 2012 that's obviously not going to

work as well today if at all so um I I

think it's assessing every 5 years

definitely keep track of it constantly

like I said before and then judge which

elements do need looking at because

there's a notable and significant

benefit to doing so and be Chris ical in

that I think as long as you're staying

away for the we're doing it for doing it

sake which I know a lot of businesses do

and I know a lot of marketing people and

probably a little bit of me as well is I

want to do it because I don't believe

this is the best version but if you're

looking at it objectively like totally

objectively

I think you probably do find pieces that

could be improved every 5 years without

cannibalizing the goodness that you've

or you know the stuff you've invested in

the stuff that had made you get to that

level and view view it at that critical

level of what's a net incremental

improvement and enhancement and what is

something we really we covered we should

protect and and and have that lens on it

and you won't go too far wrong

>> one of my favorite uh examples I give to

people is when a company pivots so they

pivot like product or let's use the

modern example

we're going to add on a load of AI

features. Is that the Is that the right

time to to rebrand? What do you think?

>> Um, not necessarily. Uh, no. It it

again, it depends what the brand was to

start with. If it was a brand that was

known for being innovative and

forwardthinking and future proof, well,

no, you're great. You're golden. You're

doing exactly what the brand's intent

was. you're just pivoting into a new

innovative technologically enhanced

direction. Well done you. Congrats on

having a brand that can stomach it and

thrive off it. So, no, I don't think I

think we run the run the risk of getting

into like rules for rules sake. And I

think that's the point with a lot of

marketing is rules don't actually add up

because every brand in every market for

every customer is different and means a

different thing and putting sort of

singular judgments of this is what you

must do. And I know again I'm guilty of

being in some of the articles I write.

I'm like, "Yeah, you should do this.

It's great." And I, you know, I normally

mean it emotionally and I'm probably not

right most of the time because I think

you've got to go on a sort of time and

needs basis. And that's the other thing

as well, time. You know, what we all

know what worked yesterday doesn't tend

to work tomorrow. That's the delightful

thing about a career we never get bored

of. It's also a wrecking nightmare

because we can't sit on our laurels and

just repeat methodologies. They just

don't work because everything changes.

Tech changes, channels change, people

change, customers change, rules change,

and um if we stuck to what worked

yesterday, it works usually

incrementally less well over time. We've

got to have that ability to flex and

make pragmatic objective judgments about

where we are now, where we perceive we

need to be going and whether the brand

is in the shape that is optimum for that

one year, 3 year, 5year future. Then

make good decisions based on that

information.

That's where I think a lot of creators

are struggling a little bit is where

they go from a creator into a brand and

with products is their audience matures

and grows up. So how do they either

mature and grow up with them or how do

they stick and serve like you were

saying the you know the 17 to 30 year

olds or how do they really consider uh

offering products that mature with them

or do they stick to stick to a core

market? something else that you said,

uh, a rebrand is probably one of the

hardest jobs that you'll ever have to do

as a marketing leader, however many

times you've done it before, is it is so

hard. Like I I've been a part of a

couple of them and I think it's getting

harder and harder for companies now

because there are more assets, there are

more channels, there are more ways that

you connect with with customers. And the

other hard part around it is if you're

part of a loved a really loved brand and

you try and do anything more than a

refresh, all you're doing is inviting

trouble for for anyone to have an

opinion. So having uh

>> having worked on a large brand that

almost everyone's has a touch point with

it is really really difficult because

everyone at any customer level has an

opinion of what you were what you are

and they definitely have an opinion of

where you're going to be and what you

what you want to change to or evolve to.

>> No no no one realizes until you go

through it. Now, it's the same brand

refresh. If you if you change the logo,

for example, in a refresh or you do a

rebrand and it's wholesale, nobody

realizes what the implications are. And

one simple example, doing one with a

online gambling company a while ago,

everything else, you know, change

changing a website, you know, color

swatches, fonts. Yeah. Once you get to

the nitty-gritty, fonts, color swatches,

tone of voice means all the copies

changing. Logo, logo on every page.

That's an entire new website rebuild.

Now, it's if it's an ecom site, that's

going to start getting pricey pretty

quickly. But then you get to the

nitty-gritty of channel marketing

activity and normally it's fine. It's

like, okay, we've got all our creative

suite, but that that tends to burn

itself out fairly rapidly. That's on a a

roll through cycle. You know, AI can

probably support we could probably

generate new base assets and then we

build out a new suite from there.

affiliate marketing. We had something

like 9,000 affiliates on the system. It

was an online casino business. Something

like 9,000 of which probably half were

active affiliates. It isn't a question

of changing source code or changing your

banner suites. You have to get them to

amen amend all of their websites. How do

you do that? Now, you got a working

relationship with them. So, there should

be some goodwill there, assuming you

paid them on time. Do you incentivize

them? Do you ask them nicely? Do they do

it? Probably not all of them. And then

you've got that horrible situation where

as the leader of the project, you've

probably got 2,000 websites with your

old now out out ofdate logos, inventory,

color swatch sitting on it, reminding

normally sleepy people in the business

who are browsing on Google, oh, did you

know uh yeah, this this website's got

the old branding on it. looked really

bad. That that's what happens. And

that's one implication of many

implications. So before anyone gets into

that game,

the first the first thing you do before

you even start the project is you do the

inventory. If that inventory starts to

become more painful than the net benefit

of the project, then you ought to you

want to suicide that project because

that's that's the end goal, isn't it? I

mean, if it's not got a net benefit

that's that's more than what it's going

to cost in time, resources, and money to

execute, then surely that's your answer.

You shouldn't go anywhere. At least at

least not on your watch. Don't don't

make yourself that poison pill.

One of my mottos with uh some of my old

team, they might laugh, was always be

auditing, always be marketing because

you have to sort of understand what's

going around and then you have to market

towards them. So have a change in

perspective, you know, keeping it or

giving them something to to chew on or

consider. Uh moving forward, there's a

couple of questions that I'd love to ask

you because I think it's not really

touched upon anywhere else and often

brand jargon. So internal brand

conversation, some words and insights

that we use, it often leaks out to the

customer. The customer has no idea what

it means. And you get it all the time.

And I think marketeers who've been doing

it a long time see it a lot. How do you

stop brand jargon from seeping out into

the customer? Is there is there

something or or a partner? Is there a

way that you can stop that as a as a

brand or marketing leader?

Uh

god I don't know. I I I don't recall

ever sort of experiencing that. I mean

well in terms of like the brand

guidelines for the outside world. I mean

don't know who would have any actual

interest in seeing it but I mean like I

said with the brand missions you know

they're they're very much internal

facing but they're they're internal

mandates. We don't we don't want the

customer to do these things. We want the

team to be doing the missions. We want

the vision to be an end result of the

mission by the team and then the

positioning which the customer will

relate to. But none of those things are

pertinent actions for the customer.

There's no reason for them to see it. If

they saw it, it would look like a wanky

marketing document.

It certainly wouldn't be dangerous in my

eyes. It would just be a bit confusing.

They don't they don't understand or need

to understand

how they're being communicated in and

why. But I'd be interested to hear then.

So, give us your examples of of that

happening. I'm fascinated. So often,

yes, often brands will have something

internally it'll be like approved by or

it'll be um it would be like the stamp

of approval or it'll be something that

the internal teams come up with that

you've talked for such a long time cuz

it's a big internal project. You want to

sing your own praises. You want to pull

it out into the market. So then you've

been doing it for such a long time, you

use that language or lingo that you've

created that ends up going out because

you've all talked around it so long

you've just forgotten that the meaning

of that word doesn't mean anything to an

outside customer or you've not tested

it. So I'll give you an examples.

Something was sent to me the other day.

It was by like a quite well respected

brand, a company that a lot of people

would know and they were talking around

a new product line that they have and

how it's, you know, how it's been

introduced and they have like an

internal short list and like an approved

list, but they kept saying it's

preferred and I had no idea what that

meant. So, I just ping back to him and

said, "What does preferred mean? What do

you mean by preferred?" Cuz uh I've

worked in your place. I'm guessing you

mean this is people that you love and

that you want other people to use or

want to be connected to you. And they

Yeah, exactly. And I said, but our

customers not understand what that means

because you've just thrown a word at

them with no context. And I think

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> Meteers have lost that. Yeah. I think

merse have lost that.

>> Yeah. And I think I know what you mean

now. I've definitely seen more of my

favorite game when I do go to London

looking at looking at the tube ads and

you see marketing lingo leaking into

that stuff and you're like you look at

it you're like unless you're targeting

marketers which seems highly unlikely

considering there's plenty of people

paid more in London. um it is just

jinguistic lingo that was probably from

the brief and say well that's what we

that's the intent that's what we mean

and what it hasn't done I think that

feels more like a process breach of you

haven't actually gone through from brief

to copy to translate the sentiment into

customer friendly wording. So to me that

just sounds like lazy creative briefing

or or lazy design briefing uh rather

than a sort of brand slip. But um may I

don't know maybe maybe our listeners

have got examples. This is sort of stuff

I'd love to sort of hear about. Are

there examples of that in a wholesale

way or just their examples of horrible

versions of B2B marketing

dripping into campaigns?

>> I think that will be a whole dedicated

uh marketing unfiltered u episode. Yeah,

definitely.

>> How do you how do you remove the over

policing of brand? Obviously, you said

rules and guidelines earlier. Is there

something that as I said, I think you

should brand coach, not brand police. I

think often when you you go over to

product and you say you should never do

this, and you wave a finger at them, all

that's going to do is put put all of

their teams uh backs up. Is there a way

that you help?

>> Yeah, of course. or is there a way that

you can help or you help remove the over

policing of of brand?

>> It dep it depends on the organization,

depends on the size. You know, if you've

got if you got 5,000 people organization

where 2,000 people have got the ability

to communicate with customers, whether

it's customer service or CRM or VIP

management, whatever it is, in something

that size, it has to nudge into the

rules territory. Call them guidelines,

call them, you know, rules, but I prefer

your way. I think guidelines, but there

has to be some sort of not red notice

going this this is how this works. This

is why this is why this is so important

to speak in this tone of voice to to

speak in these sorts of phrases rather

than this sort. I always like having the

anti- examples of like we do this

because this version sounds for

these reasons. And you know, you have

that in the guidelines book. you know,

you literally have a CRM email written

badly with a lines coming off it like a

markup saying, "No, we don't say that

because it's negative sentiment. We

don't say that because that's not how

our positive brand likes to be

represented." But equally, you can't you

don't want to please too stringently.

And you know, the best example, I think,

is of content marketing in social.

But all those brands out there who may

as well close up their social accounts

because they get no engagement. They get

minimal followers, they just repeat

company mandates and updates and crappy

images.

they don't get it, you know, versus

those who are using social as an

acquisition channel, as a brand building

channel, as a content entity. The ones

that are doing the latter, the ones that

are successful,

their teams have been empowered to take

the tone of voice, the personality, and

positioning and interpret it in the

social space. And the social space is a

different space to direct mail to CRM to

an ad campaign to a TV spot. It is

different is more colloquial. People

exist in a more friendly way. So that's

for me is a really tricky thing to get

right and requires really talented

people both doing the briefing. So the

senior boards or the people who have

been running the brand project and the

social team themselves who need to be

really good at interpreting and reading

the room because and I I I find this a

very interesting one with social because

as a CMO you are accountable your your

team if they get it wrong if they may

have one of those cataclysmic fuckups we

read about once in a while or actually

most weeks that's on you but the

individual obviously is going to take

heat because they up to the point

that they it's in the press, then that's

a serious one. But you're never going to

get anywhere with social unless you have

some levity and some freedom to to

converse with the world. And I think

that comes down to partly education

about the risks that could be involved.

So that's where it's another example.

It's worth doing that homework and

education and discussion piece. It's

real debt. Here's lots of examples of

where people have actually got

themselves in legal trouble from stuff

posting social. That frames the mind

pretty well. But from there it's like

equally we want to be a brand that is

using social to engage at a much higher

and deeper level with a much broader

audience. To do that we have to ride

closer to those edges, those

metaphorical edges. And I, the CMO, am

going on that journey with you and we

are going to talk about it and we're

going to do some baby steps first

together. and we're going to find our

feet. And then as we find our feet and

as you find your confidence, as we go

another week without getting into any

trouble, we will expand out how that

works. And it's a test and learn

process.

That could all sit within the structures

and the framework of your brand,

personality, and tone of voice, assuming

you have a fun one that allows levity.

But you need to go on the journey with

them. You need to obviously defend them.

They're your team members. You, you

know, it's your responsibility. They are

your responsibility. But if you want to

get proper traction

then you have to go you have to get to a

place which is fun which is engaging

which is actually engaging with with

real people in massive volume at scale.

So I think that's just something where

going through the baby steps, going

through the educational piece, doing it

together as a proper project, that time

is really well invested. Or you just go,

"Oh, here are some rules. Don't breach

them or you'll get fired and watch your

social just become a cost center." And

that's what that's what most of them are

in my opinion. Most brands socials may

as well not exist.

That's the I think that's the thing that

people get most confused around when I

engage with different companies is if

you're spending a lot of money on social

and you're not really seeing the rewards

or you're not constantly being sent your

own social media then I think a lot of

the time it's just it is a cost center

and I think a lot of brands could do

without it. There's an extension to what

you said is what I love a lot in recent

examples is notion and how they're

basically defined and power like their

community powered what their brand was.

So it shaped their product but also

enabled them to truly understand what

their brand was and how it was how it

was sort of conceived and and um on

boarded and I think there there's a lot

of brands now that will learn a lot

actually from companies like notion who

had a product that was fit for everyone

and then people actually helped the

brand evolve because they were building

templates and they were so active in the

in the building of of the product and

the brand

not everyone Well, I mean, you know, I

think as much as I think Notion has done

things very well, the nature of their

product, the nature of the platform is

such that it is one giant feedback loop,

but not everyone's going to have that.

You know, if you're launching a a new IC

tea brand, you you don't you don't get

that. You can build a community. You can

engage with certain tribes and do that.

Notion's fortunate that it's in that

digital space where effectively

community is by definition part of the

platform they're building. And then that

feedback loop has been encouraged. I

think what they've done very well is to

allow for that and also listen to it.

But um but unfortunately not everyone

gets that. But I think everyone can have

everyone can be more openeared to the

customers as to how you know what what

is coming back. You know it's like those

u those satellite things ping things out

into the outer you know depths of space

and hope to hear something back from

aliens. You you know you you ping out um

and you you have to be listening. um if

you aren't listening and doing something

about it, then you're probably missing

out on what the real world thinks of

you. In fact, you definitely are. Um and

that way lies boredom and apathy. So,

and the last question in in this sort of

section that I wanted to dive into is

there's a lot of talk around own you

should own all your own coms now and you

should a lot of people say go direct. So

you know whe whether you should post all

your coms via yourselves on your own

channels like whether it's podcasts,

YouTubetubes, etc. and own the brand

message and what's sort of said around

it and and then you blend in with press

and journalists which is flipped it on

its head uh around that. Do you when do

you think people should go direct and

own it? And when do you think that

owning the brand means, you know, going

out and being being interviewed by the

journalist or by the influencer or by

the creator? Do you think there's a like

a rule nowadays for owning brand message

and getting brand out there for most

traction?

>> I don't know. I don't know on this one.

I mean, as a as a rule of thumb, life's

hard enough as a marketer and as a

brand. You know, there's lots of other

brands. People don't particularly like

talking about them. It's hard enough to

get a journalist to show any interest at

all in what you're doing, let alone

write nice things about it. So, my

default setting is

take any opportunity, take any

opportunity to have noise as long as

it's positive. Um, in some some guys

your own channels and your paid

channels, they're the ones which yeah,

of course, you own them or pay for them.

So then you can be more explicit about

getting your messages out in the way and

the manner and the time you want them to

be and then wrapping around that. If

you're doing a good job, and this is the

critical bit, if you're doing a good

job, then people will be talking and

writing and thinking about you in those

tones and those frameworks anyway

because you're talking about exciting

stuff that's new and interesting and

edgy or whatever it might be. Or, you

know, you might be an insurance and

they're talking about you just being

safe and stoic and boring and that's

what you want in your insurance company.

whatever it might be. That's that's

probably a trick for good comms, good

media relations and a good tactical

comms team and corporate comms team to

be taking your messages and getting them

getting them understood in a way that

that becomes worth speaking about. But

the idea of sort of controlling

everything and dismissing anything you

don't own that that feels kind of

paranoid slash you know power hungry

like or narcissistic. I think we we

should take any opportunity to be talked

about because otherwise they're talking

about our competitors and none of us

like that.

>> I do my sort of quick takeaway would be

if you if you're confident in some of

the messages you can put out and ask

really pertinent questions and and poke

at products and and your brand and your

company and what's out there and you've

got a great distribution engine. do more

and more of it because at the moment

unless you're you've got real cut

through, you're going to need enough in

enough material and good content to get

out there and and hit enough messages to

get people to know who you are and what

you do and why you're different because

otherwise you're going to go you're

never going to get stopped in a feed,

right? And that's how a lot of people

find out about you. Or whether that's

Tik Tok, Instagram, whether that's

WhatsApp, iMessage, you have to be

something that either is recommended or

stops the thumb from scrolling. So

that's that's the time that I think

brands can be smart or savvy to leverage

it. Whereas, like you said, if you can

take any opportunity for to get in front

of an audience, whe that's a journalist,

an influencer, a creator, or or

something different, it could even be a

B2B press event, then that's definitely

something I think you should blend the

two together.

And if you're not if you're not saying

something interesting

to to your core audience or to an

adjacent audience, you're not you're

probably not ever going to be

interesting to to to a bigger audience.

So I think you have to you have to be

really smart at distribution and

understanding how to get cut through.

Now

>> yeah. Yeah. To dive into um if you got

two or three sort of guard rails for

people to how to decide when who should

be front facing and the the communicator

within the business. A lot of people

shifted to CEO only. Do you think there

is uh two or three recommendations you

can make to people?

Um it should be the CEO. Um whether it's

crisis comms, whether it's big

announcements, they are ultimately the

gatekeeper of the entire organization,

the senior figure in the business and

the board's representative. That's who

you want. So um number one, make sure

your CEOs have media training. There are

some very good orgs out there that do

very good, relatively concise media

training exercises. Make sure they got

it because not every CEO is a naturalb

born speaker. Um, in theory, they're

leaders. Not all CEOs are good leaders,

it turns out, and certainly not all of

them are great speakers, but you know,

you don't get to choose your CEO

sometimes. So, um, make sure they're

media trained. Make sure they understand

why that's important and what it

actually might mean. Part of that should

be your crisis comm strategy anyway

because everyone should have a well

prepped crisis comm strategy. And I've

only done a couple of those really

formally, and they were fascinating. And

I'm so glad I've done that that

training. I'm so glad I've been into

that zone. Beyond that, journalists

don't like speaking to marketing people.

Even though us marketers, like quite a

few of us tend to be extroverts. Quite a

few of us have got no experience

speaking in public. Blah blah blah.

Journals don't like speaking to

marketing people because they suspect

rightfully that we're going to try and

sell them something. So we're out the

frame. So we should be the facilitators

of the process and the advisers and the

motivators and the encouraers. That

should be our role. Beyond there when

you do your media trading make sure your

CFO/ COO are in the media training too.

If the CEO is not available, if there's

coms that need to be done at the same

time to two sources, lean on the next

best one. Um but beyond there, yeah, no,

I think I think it ought to be the CEO.

um for fairly obvious reasons.

>> Yeah. Also, if you're part of a big

company, typically if you're listed or

you're you're going to thinking about

becoming on the stock market, your CFO,

your COO, your CEO, uh and your investor

relations are used to talking to big

audiences and taking tough questions.

So, that's something that I think they

should all have like the version of

media training as well as being able to

take the tricky questions. One thing I

would add also is there's new media now

which is podcast and video interviews.

And if your CEO isn't prepared to give

something away or when they're when

they're really relaxed and leaning out

as opposed to leaning into questions,

they're going to have to have stories

that they're willing to talk around.

Otherwise, uh very often they're not

they're just not going to get cut

through and and potentially it's not

going to hit uh the feeds that that

people have.

>> Should we dive into I don't know on that

hand quick one on that though. Um

there's another thing sort of related to

it about CEOs. I've had a couple who

were really reticent about people

speaking like other team members

speaking at conferences because they

thought that they were basically

platforming themselves to get poached.

And I've always been very very

vehemently of the opposite school of

thought of you know build people build

their careers build their profiles. a

build their profiles because it'll

probably benefit your business depending

on what you're selling, but also don't

hold people back. You know, if there's

one thing making what that will make

people want to leave sooner, it's being

held back. So, encourage them to do

that. You know, if they get talent

spotted and that's probably on you to

make sure that they're satisfied and

motivated in their work. One thing that

will motivate them is being ged up by a

line manager that encourages them to

grow and build more skills. So, but it

was only CEOs I've seen who are like,

"Oh, no. Don't think we should let that

happen." And you're like, do you realize

how hard it is to get like team members

to voluntarily like do these events,

which is good for us. It's an event

where we can sell products and they're

like, no, I think it's a risk. And I've

never I understand where the thinking

comes from, but I I disagree with it

entirely.

Conferences are the best from my

experience are the best ways for you to

hit and connect with adjacent audiences

because you're being able to talk around

the brand, talk around what you've done,

why you've done it, and how you've done

it. So, actually, you're going to get

far more in that. It's far more akin to

a great podcast interview, just a little

bit more restricted. And also, if you

work at a big company, they're going to

ask to vet your presentation. most

likely going to take out all the juicy

bits or the best bits. So, just consider

if you're a marketing leader or a brand

leader.

>> Well, depends on that one. It depends on

that one. I mean, most of the time I

I've rarely been paid for speaking

engagements. I've done mine for sort of

PR benefit and, you know, free free

conference passes and, you know, the

occasional free flight. In those

instances, I'll talk about what I want

to talk about. You know, you're not

paying me. The value exchange is I'm

giving you free content which I'll make

interesting because I want to be

interesting because that's how I'll get

more business, but you don't get to vet

my content for the benefit of your

agenda. So, if you're paying people,

absolutely, you know, do what you like.

It's your event. You're paying a fee and

you want the product you're demanding.

Um, but if you're not paying,

don't don't be an editor.

>> Yeah. If you're part of a big company,

especially those that are listed, they

will internally they will vet your

presentations or they vet what you say.

So, something that I uh I actually

strongly disagree with and have had many

disagreements with at large companies is

you shouldn't try and um restrict or

demote what someone's trying to say as

long as they're not giving away anything

that's competitive information or like

strict IP, then you should let them go

because they're going to tell that story

far better than anyone else and it's in

a safer environment to enable them to do

that.

>> Yeah.

No totally.

Should we dive into a quick fire round,

Harry?

>> Yeah, let's do it.

What is there such a thing as brand

performance?

No and yes. I mean,

as a as a teasing question designed to

make me frustrated and a bit angry.

Yeah, brand can perform better, but in

the guise of performance marketing as a

brand thing, no, they look very

different. Even if they might be trying

to accomplish the same ultimate goal?

That's the rubbish answer. Anyway, is

brand really a growth driver?

Yes.

Is brand controversy worth it? So, GAP,

American Eagle, etc. the recent

examples.

loaded question because you know my

American Eagle thoughts because you read

my article. Um, it can be. It can be,

but it's a really thin line, razor thin.

And if you slip, then that's going to

sting and it's easy to slip. So, tread

with caution.

>> And you're only as good as the person

fronting their campaign is is perceived.

Has social been a net positive or a net

net negative on brand?

Uh net positive.

>> Should brand be separate to marketing?

So should it operate separately?

>> No. Brand is part of marketing.

>> And are there any recent examples of

great branding or great brands that you

would recommend to other people to check

out?

>> Um

trying to think. I mean, these days I'm

in the middle of the Cotsworld, so half

the brands I engage with aren't really

available anywhere else. Um, my local

brewing fawn shop, which I recommend to

anyone to go and visit because it's

wonderful. But on a on a bigger scale,

try and think. I think um I think the

likes at a big scale I think BYD the car

company is doing a lot of things

extremely well all the way through from

the way the products look the way

they're marketed the way they're priced

how they are taking all the fups from

Tesla and turning them into net brand

positives and they're doing it in a

fairly subtle and understated way while

shipping a lot of Now, there's a risk

that their pricing policy might hurt

them in the long term because they're

undercutting everyone to get market

share, but they appear to have

incredibly deep pockets, so they can

probably stomach it. Um, so it's not

that exciting an answer. It isn't sort

of jazz hands new fashion or tech piece

or AI platform, but I think if you're

looking at large scale organization that

really wasn't anywhere 5 years ago,

there's a lot to like about not feeling

the need to be Hollywood. They just do

very strong things in a competitive

sector extremely well and don't really

set off the fireworks about it. It's

just solidly good and they're selling a

lot of cars and ultimately

that's the task. We're all here just to

sell more of the business we work for.

Uh and it doesn't always need to be

award-winning, exciting, pop star

gleaning, future proofing AI, blah blah

blah. It can just be really good. And I

think that's my boring answer. The UID

is boringly good.

I think the the telltale sign is how

many times that BYD's been recommended

in in different chat groups etc. So I

agree. And the last question is what's

the one recommendation you'd have for

people in this AI era as a brand leader?

Um keep your ears open. Um it's

certainly what I'm doing. Um our mutual

friend Orin who's been on marketing

unfiltered a few weeks ago. I listen to

every word he says. Um because I'm at

the sort of beginning of my journey of

trying to become better educated about

AI. I'm naive to it as most of us are.

But I'm trying to learn. I think the

only thing is just keep your ears open.

Keep an open mind. Don't invest too

heavily too soon in anything because

none of us really know like the rules

are being written as we go and then

they're changing and then a new platform

turns up and then suddenly Reddit isn't

a big deal that it was two weeks ago and

in all of that like I said earlier like

wastage is our enemy. There's a huge

amount of wastage opportunity in all of

this and yet the upside opportunity is

probably way more significant. So we

need to be in this game. Second mover

advantage is going to be quite a big

thing. You know, being ready and nimble

enough to dive into ops, take advantage

of them, pivot, change, be creatively

aligned with a new platform or channel,

whatever it might be. GEO or GEO is a

very big deal. And you know, just become

accomplished at learning and

accomplished at fading and accomplished

at resetting. That's what good marketers

will look like in five years, which

isn't a million miles away from what

good marketers look like now. It's just

we've got another new significant

channel which is already in the post and

and making waves. So, you know, ears

open, keep learning, keep trying and

testing and don't get wound up when you

fail because uh that way lies madness.

Quick extension is concentrate on the

consumer, your customer, not on

competitors and not around all the tools

that keep coming out and keep updating.

Customers will always uh always

>> Cool. Thanks, Harry. Where should people

connect with you? Where should they look

you up when they want to work on a

bigger brand?

>> The usual places usual basis. I'm I'm

determined. Let's let's get more more

subscribers on Marketing Unfiltered.

Danny and I have been doing this a year

now together. Loving it. Really enjoying

what we're doing. But we like more

subscribers cuz um I don't know that

kind of says that it's going well for

us. But other than that, you can find me

on LinkedIn as usual. I normally post a

lot of nonsense. Um and then uh Harry at

brandite.co

is me if you want to have a chat about

anything.

>> Perfect. Thanks, Harry. And we'll talk

soon, no doubt. Cheers, Danny.