Breakfast Reading

Naively, I see humanity as the brand that represents and underpins human behaviour. In 2022 I think humanity needs a rebrand. Not a skin-deep, image-driven chimera, but a full-on, root and branch re-think. A pivot, if you like. Why now? Because if we don’t, we’ll go out of business; because the last two years have […]

This year I will complete my RFU Level 3 coaching badge. Look out Eddie Jones. I’ve been a rugby coach for 15 years and it’s only now that I’ve begun to see how my coaching life informs my business life, and where ‘coaching’ might be more effective than ‘managing’. The course involved a mix of […]

  It won’t be long before the new normal retreats to the old normal post-COVID-19. Living this new life, what have we learned and how should we change? On the morning of July 7th 2005 terrorist bombs detonated in central London killed 53 people. Three of the bombs were detonated on the Underground and one […]

If you Google ‘launching a business’ you can find top tips for success. These include solid advice about market testing, product excellence, consumer analysis, cost control and promotional planning. Few of them, though, place much emphasis on launching a brand. I am in awe of people who launch new products or services – the hard […]

Discussion about the ‘decline’ of the Economist campaign made me re-consider what a creative idea is in the communications industry, why they are important, how they are nurtured and what they are worth. A creative idea should be worth what people are prepared to pay for it A few months ago Banksy messed with everyone’s […]

Barry Chuckle has passed away and 100,000 nostalgic tweets proclaimed him a much-loved part of a million childhoods. If memory is fluid and remembering an active event, we can use positive reference points to ‘re-construct’ the past. If I think of the Chuckle Brothers, the catch phrase, or the TV theme tune, I connect them […]

I have lived in London all my adult life, yet can’t wait to tell people I’m a West Country boy, from Bristol to be exact. By which, I mean NOT Bath, and not Gloucester – I’m from Bris. What is not to love about a youth spent playing rugby on a weekend, while skimming the […]

Last year I was watching a new ad for MacBook Pro and really enjoyed it. The premise that ‘ideas push the world forward’, accompanied by a journey through some of the ideas that did (and some that didn’t), connected by a chain of exploding ‘lightbulb moments’ encouraged me to think that the MacBook Pro must […]

Is it true to say that 20 years ago the role of ‘branding’ was to create a buffer between perception and reality? Was the role of advertising and PR to ‘create’ the brand which customers, staff, commentators, politicians, journalists, pressure groups and regulatory bodies consumed? And is it possible that this creation might have had […]