What you need to know about doing a TEDx
A couple of weeks ago I delivered a talk at TEDx Folkestone – a great event and something I feel lucky to have been part of. As you can imagine there’s much more to the process than simply the talk itself, and so I thought I’d jot down my observations in case they prove useful […]
The one click rule
A common failing of young brands is trying to be too good. Too healthy, too high performance, too ethical, too whatever. Now this might add up to an objectively splendid product, but splendid products aren’t necessarily what sell. The market doesn’t value “the best”. It values “easy to buy”. It values “familiar”. Push too far […]
The art of changing nothing
The most difficult (and often effective) strategy for any company to master is this: changing nothing. We all suffer from an almost irresistible urge to tinker. To be active. To keep things fresh and interesting. Not to stand still. We’re told constantly that innovation is the lifeblood of a business. So its understandable that, if […]
How not to sell to retailers
This piece first appeared with Young Foodies, a community for the UK’s up-and-coming food and drink brands. Generally speaking, there are two ways for a young CPG brand to impress a retailer. Numbers Argument The numbers game is simple. If you’ve got fantastic figures from elsewhere you can flash them in front of a buyer, […]
When great design is bad
New York designer Vincent Fileccia has recently undertaken an interesting project I thought worth sharing. In it, he took various iconic consumer business logos and redesigned them using the names of iconic luxury brands. The results I think are quite neat, check some of them out at the bottom of this post or via the […]
The myth of visionary leadership
Very successful people tend to be surprisingly ordinary. The average millionaire entrepreneur you meet will tend to be highly competent, no question, and generally fairly talented in some manner too. However, they rarely match the image people have in their head of someone unusually insightful, or brilliant. Typically, in their role of management, they’re quite […]
Forget “purpose”, do this instead
A sad fact of life is that even the best ideas will often get warped and simplified to the point of uselessness. As concepts pass through the public consciousness, people will inevitably focus on their most “sticky” elements, slowly changing their meaning until they barely resemble their original definition. For example, consider “integrity”. Integrity, quite […]
Why new brands need to be less ethical
You may have heard Voltaire’s phrase “the perfect is enemy of the good” – often used in a business context to essentially mean “just get it done”. Admirable though this interpretation is, for the purposes of this piece I’m interested in employing the phrase in a different context. Rather than “good” meaning high quality, here […]
A shortcut to good strategy
It has been said that the true competitor of a Harley Davidson is not a Yamaha, or a Honda, but in fact a conservatory. Within this quip lies the most fundamental of strategic truths; one which vanishingly few businesses acknowledge or understand: Your true category is probably not defined by products similar to yours. Naturally, […]
NEW PUBLICATION: Make companies without competitors
Following the success of the previous Basic Arts publication Make interesting companies, not interesting advertising, I’m delighted to announce the follow-up Make companies without competitors. This “mini-book” features 50 pages of brand new material, focusing on the theory and practice of designing a business that has no direct competitors in its market – even if […]