Brand foundations
Your brand is a promise. Where’s the proof?
A smart claim is easy. Giving people a reason to believe it is where the real brand work begins.
Read the full diagnosisThe case archive
Useful brand advice.
Filed without the fluff.
Browse by format, find the symptom that looks familiar, and leave with something practical to do about it.
Brand clarity
The five-minute brand check for busy owners
No deck. No coloured pens. Five questions that reveal whether your brand is helping or merely taking up space.
Read the full diagnosisPositioning
Stop trying to look like a much bigger company
Small businesses often sand off their best edges to imitate a corporate machine nobody was asking for.
Read the full diagnosisDistinctive brand assets
Stop redesigning. Start being recognisable.
Big brands do not become familiar by turning up in a new outfit every Tuesday. Smaller brands should stop trying it too.
Read the full diagnosisRebranding
Do I need a rebrand—or do I need to use the brand I have?
A new logo can be the right answer. It can also be expensive displacement activity wearing a lovely presentation deck.
Read the full diagnosisBrand consistency
The business with seven personalities
A composite case note about a perfectly good business made to look suspicious by its own communications.
Read the full diagnosisDifferentiation
People know what you do. They still do not know why you.
Clarity gets you into the room. A reason to choose gets you onto the shortlist.
Read the full diagnosisBrand clarity
Your brand only makes sense after the guided tour
If every enquiry begins with a ten-minute correction, the brand is briefing customers badly.
Read the full diagnosisValue perception
Your brand keeps attracting bargain hunters
Before blaming the market, check whether your own brand has been waving a giant SALE paddle.
Read the full diagnosisPositioning
Write the one sentence before the fifty-page deck
If the strategy cannot survive one plain-English sentence, more slides will not save it.
Read the full diagnosisMessaging
Build a message hierarchy, not a message jumble
Everything may be important inside the business. It cannot all be the headline.
Read the full diagnosisBrand management
Run a consistency round before commissioning anything new
Your next useful brand project may be fixing the work you have already paid for.
Read the full diagnosisMarketing effectiveness
Big-brand thinking without a big-brand budget
You cannot outspend the giants. You can stop making every pound introduce a different business.
Read the full diagnosisMental availability
Own a buying moment, not a motivational quote
The useful question is not only what your brand stands for. It is when somebody should think of it.
Read the full diagnosisBrand memory
Build memory before demanding a masterpiece
One magnificent campaign nobody connects to you is an expensive anonymous donation to the internet.
Read the full diagnosisEmpty claims
‘We are passionate about…’
The sentence that launches a thousand About pages and proves almost nothing.
Read the full diagnosisCredibility
‘Award-winning’ and other unexplained medals
An award can be useful proof. A mystery award is decorative cutlery.
Read the full diagnosisPositioning
Your ‘one-stop shop’ is a very long stop
Doing everything is not a position. It is a stock inventory.
Read the full diagnosisJargon
‘Innovative solutions for modern businesses’
Six words. No picture in the reader’s head. A minor miracle of corporate fog.
Read the full diagnosisOverclaiming
Disrupting the industry since Tuesday
A new booking form is not necessarily the fall of Rome.
Read the full diagnosisCustomer experience
The customer is at the heart of everything—except the process
A beloved claim frequently followed by hold music and a PDF form.
Read the full diagnosisDifferentiation
Quality. Service. Value. The holy trinity of wallpaper.
Three perfectly sensible promises made useless by nearly everybody making them.
Read the full diagnosisTone of voice
Announcing your authenticity
Nothing says naturally genuine like a twelve-point authenticity framework.
Read the full diagnosisStorytelling
Every brand needs a story. Apparently.
Sometimes the customer needs a clear reason to buy, not chapter one of your founder’s childhood.
Read the full diagnosisBrand experience
Premium font. Budget experience.
The packaging whispers luxury. The invoice looks like it escaped from 2004.
Read the full diagnosisVisual identity
Can you make the logo bigger?
Yes. But it will not make the idea underneath it more memorable.
Read the full diagnosisTargeting
‘Our audience is everyone’
Excellent. You now have the entire planet to ignore your generic message.
Read the full diagnosisTarget audience
Should I niche—or will I frighten away perfectly good work?
A useful specialism sharpens relevance. A tiny cage built from demographics does not.
Read the full diagnosisMessaging
Do I need a tagline?
Only if it performs a job. Rhyming beneath the logo is not compulsory treatment.
Read the full diagnosisContent strategy
How often should I post?
Less often than the content machine demands. More consistently than your current disappearing act.
Read the full diagnosisWebsite messaging
The homepage that said everything and told nobody anything
A composite case about twelve messages, seven buttons and one exhausted visitor.
Read the full diagnosisCustomer experience
The premium promise and the wandering Word document
A composite case about a polished brand losing its nerve at the proposal stage.
Read the full diagnosisContent consistency
The social feed with weekly amnesia
A composite case about chasing trends so enthusiastically that the brand vanished.
Read the full diagnosis