How to read company culture (unknown knowns)
Defining a brand is an act of realisation. Taking the scenic route to hard-to-reach destinations such as culture and values.
What marketing does best
The marketing profession is singularly good at devaluing ideas, which is a shame because it is meant to do the opposite.
Taking my advice
My advice is a combination of strategy, experience and perspective. Strategy Strategy is a framework for making decisions. Strategy doesn’t make tough decisions easy, but it should make them simple. In my view, the best strategists are pragmatists not intellectuals. If you hire me to help bring out the best …
How brands work (in my experience)
No two brand projects are the same. There is no one-size-fits-all brand model or brand framework that will solve every brand problem. However, there are some basic beliefs about how brands work that inform all of my projects. It is their brand not yours. A brand is a set of …
At your service
Great advice, great service. Consultancy clients pay for the former and they expect the latter as standard, rightly so.
Lake Success by Gary Shteyngart – book review
They focus on money because their parents never told them they were loved. Gary Shteyngart at The Edinburgh Book Festival, 2018 The main character in Lake Success is a hedge fund multi-millionaire. And Gary Shteyngart did hard time in hedge fund circles as part of his research for the …
Filed under formative experiences – a top tip about gambling.
My grandfather used to breathe through a narrow, puckered mouth when he was concentrating. When he was driving in town, or when he was peeling and slicing an apple for his dog, he made a soft, high-pitched sound that wasn’t quite a whistle. This was a throwback to his days …
Filed under formative experiences – going wrong with money.
To understand the man you have to know what was happening in the world when he was twenty. Napoleon I turned twenty on 17th March 1986. Two days later the Bank Of England dropped its base lending rate by one whole percentage point from 12.375% to 11.375%. From …
Filed under formative experiences – my first encounter with deliberate untruth.
I don’t know what age I was when this happened. I hope I was young enough for my disgusting behaviour and my naivety to be excusable. I was in a gang called the PVK. The V and the K make it sound like an Uzbek paramilitary organisation but we were …