When the Chunky Monkey Hits the Fan
Ben & Jerry’s, brand activism and the cost of having a point of view.
The journal.
Research, reflection and the occasional uncomfortable question.
142 articles
Research / Perspective / PracticeSchrödinger’s Cat
Misinformation, perception and the uneasy space between what we hear and what we can prove.
Adam Smith Was Not a Mum
Why stakeholder management is about shared responsibility, not fixed rankings.
The Human Heart Built with LEGO Blocks
A queue outside a LEGO store revealed what happens when a brand gives people a reason to connect.
Purpose? Yes, Only If Genuine
From the Beetle to Taylor Swift, emotional attachment explains why a broken brand promise can feel like betrayal.
Who Gives a Crap? The Jenga of Reputation
An angel, a devil and a toilet-paper campaign debate the distance between favourable publicity and lasting trust.
Hedge Your Happiness: The Risk of Putting Every Brand Under One Name
L’Oréal’s portfolio shows why efficiency alone is a poor reason to erase brands people already trust.
A Grassroots Movement, Literally
How a botanical garden can become part of people’s lives through participation, memories and belonging.
Land Rover: Heritage, Adventure and Emotion
A brand’s history can be harder to copy than its technology, but nostalgia still has to work in the present.
A Brand Promise Is Only the Beginning
Reputation helps people choose a service. The experience determines whether they keep believing they chose well.
Should a Brand Champion a Cause?
Purpose becomes part of a brand when the difficult decisions match the public message.
SAP: Making Business Software Feel Surprisingly Human
Purpose becomes easier to believe when invisible infrastructure connects to visible human outcomes.
Kapferer’s Digital Communication Model: Does It Need Updating?
AI can help a brand listen and adapt. Distinctiveness is what gives people a reason to remember it.
Tropic Skincare: When the Relationship Becomes Part of the Product
Trust, community and a conversation with a friend can give an everyday product emotional value.
Brand Values Have to Show Up in Behaviour
The British Army offers a sharp lens on a commercial truth: employees make a brand’s values visible.
Chapel Down: A Place Becomes a Brand
A Kent vineyard shows how local identity, experience and confidence can differentiate a premium brand.
Is the Fare Fair at the Fair?
The best price balances perceived value, fairness and the relationship a business wants to keep.
Competition, Collaboration and Million-Dollar Engines
Aerospace pricing depends on the value of a long relationship, not simply the cost of an engine.
Branding the B2B Beast: When Trust Carries the Whole Practice
A service brand can create partnership value, but every association also puts its reputation at stake.
CRM Matters Most When Something Goes Wrong
Airline loyalty becomes meaningful when data helps staff respond with understanding at a difficult moment.
B2B and B2C: The Boundary Is a Sliding Door
Microsoft and Boeing reveal two different ways that business markets connect to consumer demand.
One Practice, Two Kinds of Customer Relationship
A veterinary business can serve pet owners and build referral partnerships without losing its identity.
Attention Is Not the Same as Effectiveness
A digital media mix needs a job for every channel and a message worth noticing.
When the Dashboard Says Yes and the Verdict Says No
Campaign metrics only become useful when the definition of success is clear.
A Bet I Lost
A media-planning simulation challenged my instinct to spread a budget everywhere.
Paid Does Not Automatically Mean False
In influencer marketing, the relationship must be transparent and the experience must be real.
What Do Tupac, The Wire and a Baltimore Crab Bucket Have to Do with Under Armour?
Celebrity, community and a willingness to experiment gave a sportswear campaign its momentum.
Grey Hairs, Rainbow Hair and the Tweety Tattoo Test
A style becomes more than a passing craze when it fits the lives of both the people who want it and the people who pay for it.
To Sponsor or Not to Sponsor? Whitlock’s Dilemma
Sponsored travel turns a trusted recommendation into a commercial relationship. Transparency is what keeps the trust intact.
Wash Your Mouth: Rethinking the Toothpaste Tube
A familiar bathroom mess becomes a design question: could toothpaste waste be reduced by changing the object, rather than asking everyone to try harder?
Biomimicry for the Wider Consumer Market
Nature-inspired design needs a clear connection between what a product does, what makes it greener and why a customer should care.
Refill Systems and Tomorrow’s Cost of Waste
Refills become more compelling when businesses redesign their economics and logistics around reuse.
It’s Too Far from Their Bed
A sustainable choice struggles when the effort is immediate and the reward feels remote.
Tell Me How You Treat Your Leftovers
Culture, family and convenience collide at the dinner table—and shape what sustainability feels like in everyday life.
Fast Fashion Is the Fast Food of the Wardrobe
Instant gratification fills our wardrobes. What would fashion look like if it were designed for contentment instead?
Stop. Don’t Read This If Your Name Is Willem: Confessions of a 20-Year Marriage
Dishwashers, Minecraft and environmental activism have something in common: people listen better when they still feel capable.
Why the Chicken Isn’t Crossing the Road Anymore (It Got Delivered)
Convenience removes effort from consumption. Family memories suggest what we lose when it also hides consequence.
Sustainability, Affordability and Permission to Consume
Good intentions meet real budgets. Sustainable marketing has to confront the systems that make some choices easier than others.
Walking the Real Cost of a Smartphone: A Barefoot Reflection on the 4Ps
A barefoot trail makes the hidden costs of a smartphone tangible—and raises an awkward question about marketing’s talent for making us want more.
From McQueen to Mater: A Pit-Lane Case for Cluster Analysis
A garage’s customers need different things. Memorable characters can help a team understand segments—but the groups still have to earn their place in the data.
Didn’t “Just Do It”: When AI Runs but Humans Trip over Potholes
Personalisation promises a better fit. Real life brings shared accounts, ordinary purchases and people who refuse to behave like averages.
Coffee, Clusters and the Cult
A cup becomes a habit through scent, texture, ritual and belonging. Those differences offer a richer starting point for customer research than “grab and go”.
Whale Played: How Vineyard Vines Became a Community Signal
Pink trousers and a smiling whale became more than clothes: a visible way to belong to a community.
Out of This World: The Pull of a Mega-Influencer
Follower counts launch attention. The stronger force is an audience that feels involved in the story.
The Case of the Curious Clicks
Website analytics becomes detective work when we follow the clues from audience to arrival to action.
From Website Data to a Marketing Plan
Analytics earns its place when it changes a decision: what to write, what to improve and which action to measure.
Beyond the Click: What Does a Branded Hoodie Mean?
A website can show us what shoppers do. Understanding the emotional reason for a purchase takes another question.
Fyre Festival: Why We Buy the Fairy Tale
Fyre’s cautionary story is about belonging, status and the pull of a fantasy. Rebuilding trust would require the spectacle to answer to reality.
The Website We Don’t See: An SEO Self-Audit
A polished website can hide unfinished work. Looking beneath the design changed how I thought about discoverability, accessibility and performance.
A Fawlty System: When the Customer Journey Meets Reality
A fictional trip to Fawlty Towers reveals what polished content leaves out—and why the response to a problem can become part of the story.
Ice Buckets and Playground Rules
The Ice Bucket Challenge made doing good public, playful and difficult to decline. My own participation says as much about belonging as altruism.
The Red Cabin: A Customer Journey with a Human Voice
A cosy cabin shows how attention can become trust, a booking and a story worth sharing. The connection has to survive beyond the photograph.
Fork Play! Turning Menu Indecision into Guided Play
A proposed Build-a-Meal app would let catering clients explore cost, dietary needs and the shape of an event before committing to a menu.
Did Jet2 Meme to Go Viral?
When people remix a brand’s message for their own jokes, attention can grow while control slips away. The result still has to be understood.
Webvan: What a Failed Business Can Still Teach Us
A company can fail commercially and leave questions worth learning from. My father’s view of mistakes makes me reluctant to dismiss bold experiments.
Did Better Place just need better timing?
A stranded electric-car driver reflects on battery swapping, international expansion and the distance between a compelling idea and a workable market.
Doughnuts, royalty and the politics of cultural marketing
A royal birthday campaign raises a harder question: when does cultural relevance become a political position customers never asked to buy?
Light touch or full control? M&S’s expansion dilemma
Exporting, franchising and acquisitions offer different kinds of control. The difficult part is knowing which kind a market actually needs.
Biertje? What beer brands reveal about cultural strategy
Corona, Budweiser and Heineken show how cultural frameworks can inform brand choices—and why the audience should always have the final word.
Brand mating rituals
Peacocks, birds-of-paradise and frogs offer an unexpectedly useful way to think about luxury, everyday brands and the relationships they invite.
Hard sell, soft sell: more than left brain versus right brain
A tour through Mexican, Dutch and British advertising explores the shifting boundary between emotional connection and the practical reason to buy.
Mirror, mirror: the trouble with global beauty claims
A skincare promise must survive more than translation. It needs evidence, careful wording and an understanding of what a local audience will hear.
Marks and Sparks on world tour
International expansion is a choice about control, commitment and local knowledge. A familiar British retailer makes a useful—and musical—illustration.
M&S takes a walk in McDonald’s shoes
Franchising can extend a brand without replicating every operating cost. The harder question is how to share control without losing consistency or local agility.
Revolt against Revolut: when security feels like abandonment
Repeated account blocks turned a routine supermarket payment into an anxious service experience. The lesson is about recovery, reassurance and a reachable human.
Hungry for The Hunger Games: when fans become participants
Catching Fire turned promotion into a world audiences could enter. Its strengths—and the limits of its personalisation—offer lessons far beyond film.
Who owns the story when fans join in?
Inviting an audience into a fictional world also means accepting interpretation. The challenge is to keep participation open without losing the story’s direction.
BRAC to the future: powering health with grassroots grit
Community health models depend on the people at the front line. Training, useful technology and fair recognition belong at the centre of any plan to scale.
The addictive charm of AR experiences
Augmented reality makes digital interaction playful and useful. Its marketing promise also raises questions about attention, accessibility and the life beyond the screen.
My Berners love Lemonade—and I miss my AI buddy
An unusually smooth insurance experience shows how automated service can feel personal, and why speed still needs fairness, accessibility and trust.
AI customer experience needs more than capability
Trust, operational benefits and knowledgeable staff determine whether an AI service becomes useful in practice.
After-hours service: what a dry-cleaning blueprint reveals
A locker may be the only thing the customer sees. Reliable self-service depends on the people, records and support processes behind it.
Why Tide Dry Cleaners saved my sanity—and probably my marriage
Laundry anxiety is a useful way into service strategy: customers value clean clothes, but also time, confidence and the relief of getting a difficult job done.
Beyond the platform: designing a global learning service
Online education competes through the whole experience. Clear processes, responsive support and thoughtful design help learners turn access to content into value.
Customer-centred service starts with a specific customer
Convenience, quality and trust matter differently to different people. A useful service strategy connects the feature, the audience and the value they receive.
Tide’s promise depends on people and process
A familiar detergent brand can open the door to a service business. The experience inside must make that trust worthwhile.
A tidal wave of Tide: extending a brand into service
The leap from detergent to dry cleaning shows how brand familiarity, convenience and everyday emotion can support a service proposition.
YOLO, FOMO and the promise of a calmer calendar
Aphra’s idea of support for everyday life raises a useful marketing question: are people buying productivity, or the feeling of being in control again?
Samsung loyalty: affection, convenience or the cost of leaving?
Connected products and rewards can encourage repeat purchases. The strategic challenge is distinguishing a relationship customers value from one they merely find difficult to leave.
Recovering Z Flip optimist, emotionally committed to iPhone
A short-lived romance with a folding phone becomes a proposal for loyalty built through welcome, community, co-creation and dependable care.
Les is more: STP strategy at full throttle
A handcrafted steering wheel can offer function, heritage and identity. Les Leston makes an evocative case for a tightly focused market position.
Hoover, Play-Doh and the danger of putting strategy in a box
A promotional disaster and a product reinvention show what portfolio tools can help us ask—and what they cannot establish without evidence.
LEGO: A Generational Bond and Strategic Magic
What a family’s well-loved LEGO collection reveals about durability, nostalgia and a brand’s ability to evolve.
Plum Guide vs Town & Country: Two Ways to Build a Stay
A playful comparison of curation, adaptability and emotional connection in hospitality marketing.
Airbnb: Act First, Learn, Then Plan
Airbnb’s evolution raises a useful strategy question: when should experimentation lead, and when should planning take over?
Jaguar’s #CopyNothing: Attention Is Only the Beginning
A launch-stage reading of Jaguar’s bold creative asks how a distinctive identity can become informed interest, product desire and credible action.
The Vet Pricing Puzzle: What Owners Need to Understand
Reference prices, perceived value and clear explanations shape how pet owners experience veterinary bills.
Property Prices: Separating Information from Speculation
Why property buyers need public pricing data, lived experience and a clearer view of what is driving demand.
Cheap Flights, Expensive Frustration
A personal Ryanair experience explores the gap between low fares, low expectations and the basic desire to be treated well.
Make Veterinary Care Easier to Understand
Cognitive fluency offers a practical way to improve recognition, clarity and trust throughout a veterinary customer journey.
Buying a Laptop: The Rational Model Meets Real Life
A personal account of research overload, perceived risk and the stories we tell ourselves after a high-involvement purchase.
Buying a Car, Then Justifying the Choice
Why the decision-making process continues long after a high-involvement purchase is complete.
EeStairs NextGen: Research Before Promotion
A proposed UK research programme connects staircase specification, professional buying roles and evidence-led marketing decisions.
From Interview Details to Meaningful Themes
How coding can connect everyday details about independence, family and coping without flattening their meaning.
Finding Useful Evidence in WARC
A research database becomes useful when its cases connect to a concrete strategic problem.
Better Survey Questions Start with Less Guesswork
Five common question-design problems show why clarity, manageable recall and neutral wording matter.
Mapping a Veterinary Market Across Kent
A proposed cluster-sampling approach balances geographical coverage, cost and the risk of drawing conclusions from similar local areas.
“Like a Girl”: When a Campaign Changes How a Brand Feels
The difference between challenging a damaging stereotype and carelessly reinforcing one can shape lasting brand loyalty.
When Premium Ingredients Do Not Justify the Price
A disappointing $25 mac-and-cheese purchase shows the gap between a premium description and an experience worth repeating.
Squatty Potty: Measuring More Than Views
A memorable campaign needs careful attribution, clear conversion assumptions and an audience strategy that can be tested.
Campaign Metrics Need an Interpretation
Customer acquisition cost, attribution and audience testing become useful when the numbers lead to decisions.
Natureview: Growth Without Losing the Channel That Built You
Three growth options expose the tension between mass distribution, existing retailer relationships and premium positioning.
Cilkray: Segment Around the Job the Product Must Do
Product-line differentiation works best when performance, convenience and innovation match a specific customer need.
Aqualisa: Build Demand Beyond the Installer
Smart-home expectations and direct consumer interest could change how a shower brand approaches a reluctant distribution channel.
Aqualisa: Create Demand, Then Help the Channel Deliver
A proposed segmentation approach connects homeowner needs with the intermediaries who recommend and install a product.
Online Music: From Libraries to Everyday Habits
A personal comparison of streaming services shows how perceived value moves from price and catalogue size to convenience and content.
Minerva Empowerment: What Clients Value Most
A consistent mission can support different service priorities—and a simple calculation is no substitute for understanding what clients need.
UBS Augmented Advice: Intelligence, Crafted
An independent proposal to make AI useful and accountable within a premium, adviser-led wealth-management experience.
Shopify and Regulated Merchants: Make Trust Part of the Proposition
An independent B2B analysis uses a veterinary merchant scenario to connect platform positioning, perceived risk and the buying decision.
When Science Needs a Human Voice
Veterinary branding works when expertise and emotional reassurance support each other.
Big Stands, Small Memories
Why a trade show needs to start a relationship, not finish a sale.
Hybrid Selling Should Reduce Anxiety
More communication channels help only when they reveal progress, responsibility and a person who understands.
A Budget Airline Needs More Than a Cheap Seat
Segmentation becomes useful when it changes the offer, the message and the journey.
You Can Set the Stage, but You Cannot Script the Spark
Why a tidy word-of-mouth framework still needs timing, culture and a little unpredictability.
What Is in a Name When Its Meaning Changes?
A memorable brand story works harder when customers can also understand the service.
Luxury’s Complicated Flirtation with Scarcity
When the effort of obtaining something becomes part of its attraction.
London’s Clean Nudge
Three ideas for making a greener city easier to choose.
A Promotion Should Strengthen Trust
Discounts are only one way to make a service more approachable.
The Mile-High CRM Club
Loyalty data matters most when a customer needs somebody to understand.
A Doughnut Shop and a Sense of Belonging
What a dependable national brand can learn from the café next door.
A Football Club Is a Community Promise
Local sponsorship works when people understand what their support makes possible.
The Love Languages of a Brand
A brand can vary the way it shows affection without changing its personality.
Opening a Home Starts with Answering a Question
Recruitment messages need to make the commitment understandable as well as appealing.
Banking’s Familiarity Dilemma
How should an established service evolve without losing the reasons customers trusted it?
Independence Is Not the Same as Connection
A personal reflection on sovereignty, trade and the stories countries tell about themselves.
Care Needs a Clear Invitation
A veterinary advertisement should connect reassurance with a useful next step.
Cultural Humility Is a Market-Entry Strategy
A familiar formula at home may ask the wrong questions abroad.
When Restaurant Hype Arrives Before Dinner
A disappointing meal can reveal as much about expectations as about the menu.
My Weird Friends Around the Brand Campfire
Why a mascot can feel more familiar than a person we once knew.
A Letter from a Possible Future
A fictional warning about convenience, consumption and the world we leave behind.
Half the Price Is Not Half the Problem
Why a pricing decision must follow the units all the way through.
A Caring Service Still Needs to Be Found
For a small childcare provider, visibility and reassurance belong in the same journey.
The Beautiful Product and the Invisible Service
Luxury is also the care that carries a project from first conversation to handover.
The Star in Starlink: Can Attention Become Trust?
A founder can make an infrastructure brand famous. Turning that visibility into a purchase requires a different kind of evidence.
Device Financing at TeleMarket: A Case for Risk-Aware Growth
A customer analytics case explores how to separate interest in an offer, loyalty to a provider and the ability to sustain a financing commitment.
Incard and the Creator Economy: Differentiation Has to Feel Useful
A focused fintech strategy connects distinctive positioning with the everyday financial workflows, support needs and trust of digital entrepreneurs.
Smart Strategy for Smart Force: Automation with Human Purpose
A strategic perspective on growing an automation business through focus, credible proof, workforce development and disciplined choices about where to compete.
Global Identity, Local Resonance: The Next Move for Alcohol-Free Beer
What Heineken 0.0, Budweiser Zero and Corona Cero reveal about culture, social permission and the gap between being noticed and being available.
Ethical Branding Meets the Algorithm: Making Wellbeing a Governance Question
Using Alphabet as a strategic lens, this analysis asks how responsible AI commitments can shape the measures that define product success.
Latham & Boom: Building a Nursery Around the Garden, Not Just the Plant
A proposed nursery and garden-planning app combines local expertise, hardy plants and a cooperative supply network, with transparent commercial scenarios.
GemVet: A Proposal to Build AI Trust Through Useful Pet-Care Support
A hypothetical Gemini campaign tests whether a carefully bounded pet-care service can build trust, with a six-month pilot, explicit cost assumptions and incremental measurement.
The Best Brand Extension Solves the Customer’s Next Problem
An anonymised veterinary-service case compares practical care support with branded merchandise, and shows why fit, naming and operational delivery belong together.
No matches. Yet.
Try a different phrase or clear the filters to see every article.
Follow a subject or explore related ideas. Browse all subjects ↗