🧠 Andy Miller (米乐)

N. 1 Marketing Hazard.    A couple of years ago, I took a small team  through a very involved brand planning process for a small (2% of market) brand.   Very different to what we’d done before. We did it alongside different brands for the first time.   Loads of people on Teams. Multiple agencies. Lots of market data. Lots of dissecting. Breakouts with people that didn’t know each other and not enough time to finish tasks we didn’t understand.   New words - ones you would NEVER use if a customer walked into your shop —> Leverage —> Anchor space —> Demand space —> Consumer recruitment   “In what particular part of the morning  was a particular type of consumer  who cares about one particular thing at a particular time in their life  going to drink one particular type of drink?”   Over Engineered.    I didn’t think that saying “I don’t know, they can drink it when they bloody want!” was allowed. So I tried to work it out.    You see, I’d been sucked in.  Maybe this was the grown-up way to do things. The ‘right’ way.   I questioned everything I thought I knew.  Moved all the thinking we’d done around  until I had some words on slides  that the people running the show started to nod at.   But when I presented the new strategy to the board  I had to keep looking at my slides to keep track. Because the words - were not mine.   And when I presented it back to my team, I felt myself sinking because I realised… and then a trusted peer confirmed it:   “You sound like you’ve disappeared up your own arse” 🎤 Words people don’t really say on a page in a format “everyone” puts it in does not a strategy make. The following year, we kept it simple.  Started from what we knew.  Reminded ourselves where we wanted to get to. Decided the most important things to do to get there. Wrote that down. Reviewed it monthly. 🚤 🚤 🚤 Small businesses are like speed boats, not ocean liners, or container ships, like the big ones. Do not look at them. You don’t need the kind of engineering that makes them move. I am not convinced they do but that's another story. Look at your boat. And what it needs to go faster. You know. It’s your boat.   * Do you have someone who will grab you if you start to disappear? * Day 11 of 30 days on #smallbusiness and #startups #challenger #founders #brandstrategy #freelance

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No one is looking 👀 When you’re small no one really knows you exist. Except a small group of fans. Whilst that feels frustrating, as you try and reach the masses, it’s also liberating. You don’t have 50 years of brand equity to worry about with a fear of messing up that makes what so many brands do disappear into the background. You can be bolder than you feel. Try something out. And try again. Test Learn Repeat Or not When you’re a challenger brand coming in to shake up what’s happening amongst old timers, you should be bolder than you feel. “If you don’t think what you say might at least annoy a couple of people, you’re not being bold enough” >> someone said this to me once - James Hickson was it you? Good advice. You won’t be small forever. Enjoy it. * Day 8 of 30 on #Smallbusiness and #startups #founders #communication #brandstrategy #challenger

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Such a great read! Scott Galloway. People have always been and will always be at the core… not just recipients, but participants. They’ve always been the real brand. This shift from logos to lives, as Prof G points out, reminds us what matters most… connection, values, and authenticity. Commerce is relationships. Creativity is conversation. Very human. In the age of AI, our job is clear…amplify humanity, not replace it, by scaling real, meaningful connections. https://lnkd.in/e73hZS6K

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365 days of connecting brands with their customers IRL with Spacefor, while growing DEPARTMENT LTD 22% YOY. It's been a busy year with plenty of wins, challenges, lessons and observations. Some key insights and 'truths' from this journey: - Focus & energy are more important than time - Plan effectively and create routines - Delegate more - Say no - Make unconventional decisions - Include people on a journey 'Need to explore further' - an outtake from my weekly highlights back in May 2021 - is how it all began.

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One of my favourite quotes to illustrate the problems of modern day marketing is “If what you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”. In a marketing context, that means if you start with a media channel (TikTok, Youtube, Twitch) an ad format (skippable preroll, carousels, sponsored filters) or an advertising technique (user generated content, influencer marketing), you are starting at the wrong end. You need to start with the challenge at hand, what you are trying to solve with marketing, Then create a strategy or architecture, and then see how different changes fit that architecture. Otherwise it’s like trying to build a house based only on the input and skills of a plumber. Sure the bathrooms is going to be exceptional, but what about the rest of the house? Jenni Romaniuk, in her latest column, touches upon this and how media planning of later years has been led astray. Some key themes: 💡 Get educated. There is a lot if good research out there on how to create effective advertising. Read up 💡Beware of MADAR - Media Advertising Disguised as Research. Find independent sources of information rather than just reading white papers published by media trying to sell their ad space inventory.  💡Get the metrics right. Avoid sub-optimisation by looking at the bigger picture. Look for reach, include light buyers, don’t value engagement over views.  💡Beware of vicious circle effects: If you don’t produce content for reach advertising, reach advertising is not going to perform, and then you invest less in reach, and then it performs even worse..  💡Good media planning is the foundation to a lot of necessary work. If media planning is off, the value you can find in working with brand health tracking, distinctive brand assets, MMM etc is severely depreciated. A very good and humorous, read on a old but extremely relevant topic for today. Thank you Jenni for putting words this 😀

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Startups - Don't waste your money on creative agencies.. Yet! That might sound like a nonsensical quote from someone who has worked for some of the UK's best creative agencies including the brilliant Without, who have created incredible identities and brands for the likes of Wahaca, Third Space and Marcus Wareing Restaurants. But 'Without' Creative Director Roly Grant would probably be the first to agree that an agency design project needs proper investment to make it work the first time around, or you'll likely be doing it all over again in a year or two. It's not just about creating a "logo" it's looking at the bigger picture of your identity - your story, positioning, naming, packaging, website - every creative touch point on the customer journey that will resonate with the right consumers for your brand. That takes proper expertise and proper investment. So if you're starting out without an agency sized budget, or in the case of WilderBee Hot Honey, no budget at all. and, like me, you are far from a designer. Where do you start? Here's how we've done it, so far: ✍ Brand naming and identity: I came up with the company name 'WilderKitchen' and Hot Honey brand name 'WilderBee' with the sourcing of our ingredients in mind - our ethical honey and sustainably sourced chillies. Getting wild with flavour while protecting and preserving the wild around us. It may change in the future but it works, for now. 🖍 Branding: Here's where you designers will chuckle: Now I had the brand name, I embarked on hours of plugging it into the font website 'DaFont' until I found one that felt right 😅 . This was 2017 and we have the same brand today. I couldn't even tell you what the font is now. 🥫 Packaging: As someone who doesn't know his arse from his Adobe Creative Cloud, this one took hours of YouTube tutorials on one screen and Adobe on the other - finally coming up with the packaging that you see today. It's by no means perfect but it works. In a pitch with Co-op, - Rebecca Oliver-Mooney even commented on how good it was and asked which agency created it! Needless to say I dined out on that one for a while. 🖥 Website: Hello Squarespace! What's that? You can create me a template and I can just drop in images, logos, my brand colour palette along with e-commerce capabilities? Take my £20 a month, thank you! 🤳 Ongoing creative assets/social content: Usually created in the bath, where I do my best creative work for some odd reason - Me, my iPhone and apps including Videoleap, Bazaart, Picsart, Canva and AI through Midjourney. So far, for us it's been bootstrapping all the way, but it's got us onto the shelves of Co-op, Marks and Spencer, Whole Foods Market, Harrods, Harvey Nichols and the menu's of Byron, Honest Burgers Ltd, Yard Sale Pizza and so many more. Not a humble brag, but it goes to show that you can get there on a shoestring. WilderBee Hot Honey has a LONG way to go creatively, and when our budget allows? Then hello Without!

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The latest piece in my 'Cheat Codes for Challenger Brands' series with Mumbrella is all about the power of overcommitment. While market leaders optimise their businesses around 'just enough', Challenger Brands win by being unreasonably durable, insanely spicy or built around unprecedented levels of customer service. Check it here 👇👇👇

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Craving some lite Friday insights on trends impacting consumer engagement? You're in luck amigos... I attended the Australian Marketing Institute discussion at News Corp Australia HQ last on underlying trends and consumer behaviour I'm lukewarm on panels but this was  great discussion. Some highlights... 𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 - There is a lot of uncertainty and we trend towards negative vs positive news. Algorithms amplify these echo chambers BUT people still want to be uplifted 𝗜𝗠𝗣𝗟𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 - HIghlight and offer solutions in areas people CAN get control in their life (advocacy programs remain popular) 𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧  - Authenticity is important but much content isn't. Even some User Generated Content now penalised for non-authenticity 𝗜𝗠𝗣𝗟𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 - Chose the right moment to engage based upon cultural context and societal attitudes. And remember sometimes engagement is just luck! 𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧  - Has tokenism overtaken being genuine on social? So many creatives are watered down to fit in (aka not offend) 𝗜𝗠𝗣𝗟𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 - Not everyone has to like what you do! It's OK to be different as long as the platform exists to share an opposite view 𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧  - Media platforms often don't originate the issues but amplify them 𝗜𝗠𝗣𝗟𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 - You need to do the hard work - highlight the problems and go deep to prove why you are the guru in solving them. Social will then do its thing 𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧  - We are living in an age of labels (discussion pertained to mental health). This is driven by the need to always 'report'   𝗜𝗠𝗣𝗟𝗜𝗖𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡 - Whilst labeling can help give context remember to show empathy - look at it from the other side. Is the label needed? Enjoy the weekend ... #uncopyability

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Say hi to AURORA. 👐 Pre-AI, serving you Bangers from London's 'Skinners Arms' at 'The Laguna Bali' was cost-prohibitive. 😞 Post-AI, it's attainable and creates a US$ 2.1 billion opportunity (2030 aggregated operating profit projection). 😲 The reason: AI has made marketing activities more efficient (marketing burns through money which #copilot, #deepai and #chatgpt reduce by accelerating marketing processes). Traveling from the States with young kids used to starting their day with Cheerios? Almost impossible to find in Spain and priced like a Rolex comparatively. Do you really want to begin each day with your kids screaming and negative, or launch it with a fresh bowl of Cheerios? 😍 AURORA needs only capture 15% of luxury travelers in Spain opting for this ability to tailor their cuisine in order to profit $124 million with operating expenses at $4 million. 😶 Luxury travel stats from Grand View Research: https://lnkd.in/dgAkVVsk

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Is this the future of RTDs or a gimmick? Looking back at one of the monthly drinks trend reports from earlier his year I spotted the Future Lemon Sour that was launched by Asahi Beverages in September. The RTD is inspired by the popular Lemon Sours (Shochu, lemon juice and soda) that are famed across Japanese izakaya taverns. It's just a standard RTD until you pull off the lid and discover a slice of lemon in the can. I think it's pretty cool but I do have some questions. 1️⃣  Is this a gimmick or could this genuinely elevate RTD cocktails and spirit mixers for the consumer? 2️⃣ Is this actually even possible at scale or would its cost too much? Does anyone have any thoughts on whether this innovation has legs? Asahi has certainly got people's attention with this, so whether it’s an innovation for the future or a PR stunt I love it. What I love more though is the thought of drinking a Shochu, Lemon and Soda in a UK bar next summer 👀 - Sign up for the Wilde Toast drinks industry newsletter via the link on my profile for more trends, insights and creative drinks marketing inspiration - drops every month in your inbox 🤝 #drinksindustry #innovation #PRstunt

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"More than 1/5 of non-food purchases made online in the UK are now returned to the retailer." <---seems important...have these essentially become marketing costs? How is it accounted for? Anyone got insight? Also - 'GenZ behavior' that might persist / spread? Which changes the economics broadly? or nah? "There are also generational divides in behaviour, with younger shoppers more likely to over-order with the intention of returning a high proportion of the items. More than two-thirds (69%) of gen Z consumers said they had bought online in this way, compared with about a sixth (16%) of over-60s. The rise of serial returners was “likely to cause alarm for retailers”, said Al Gerrie, the chief executive of ZigZag, which manages returns for companies including Selfridges, Boden and New Look. Serial returners are quietly eroding retail profitability in ways many retailers are only just beginning to understand. The rise of opportunistic shopping behaviours, where many people intentionally buy large quantities of goods with the intention of returning most of them, is placing an unprecedented strain on retailers.”

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I thought I'd try and share some of the greatest hits from the Be A Bear Back Catalogue for a recent client pitch, and this gem came to light again. In 2019 we started working with Wild Nutrition, and the incredible team around the brand. We knew there were a few things instinctively, but hyped up after a Growth Tribe course on AI and Machine Learning (back before ChatGPT was taking over), we crunched a few hundred thousand lines of anonymised data to spit out some very useful audience clusters. We analysed the data from 3 years of Wild Nutrition’s online store, and arranged them into 5 clusters. These were ACTUAL audience personas. We could start to understand the type of customer that fit the characteristics of these clusters - what products were likely to go together, what channels did they come through, and how we can increase them. We gained some really valuable audience insights which led on to help them with growth. I'm really proud of the work we did on it. Added life hack for you: magnesium is really good to help with sleep. #Marketing #AudienceDevelopment #AudienceGrowth

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Thanks for the feature B&T! Top and bottom line growth is proving even more of a challenge in recent times for our agency leaders. At what point do we stop being at the mercy of the New Business process and start to regain the control of the outcome. Thoughts? Timely to also see Campaign UK release the following article: https://lnkd.in/e7Rk2zwF #AgencyGrowth #NewBusiness #agencies

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There's a fresh new look to my website that makes it faster to load, easier to read, and more enjoyable to explore 🌐 🏄🏻‍♂️ With the new design, I've embraced minimalism, simplicity, and clarity for a better, de-cluttered, experience. 🌟 Enjoy cleaner layouts, improved readability, faster loading times, and seamless optimisation across devices. 🎯 Explore insightful analysis and practical strategies, in articles and podcasts, on business communication and technology. I hope you enjoy exploring the new NevilleHobson .com. Let me know what you think, thanks! 👍🏼 #WordPressTheme #WebDesign #Minimalism https://lnkd.in/e6HbPQcs

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Who says you need an expensive brand partnership to do limited editions? Goldfish just generated a ton of news out of thin air. If you're a marketer working in snacks, you probably saw this. But for the rest of us, this is a great example of doing more with less. For the uninitiated, Goldfish crackers and American childhood are inseparable. They go together like peanut butter and jelly; like salt and pepper; like Binet and Field. (If you laughed at that, you're spending too much time in the world of brand marketing). But to ride the wave of adults buying this kids' snack, and for the cost of a limited print run changing a few words to an absurdly un-catchy 'grown-up' name, Goldfish just got coverage on numerous TV shows and newspapers. They got the tone bang on with this: sincere enough to upset a few people who didn't bother to read the full story, but upfront enough to not make it feel like a bait and switch. The Challenger mindset always stays clear on what it's against, and what it's for. For Pepperidge Farm's Goldfish crackers, they challenge the idea that anyone of any age should be excluded from a fun, innocent snack. For most of their existence, that's meant being child-focused. Why should kids be excluded? But with this new shift, all they're doing is extending the same playful welcome to adults, staying true to their family-friendly brand role. Really fun news generation, and a sign that it doesn't always take a massive budget to get talked about. https://lnkd.in/ednStdrH

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🎮 How does a small city like Dundee go from industrial roots to being a global gaming hotspot…? Find out in our latest #PlayableFutures article - in partnership with Ukie GamesIndustry.Biz and Amazon Web Services (AWS)

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One of the reasons why I risked everything to quit my stable job and Co-found Bombe is because the targeting industry is deeply and fundamentally broken. I kept being presented platforms that were completely pointless and didn’t explain anything about what was driving behaviour. I’d walk around venues like Borough Market and think who are these people, what’s driving them to come here, where from and how do I target them. That’s what we’ve created available to all our customers in a second on an online platform and LLM app. You can see the likelihood of visiting Borough Market (and most other major London venues like Oxford Street) for every postcode in London and what drives them across thousands of models and instantly build ad audiences to drive value. Our clients are right now building ad audiences to people travelling into London venues and getting at least 85 percent improved advert performance. There’s a reason we are the fastest growing consumer insight platform in the UK and that’s because our data actually works in the real world. If you’re a business in central London you can have this data today. Bombe.io

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I recently came across a head turning (pun intended) campaign from dentsu for an oyster sauce, that brought back memories of my time in Beijing, where cabbages (白菜) were often stored in stairways during winter. Insight: Storing cabbage can be challenging, leading to significant waste. Strategy: Using a newspaper to wrap cabbages, helping them last longer by preventing dehydration in the fridge. The perfect media channel was found to promote the oyster sauce. Idea: Ajinomoto cleverly printed a face on the newspaper, adding a creative touch by selling the face-wrapped lettuce in the vegetable section. This gained attention online and successfully boosted oyster sauce sales. Results: - 29 million impressions - 1/4 million likes - Extensive PR value The compelling insight and distinctive creative execution make this campaign a real standout.

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WHY UNDERDOG BRANDS OFTEN SUCCEED This article came out a while ago. I saved it because, like many, I love a good underdog story - a smarter, more wily brand that comes up with an innovative way to trump the establishment and win hearts and minds. While the legal status of InDrive's bid-based pricing system remains vague, the fact is that the brand has found a way to ease the pressure on customers' wallets by letting them decide on price. As a brand strategist, I love the lessons InDrive gives brands looking to enter a market or scale up. So what can we learn from the InDrive brand lesson? What is driving this underdog to succeed? 1. Passion More than anything, underdog brands are driven by a passion for a cause or vision they truly believe is worth fighting for. A better product. A simpler, cheaper, faster way of doing things compared to the establishment. Better service. A more ethical, more sustainable alternative. An offering that doesn't just change minds, but touches hearts. Whatever the advantage, the underdog knows what it brings to the market and is willing to champion it. In a world dominated by monopolistic e-hailing companies with little to distinguish them, InDrive had a clear and compelling purpose - to disrupt the ride-hailing industry in a way that was not just different, but where it mattered. 2. A compelling story Underdog brands often project authenticity, which resonates deeply with consumers who appreciate genuine brand narratives. InDrive did it not by shouting about product or price, but something far bigger - by putting the power back in the hands of the customer. By putting fare control in the hands of users, InDrive made transparency, choice, and empowerment tangible. thereby enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty. 3. A seamless, simple experience InDrive made it easy to become part of their community. It took me less than 30 seconds to download the app and set up my account. No fuss, no muss. 4. Bare minimum data requirements InDrive didn't ask for much by way of personal information, just enough to get a customer going. In this day of data breaches, less is more to make the customer trust the brand and feel secure. 5. Winning the ecosystem InDrive didn't just win the hearts of passengers, it also closed the loop by winning the hearts of drivers. InDrive drivers negotiate fares directly with passengers, meaning better income potential compared to other platforms with their fixed fare structures. 6. InDrive lets their story do the marketing From what I've seen, InDrive's marketing has been more about storytelling and sparking chatter than media buying. They let their story lead the noise. The classic underdog David vs. Goliath narrative generated valuable publicity and won hearts. The lesson here? Start with a compelling purpose and story. Once you have that, your passion will fuel success. #brandstrategist #underdogs

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