In this episode, we're talking with Samuel Brealey, a marketing consultant based in the UK. We talk about how to help small businesses make more money with marketing. How to build a brand on a budget and a lot more. Samuel has a very pragmatic and 'real' approach to marketing that I really admire. 

• Check out Samuel on Twitter, we're he is always sharing his knowledge
• Samuel's website

In this episode, I talk with Austin Franke, brand strategist and founder of consultancy firm Woopunch. Austin has quite an unconventional approach to branding, using knowledge from behavioral science and other evidence-based fields. We talk about some ugly truths in branding and how we can move beyond the typical branding cliché's. 

Check out Austin's business and make sure you subscribe to the newsletter. Woopunch

Find the full list here on the blogpost, or watch the video on Youtube (dropping the 17th of march).

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Looking for more videos? Check out my Youtube channel.

In this episode, we talk with Cedric Engels, author of the amazing book 'the power of sound' and co-founder of the sonic agency 'Sonhouse'. We talk about the importance of sound for brands but also how sounds affect the human brain (and soul). Cedric brought with him a bag of epic sounds so it's a fun little ride through sonic land. 

We talk about:

• Cedric's book, the power of sound
• The agency Cedric co-founded: Sonhouse
• Sonic branding & sound strategy
• For the Youtube version of this episode, subscribe to the channel here

If you like this episode, please give me a rating on Itunes, as it will help to  spread the word. If you are interested in learning more about branding & brand strategy, check out  letstalkbranding.com

In this episode, I interview Michiel & Jan-Pieter from Antwerp based brand & design studio WeWantMore. We talk about their award-winning branding case for Neuhaus. It won a bronze 'Effie' award, which is an award focussed on the 'effectiveness' of creative campaigns, not just 'creative idea'.  

We talk about:

• The studio: WeWantMore
• The rebrand case for Neuhaus, a Belgian chocolate brand
• How they went from brand strategy to packaging & identity design
• How it impacted the sales for Neuhaus
• The Effie case study 

There is also a video version of this interview, with more visual and supporting material. Feel free to check it out at my Youtube channel. 

Interesting links: 

• Focus Lab: https://focuslabllc.com/
• Bill on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillSKenney

If you're interested in more branding & strategy stuff, visit letstalkbranding.com

In this episode, I talk with my strategy hero, JP Castlin. We talk about the upcoming Castlin manifesto and how its perspectives on strategy will be quite controversial. For decades, 'deliberate' strategy has been the norm in the different strategy disciplines of marketing and branding, but JP offers an alternative view, 'emergent strategy'. 

Interesting links:

• If you want exclusive access to the manifesto, shoot an email at [email protected]. Your email won't be used for any other marketing purposes. JP was so kind as to offer this for the listeners because the manifesto won't be free forever. 
• Check out Dave Snowden's views on complexity
• Check out JP's business: Rouser
• Follow JP on twitter

A brand is a distinctive experiential promise that represents a business.

• Distinctive: it has its own character, it's recognizable and different from competitors
• Observable: it is experienced through visual, auditive, and tonal assets that are owned
• Promise: it's not just those assets, it also holds a certain guarantee in it, a story, a problem solved, a job done, This is where we make the bridge with the left side of our quadrant, to promise something you need to somehow understand the promise will sound 'promising' to the consumer. Also, a promise needs to be repeated over time and can evolve. And mostly, the promise works as a familiarity bonus, you know Coca-cola will taste the same, over and over again, it makes it easy to buy it again and again
• It represents a business: I think brand should be used in the relevant context of business, whether that's a personal brand, a nation thinking about customers, a non-profit organization wanting more donors, or just a regular business. I think talking about a brand in a purely 'cultural' way makes it become to useless and vague, everything and anything can be a brand, but that doesn't help our disciplines.

In this episode, I talk with launch and brand strategist Julia Braga. Julia is an educator on Instagram and helps businesses grow their personal brand and sell products through social media content. We talk about social media strategy, launching brands, and the funnel. 

Interesting links:

Julia's Insta: https://www.instagram.com/thejuliabraga/

In this solo episode, I talk about competitive analysis, what it is, why and how I approach it, and what are some of the specific phases to go through. I also highlight how I use it as a base for branding and marketing efforts and the difference with business strategy.

• Notion template: https://www.notion.so/weareollie/LTB-competitive-analysis-template-cfae88e869ef4c418bd9faa328eaf402
• Phase 1 collect: workshop, google searches
• Phase 2 profile: messaging layer, visual layer, positioning layer,
• Phase 3 group: sub-categories, segment per style, per offer, messaging style
• Phase 4 insights: what can we learn from these different competitors, from the category?

If you are interested in more juicy stuff, go subscribe to the newsletter at letstalkbranding.com

Michael Keplinger is a partner at SmashBrand, an agile brand strategy agency for consumer packaged goods that specializes in a complete approach to market research, product design, and testing. We talk about how to 'test your brand design' with real-world customers and how to apply that to brand building.

We talk about:

• Smashbrand, the agency
• Testing packaging design with real-world customers
• How to research consumer behavior and develop a brand strategy
• How categories can be completely different
• How to test on a budget

If you liked this episode, I would really appreciate a rating on Itunes. Make sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the weekly episodes at your doorstep. If you want the deeper, juicier insights you can also subscribe to the newsletter here. This episode is sponsored by Holabrief, The go-to platform  for creative briefs. If you want to subscribe, you can use the code LTB and get a 20% discount.