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:<ul><li>Cedric's book, <a href="https://www.dekrachtvangeluid.be/en/">the power of sound</a></li><li>The agency Cedric co-founded: <a href="https://www.sonhouse.com/">Sonhouse</a></li><li>Sonic branding & sound strategy</li><li>For the Youtube version of this episode, subscribe to the channel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPKxzVyOVf_KxS2Ep1LcJog">here</a></li></ul>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  <a href="letstalkbranding.com">letstalkbranding.com</a>

Let's talk branding

Cedric Engels - The power of sound

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:<ul><li>The studio: <a href="https://wewantmore.studio/?v">WeWantMore</a></li><li>The rebrand case for <a href="https://www.neuhauschocolates.com/">Neuhaus</a>, a Belgian chocolate brand</li><li>How they went from brand strategy to packaging & identity design</li><li>How it impacted the sales for Neuhaus</li><li>The<a href="https://www.effiebelgium.be/nl/winner-2020-neuhaus.asp"> Effie case study </a></li></ul>There is also a video version of this interview, with more visual and supporting material. Feel free to check it out at my <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPKxzVyOVf_KxS2Ep1LcJog">Youtube channel</a>.

Effective branding: A case study by WeWantMore

Interesting links: <ul><li>Focus Lab: https://focuslabllc.com/</li><li>Bill on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillSKenney</li></ul>If you're interested in more branding & strategy stuff, visit letstalkbranding.com

Bill Kenney - Focus Lab - B2B branding & creativity

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:<ul><li>If you want exclusive access to the manifesto, shoot an email at <a href="mailto:hello@rouser.se">hello@rouser.se</a>. 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. </li><li>Check out Dave Snowden's <a>views on complexity</a></li><li>Check out JP's business: <a href="https://rouser.se/" target="_blank">Rouser</a></li><li>Follow JP on <a href="https://twitter.com/JPCastlin">twitter</a></li></ul>

JP Castlin - Strategy in complexity

A brand is a distinctive experiential promise that represents a business.<ul><li>Distinctive: it has its own character, it's recognizable and different from competitors</li><li>Observable: it is experienced through visual, auditive, and tonal assets that are owned</li><li>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</li><li>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.</li></ul>

What is a brand?

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/

Julia Braga - Launching a brand on social

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.<ul><li>Notion template: https://www.notion.so/weareollie/LTB-competitive-analysis-template-cfae88e869ef4c418bd9faa328eaf402</li><li>Phase 1 collect: workshop, google searches</li><li>Phase 2 profile: messaging layer, visual layer, positioning layer,</li><li>Phase 3 group: sub-categories, segment per style, per offer, messaging style</li><li>Phase 4 insights: what can we learn from these different competitors, from the category?</li></ul>If you are interested in more juicy stuff, go subscribe to the newsletter at <a href="letstalkbranding.com">letstalkbranding.com</a>

Competitive analysis

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:<ul><li><a href="https://www.smashbrand.com/">Smashbrand</a>, the agency</li><li>Testing packaging design with real-world customers</li><li>How to research consumer behavior and develop a brand strategy</li><li>How categories can be completely different</li><li>How to test on a budget</li></ul>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 <a href="https://www.holabrief.com/ltb">Holabrief</a>, The go-to platform  for creative briefs. If you want to subscribe, you can use the code LTB and get a 20% discount.

Michael Keplinger - Testing brand design

We talk about:<ul><li>The definition of attention</li><li>Attention as a filter</li><li>Robert heath: low attention processing</li><li>Paid advertising vs organic content</li><li>Digital vs traditional advertising</li><li>The value of the marketing funnel</li></ul>Find Faris:<ul><li>Faris on Twitter: https://twitter.com/faris</li><li>Faris his book, <a href="https://amzn.to/3ntSZXc">Paid attention</a></li><li>Genius Steals, his company: http://geniussteals.co/</li></ul>

Faris Yakob - Paid attention

We talk about:<ul><li>Here's the<a href="https://academy.planningdirty.com/strategy-kick-off-toolkit?coupon=LETSTALKBRANDING"> Strategy kick-off toolkit</a> course with a 50% discount (use LETSTALKBRANDING coupon code).</li><li>The planning dirty academy: <a href="https://www.planningdirty.com/">https://www.planningdirty.com/</a></li><li><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-use-creative-brief-gettoby-julian-cole/">Get/to/by exercise</a></li></ul>

Julian Cole - Becoming a big-T strategist

In this episode, I walk you through some of the tips, tricks and challenges I have when it comes to working remotely. Doing digital workshops, managing client expectations, research international brands and a lot more.We talk about:<h3>Downsides:</h3><ul><li>Workshop: picking up on non-verbal communication is a lot harder</li><li>A lot harder mentally to do → Split it up</li><li>Trust by being there physically is not there</li><li>Client perception: less 'valuable' in a way</li><li>Understanding local culture can be hard</li></ul><h3>Tools:</h3><ul><li>Notion - Project management & strategic follow up</li><li>Holabrief - Collaborative strategy exercises </li><li>Mural - Miro - workshops</li><li>Zoom - Hangout → Iriun webcam - proper setting - lights - Elgato cam link</li><li>Other tools: Slack - Whatsapp (watch out) </li><li>Video ask - Typeform - Surveymonkey</li></ul><h3>Benefits:</h3><ul><li>Do it with everyone in the world, open up your market</li><li>More Interactive, collaborative approach</li></ul><h3>Tips</h3><ul><li>Have more one-to-one conversations</li><li>Keep workshops fun and light</li><li>Use digital technology → make it alive - place images - gifs - use canvasses</li><li>Research: Make sure you understand product & experience, cultural differences</li><li>Use google trends & other tools to analyze local differences</li><li>Check-in from time to time, stay connected, feel like a team</li><li>Presentation: these things are important always, but even more so when doing them remotely:<ul><li>Pre presentation preparation, make sure you have built up to the presentation, with workshops, with sessions, check-ins, with interviews, ... The presentation is a celebration of the work done before</li><li>Always set the goal of the presentation at the beginning, make sure expectations are aligned. It's even harder online to catch little nuances so be crystal clear about what you are going to present</li><li>Pauze - even more - do around -, ask everyone what they think, breathe, let room for discussion but keep the presentation going</li></ul></li></ul>

Remote brand strategy work for dummies (me).

In this episode, I talk with Paul Bailey, strategy director at Halo, a creative agency from the UK. We talk about associated branded moments, and how we can build brands based on that.Interesting stuff:<ul><li><a href="https://wearehalo.co.uk/">Halo</a>, the creative agency</li><li>Paul on <a href="https://twitter.com/paulmarkbailey">twitter</a></li><li>Paul's talk on <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6709088982182981632/">associated branded moments</a></li><li>Distinctiveness vs differentiation</li><li>Category entry points</li></ul>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 <a href="https://www.holabrief.com/ltb">Holabrief</a>, The go-to platform  for creative briefs. If you want to subscribe, you can use the code LTB and get a 20% discount.

Paul Bailey - Branded moments

In this episode, I talk about the overlap and interaction between branding and communications (aka 'Commz'). I take a look at how these two fields relate and interact with each other, and how they help build more effective brands.Topics:<ul><li>Communication = sender --- signal ----- receiver --- feedback</li><li>The 2 layers of branding: instant signaling and long-term recognition</li><li> The medium is the message</li><li>Hyper targetting vs mass media marketing</li><li>Brand is the collective perception of your product or service</li><li>Instagram products that aren't brands</li><li>Paid Attention by Faris Yakob</li><li>Distinctive assets</li></ul>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 <a href="https://www.holabrief.com/ltb">Holabrief</a>, The go-to platform  for creative briefs. If you want to subscribe, you can use the code LTB and get a 20% discount.

Branding and comms, a love letter.

In this episode, I talk with Ethan Decker. Founder at Applied brand science and expert in consumer psychology, branding, and marketing. We debunk some serious branding bs and talk about creative leaps from the laws of marketing. Ethan also drops some really handy tricks and tips on how to do marketing science on a budget.We talk about:<ul><li>Debunking branding myths such as brand loyalty</li><li>Sidestepping typical language in branding to overcome discussions </li><li>How sneaker buying is the same as airplane buying</li><li>Taking creative leaps from the laws of marketing</li></ul>Books, people, links and other juicy stuff:<ul><li>Ethan's blog: <a href="Appliedbrandscience.com">Appliedbrandscience.com</a></li><li><a href="https://amzn.to/2XTiaub">How brands grow</a> by Byron Sharp</li><li><a href="https://amzn.to/32y9TdH">Building distinctive brand assets</a> by Jenni Romaniuk</li><li>Ethan's <a href="https://twitter.com/ehdecker">twitter</a></li><li>Les Binet & Peter Field </li><li><a href="https://effworks.co.uk/">Effworks</a></li><li><a href="https://amzn.to/3dgWlco">Made to stick</a> and <a href="https://amzn.to/33LIOq0">Switch</a></li></ul>If you want to learn more about brand strategy, branding, and marketing, go visit <a href="https://dashboard.simplecast.com/accounts/ed34a986-fc44-47f6-9e68-25d91d8bbe43/shows/6512d1a1-cba9-4dd5-a651-f26f6d272bec/episodes/31567243-576d-4be8-bf30-961086c11d32/letstalkbranding.com">letstalkbranding.com</a> and check out the newsletter, courses, or coaching options.

Ethan Decker - No more branding bs

In this episode, I address the future of brand strategy. What trends are emerging and where are we headed in this complex field? What is the role of a brand strategist and how will it evolve? Find out in this jam-packed solo episode! Show notes:Here are the 10 discussion points<ol><li>Designers becoming strategists</li><li>Strategy commoditization</li><li>Emergent vs Top-down approach</li><li>Marketing science influence</li><li>Digital vs media-neutral strategy</li><li>Comms strategy merging with branding</li><li>Blurred lines between brand, marketing and business strategy</li><li>Eroding title of a brand strategist.</li><li>An evolution towards more breadth, and not just depth.</li><li>The big T strategist (by Julian Cole from <a href="http://planningdirty.com/">Planning dirty</a>)</li></ol>If you want to learn more about brand strategy, branding, and marketing, go visit <a href="letstalkbranding.com">letstalkbranding.com</a> and check out the newsletter, courses, or coaching options.

The future of brand strategy

Stef Hamerlinck is your host in this weekly show on brand strategy where I interview industry leaders in branding, design, and strategy. Get inspired and become a better brand strategist. Learn how to solve bigger problems. To get more insights on how to become a creative strategist, visit letstalkbranding.be

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Let's talk branding

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