FutureBrand news, views & insights: October 2021
Welcome to the first FutureBrand newsletter via our new email platform, Substack.
I must admit to having a bit of a thing for experimenting with new technology – everything from Airwallex (to Copper, G-Suite, Miro, mmhmm, Xero) to Zoom – so Substack falls neatly into our ever-growing subscription soup. Over time, all of these technologies have added something extra to our ways of working. Only time will tell whether Substack will remain part of the recipe, so feel free to let us know by subscribing and sharing.
First things first
To keep things simple, we’re sharing this first newsletter in this new format on the first of the month. And from now on, we’ll be publishing each and every month on the first.
As you may well have realised by now, this email format allows me to be a little less formal, a little more conversational, as I wrap up the month’s news, views and insights.
Now and then, we’ll also share a deeper dive into the big issues – the next of those deeper dives will be a Q&A with the Marketing Director at Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre (MCEC) on what it took to rebrand in a world that was at a standstill.
Back to this month.
How does your brand score?
The FutureBrand Index 2021 launched a few weeks ago, full of interesting findings and valuable insights. I won’t recap the Index here, hopefully you took something useful from this deeper dive into the study to pull out my personal highlights.
But it’s not just a report, it’s also a strategic tool we regularly use to inform our work. So here’s a quick tip for you, it’s one of the simplest ways in which we use the Index.
Ask your team to score your own brand.
Look for consistency in the results, or perhaps the lack of it. Consistency is key when building and growing a brand, so making sure your own teams are aligned is a commonsense place to start any branding discussion or process.
Where’s all the fun?
Looking ahead, we’re excited to have started work on our first branding project with Funlab, owners of Strike, Holey Moley, Archie Brothers, B. Lucky & Sons and more.
Here’s what CEO and founder Michael Schreiber had to say about the business to the AFR back in May:
“We can’t be disintermediated by the internet. Amazon doesn’t deliver what we do. Netflix doesn’t stream it. It’s a consume-on-the-site experience. It’s get off the couch, get off your butt and get downtown.”
Just this week, Mumbrella reported the news that Funlab are working with the team here at FutureBrand and it was great to read new CMO Oonagh Flanaghan outlining both the challenges and the opportunities facing this fast-growing business. Clearly, Funlab is completely focused on offering immersive and entertaining customer experiences at every step, twist and turn, and we’re certainly enjoying the opportunity to have a serious play with their brands.
What does it take to connect new places with old cultures?
Creating brands is not always about looking forward to the future, it’s also about recognising and celebrating the past – especially when that past happens to belong to the world’s oldest civilisation.
We’re just now at the start of creating new brands for two high-profile property projects, both of which will see us look back into our ancient past. We’ll be doing so with the help of two organisations – Balarinji on one project, Bangawarra on the other – so that we can explore our connection with Country and understand the language, customs and beliefs.
Can payments be as easy as 1-2-3?
The big news in the world of finance is the ACCC’s decision to green light the amalgamation of BPAY, eftpos and New Payments Platform to form Australian Payments Plus.
This is a big milestone for payments in Australia, so it’s fair to say that we are very happy to be playing our small part. Working with all three of BPAY, eftpos and New Payments Platform has been collaborative from the start and all the better for it. In fact, given that we’ve had to liaise in the past with all thirteen of the financial institutions that own New Payments Platform, the collaboration came naturally.
Are you confused about your customers?
Understanding your customers is key to unlocking your brand’s potential. However, I confessed to feeling more than a little confused about customers in my latest guest contribution to CMO.
“On the one hand, I hear all about how customers are getting smarter and savvier. They're always right, and never more so than now, right?
On the other hand, I’m told customers don't know what they want. And if they say they do – whether to their family and friends or to a focus group facilitator – they're often lying, if only to themselves. “
Click here to read on and feel free to let me know if you feel the same way. Especially if I haven’t helped clear up some of the confusion by the end of the article!
How do you balance the grind?
Our very own VB took the opportunity to reflect on her own work-life balance and share her story with Balance the Grind.
Having just recently celebrated her 13th anniversary as a FutureBrander – having joined in New York, then moved to Sydney, now Melbourne – VB has learned a trick or two about how to keep things simple, even as lockdown life as the mother of two young children has added new layers of complexity.
Counting down from Thirty:3
As some of you may know, I started Thirty:3 as a social initiative for good, providing brand and marketing advice to people who need it. I have to say that it wasn’t actually my idea, it started as a conversation over lunch with fellow FutureBrander David Cairns, followed by a LinkedIn post with a simple offer of help as COVID-19 took hold of the world.
30,000 views and 3 days later, I had a diary full of 30-minute chats. So full in fact that I then created the brand and built the website over the weekend – with a little help from my friends! – in order to automate the process and make it as easy as possible for people to book my time.
Since then, I'm happy to have helped the hundreds of people who booked time to chat. And, as I wrote about the experience here, it’s helped me learn about growth through adversity, the need for human connection, and indeed the true value of asking one another for help.
One of those chats has now pulled me into a pro bono campaign, so for now I've cut back my time to 3 chats on Fridays while I focus my free time on a worthwhile cause that involves and affects every Australian.
That’s it for this month! Hope you enjoyed reading and found something useful to boot. Please subscribe, comment and share – and, as ever, happy to hear all and any feedback.