FutureBrand news, views & insights: August 2023
My favourite day
My favourite day at work happens not once but four times every year.
It’s the day our whole team comes together to reflect on life and work at FutureBrand Australia. All in the name of making our business better – so much so that it’s named Better Days, and that says it all for me.
What’s more, we love to try-buy-use our own clients’ products, services and experiences, so it was even better to have hosted the day with the help of our friends at Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre – and to have had the opportunity to experience Connection at The Lume, a celebration of First Peoples' art and music.
The focus for this Better Days was creativity and the myriad ways in which it inspires and informs all that we do. Suffice to say, surrounded by the brand experience on offer at MCEC and immersed in the art and music of our First Peoples at The Lume, it was easy to do just that.
If there was one sentiment that summed up the day, it was this:
“The creative moment doesn’t live in the ideas.
It lives in the questions.”
…hat-tip to our Sam, such an insightful sentiment into the role of creativity, and one of many that we hope will help us make an even greater impact in the coming months and years.
New year, new website
If B Corp Certification was a high note on which to end last financial year, I can’t help but feel that sharing our story with the help of a new website is the ideal way to start this new year.
Here it is, futurebrand.com.au.
In all the work that we do for our clients, no two futures are ever quite the same. No two projects are either. It’s realising the future that’s best fit for each unique brand that unites and inspires us most: from strategy to reality.
Our new website will mean we can share those unique stories more fully – happy to hear all and any feedback, and look forward to sharing more news, views and insights.
How to get back to basics and build your brand
A couple of weeks ago, I took to the stage at Mumbrella 360 to present a session on brand-building basics.
It's not your typical 'what is a brand' academic theory (as much as that has its place in the world).
It's practical, proven advice based on three things you should do to build lasting value into your brand. (Because, by forgetting the basics of brand-building, I've seen brand and marketing teams overcomplicate things, ignore the important things, or simply build the wrong things.)
It's 30 minutes long, it's for marketers and non-marketers alike – for believers and, dare I say, non-believers – and I’m happy to share it with anyone and everyone who is interested by way of an upcoming webinar. If you’d like an invite, please just email me.
Go play!
As a kid, I was lucky enough to be introduced to golf and my love for the game has followed me around the world. Consequently, I feel doubly lucky for the team here at FutureBrand to have been able to develop the brand strategy to grow the game and help even more people go play more golf.
You may recall me sharing the new brand we helped created for the TeeMates – Golf Australia’s new junior golf community, helping kids to enjoy all kinds of golf experiences.
And just yesterday, Golf Australia announced the news of their new branding, including this comment from me:
"Golf is changing as it broadens its appeal across all playing formats and skill levels: because all golf is golf. This all-inclusive outlook has provided both the insight and the inspiration to define the brand strategy for Australian Golf. By centring playfulness at the heart of the game and connecting all the different ways in which golf can be played – both for the challenge and the joy – the brand strategy and brand architecture together set the platform for Golf Australia and the PGA of Australia to guide a connected experience that will continue to help golf grow."
It’s true, all golf is golf.
Whether it’s Cam Smith playing at The Open.
You and your family enjoying Holey Moley.
Or a beer and a bucket of balls at the driving range.
Go play!
Future by name, future by nature
Working at a company by the name of FutureBrand, it’s only natural that we would take a keen interest in the future.
So I thought I might take the opportunity to learn more about Artificial Intelligence with the help of HumAIn, a new conference all about AI.
Here’s what I heard…
Cat McGinn who curated the conference shared an interesting tension in her opening comments. On the one hand, AI can lead the ‘democratisation’ of creativity. On the other hand, it can also lead to the ‘beigification’ of creativity.
(Which reminded me of this recent comment by Nick Law, Accenture Song’s Creative Chairperson: “Mediocrity is now free.”)
Marty Hungerford, Chief Innovation Officer at BRX added: “AI is not good for anything on its own” – that’s to say, AI is best as a companion to augment human creativity, not to automate or replace it.
Given how quickly technology is evolving, Cameron Luby at Optus commented: “I hope this isn't an annual thing, it feels like we need to be doing it every month!”
But the bar for how companies use technology is still quite low, as per this comment from GrowthOps Chief Innovation Officer, Con Frantzeskos: “I will always have a job in CX as long as companies continue to send customer service emails from donotreply@..."
Read into that what you will, but rest assured that ChatGPT will not be writing this newsletter any time soon.
That’s it for another month – let me know if you fancy a hit of golf, otherwise I hope you found some useful food for thought for your own business and brand. As ever, happy to hear all and any feedback, please subscribe, comment and share.