The Blog

Yes, you should. Most of the time.   There are all sorts of benefits to being consistent. Which is why it’s weird that so many brands build the F-word – flex – into their guidelines. More on why that’s a terrible idea in this rant blog.

Couldn’t make our last coronavirus comms coaching session? Here’s what you missed. All eyes have been on the behavioural scientists lately (and not always in a good way). Does behavioural fatigue really exist? Can a slogan keep the nation indoors? Arguments abound.

Of course, we love him.  And we trust him, too.

We’ve always said that is a great way to stand out from the crowd. But can it backfire? We had a hypothesis that a distinctive tone is only worth it for brands people already like. 

It makes perfect sense that the game of choice while we’re all stuck indoors is one where we can roam freely on a very socially distanced island. And while all games are designed to keep us hooked, Animal Crossing has kicked things up a notch.

My inbox, probably like yours, is groaning under the weight of emails from business and CEOs about coronavirus. Some of them have important stuff to say – like supermarkets, airlines and banks. 

I confess: I always thought that virtual training was second best. And often second rate (ouch). It’s okay. But not your first pick – right? Wrong. Being forced to do it by what Harold Macmillan famously called ‘events’ (and what we call real life) I’ve completely changed my mind. Why?

It’s the most wonderful time of the year: buzzword bashing season! This year it’s Vulture and the Atlantic; a few years ago it was this wonderful piece from the Guardian. But I wonder if we can get beyond ‘aren’t buzzwords annoying?’

‘Politicians all sound the same’, or at least that’s what people told us when we did some research at election time into the way they communicate. Well, that’s not true of Boris Johnson. He doesn’t sound like anyone else, and that’s because he sticks to a tone of voice formula with a calculated[...]

We do a lot of training workshops. And we know sometimes – like great writing – great training can seem like magic. But it’s not good enough to have a hunch (especially when people are paying for your hunches). We want to know why things work. And we’ve found behavioural science has a lot of the[...]