Short, practical pieces on strategy, communications, behaviour and evidence - written for people who make decisions, not for other consultants.
Most campaigns are judged by how many people saw them. But awareness is only the first step in a chain that most communications never complete. What actually moves people from knowing to doing?
Read the articleA deceptively simple planning discipline: before any activity begins, define what the audience should think, feel and do differently. Here's how it works - and why so few organisations use it.
Read the articleWhen results disappoint, organisations often ask for better communications. More often, the communications were fine - they were simply carrying a strategy that hadn't been made.
Read the articleFootfall can fall while promotional activity rises. The explanation is rarely a lack of promotion: effective place marketing is a continuous cycle of insight, planning, behaviour change and evaluation - not a communications exercise.
Read the articleWhy the most successful places behave less like brands and more like coalitions.
What change programmes can learn from how people actually make decisions.
Campaigns run, posts published, events held: outputs demonstrate delivery. Outcomes demonstrate the difference those activities made. Confusing the two is the most common - and most costly - mistake in marketing and communications.
Read the articleWhat large-scale change teaches about engagement, trust and delivery.
If any of these themes connect with a problem your organisation is working through, we'd be glad to compare notes.
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