Why didn’t Microsoft create Google?
Why didn’t Kodak create Instagram? Why didn’t Facebook create WhatsApp? Why didn’t the Intercontinental Hotel Group create AirBnB? Once they reach a certain scale and age, even the most innovative businesses can find themselves outflanked by smarter, nimbler upstarts who make one-time disruptors move with all the grace of the corporate dinosaurs they themselves once […]
Three steps to better brand storytelling
All this week at Insight Agents, we’ve been marking the sixteenth annual National Storytelling Week with a series of blogs that highlight what gets in the way of impactful brand storytelling. We commissioned our friends at Sussex University’s Innovation Centre to ask those in charge of storytelling at some of the Britain’s biggest retailers what […]
Why brands need to be authentic in their storytelling
To celebrate National Storytelling Week, corporate and brand storytellers Insight Agents commissioned Sussex University’s Innovation Centre to interview senior marketers in the UK retail sector to talk to us about the challenges they face in telling their brand’s stories. In this week-long series of blogs, we’ve been exploring the major themes from this research, as […]
Why brands need to avoid jargon in their storytelling
To celebrate National Storytelling Week, corporate and brand storytellers Insight Agents commissioned Sussex University’s Innovation Centre to interview senior figures in the UK retail sector to tell us the challenges they face in telling their brand stories. Today Sam Knowles, our Founder & MD, takes a personal look at jargon – and argues that brands […]
Why brands need to be consistent in their storytelling
To celebrate National Storytelling Week, corporate and brand storytellers Insight Agents commissioned Sussex University’s Innovation Centre to interview senior marketers in the UK retail sector to talk to us about the challenges they face in telling their brand’s stories. In this week-long series of blogs, we’re exploring the major themes to emerge from the research, […]
Let me tell you a story – a brand story
In the first of a series of five daily blogs to mark National Storytelling Week 2016, Insight Agents’ Founder & MD Sam Knowles reveals the three most important barriers companies face in telling better brand stories. Recent estimates suggest that the average Brit spends almost nine hours on media devices every day. In that time, […]
Storytelling and archetypes around climate change #Paris2015
Starting today, the United Nations Paris Conference on Climate change is taking place. The threat of global warming is, and will continue to be, an issue of primary importance for life on our planet as we know it. However, the environment still remains on the periphery of the international public eye, battling for coverage within […]
The four Es of effective storytelling
I’ve always loved English. It’s such a rich language with gloriously diverse ways of saying the same thing. In one form or another, English has been around for more than a millennium. In that time, many other languages – of conquerors and the conquered, of allies and foes – have left their trace. That’s why […]
Economic impact, absurdity and advertising
Sometimes you need to be able to put a value on what you do. It may be a financial value. It may be a social good. It may be something else. The value of reputation will be part of that and it works to a complex balance sheet. It is never easy to assess, but […]
Being decontrolled
I had a new experience on Sunday. My colleague Luke and I were trying to go to Dublin. We were headed there to debrief a favourite new client on a brand language project we’ve been running for the past couple of months. But it wasn’t to be. At least, not in person. The first inkling […]