Sam Birkett 0:06
Well hello everyone welcome once again to Marketing Meanders with Sally and Sam and today we are very privileged and excited, I think as well to be interviewing and having a good old meander with Andrew Hancock, who is the founder and creative director of Brand Asylum, which based in Oxfordshire, Oxfordshire's brand communications agency and Andrew has extensive experience in the area of brands and obviously marketing communications and so we're looking forward to having a really interesting conversation with him about all sorts today. But before we get to that, I just wanted to obviously welcome Andrew and kick off with our first question to him, which is, perhaps if he could combine his favourite dish combined with just, you know, hello, and who are you? And how are you feeling today, Andrew?

Andrew Hancock 0:51
Sam, morning, and thank you very much and Sally, thank you so much for having me on the show. I can't wait to see where this meander takes us. A little bit stumped with the first dish, I've got a number. So I'm gonna go for something a little bit out there left field. I'm gonna go for *inaudible*

Sally Green 1:11
Oh, lovely.

Andrew Hancock 1:12
Purely because I see it as three dishes in one. You have your bread, which could be your starter with the butter on, then have your *inaudible* as your main and then to finish a little bit soup to soak it all up. So it's kind of everything you can mix and match the flavours, depends where you are, and especially if they're fresh, or in the south of France or up in Scotland, they taste completely difference and I love it. I love the feeling of eating with your hands, and you pick the little shells out to clam it. It's a bigger experience than just eating a burger, for example.

Sam Birkett 1:48
I like that. That's brilliant. Brilliant. No, they're very, very good choice, that's one of my wife's favourites as well actually, as you say, and I liked the fact you've got those multiple elements of a dish in one so fantastic. Well, what a great start. Yeah, making me hungry now! I'll hand over to Sally before I start salivating to much!

Sally Green 2:11
Well I can only agree, that sounds absolutely delicious. But I'm gonna start with the, you know, the sensible brand-y questions now. What's really interesting is in a way, what you just described as *inaudible* is a way almost like how a brand works, isn't it? People tend to not think that brand has more than one level. It's not just one thing. It's not just oh, here's my logo, that must be a brand. Do you think a lot of people make that mistake?

Andrew Hancock 2:33
I think massively. I think over the years I've been doing it, which is quite a few now before giving my age anyway. People just see it potentially as a logo or a picture with another Comic Sans type underneath it and then they think that the brand is done and I think also brands changed over the years, it's now It shouldn't just be called brand, it should be about brand engagement. And I think Sally, you're absolutely right with the food. It's like, with the *inaudible* you engage with the whole experience of it and a brand should be all about engaging through the whole experience with different touch points, through not only how it looks and feels, how it's said, how it's spoken, how it's delivered, how you're marketed to and then you know, it's all about trust, isn't it? You know, there are big brands everybody likes and loves and they go back to time and time again and there's a reason for that, it's because they're made to feel special by the brand. So it's not just a logo. It's not just one thing. It's a whole heap of things that are constantly changing, evolving and making you, the consumer, feels special.

Sally Green 3:34
Yeah, I think a lot of people get that very wrong. A lot of people do think as you say, here's my logo, and that is my brand and then they'd make their brand completely static. So they've got their brand, my brand is this and here's my strap line and that's what it is and then they kind of have this torturous relationship with it trying to squeeze in their messaging into this brand that they've kind of said has got to be there all the time and it can make things really uncomfortable.

Andrew Hancock 4:03
100%, and also, I think, you know, people might come up with a brand and a brand name and a strapline and then over time, you know, every business evolves, but they don't evolve in the brand with that and they don't evolve the messaging or what's being said. So, what they might be saying on their brand is not what they do in reality.

Sally Green 4:21
Yeah, that's right. That's a thing that people notice, that people think maybe customers don't notice that but they do. I'm now trying to think of an example which will come to me eventually, but people do notice that you say the best fizzy pop in the world if you're Coca Cola and then they find that actually no, we went that's where Coca-Cola went wrong. When it went from making Coca Cola which we all know, to making water when Coca-Cola launched its water brand and you think ow! This is awkward. Customers are going to notice, what are you saying to me here? I don't know what this water thing is going on about really?

Andrew Hancock 4:54
Yeah and I think that's again the same as like you know, Coca-Cola is a great example. Coca-Cola owns so many sub-brands that are standalone brands by themselves, but they're the parent company. So they've actually gone into their, you know, their so... and one of the best things ever is I don't know whether you guys have seen it is the Father Christmas brand guidelines and Coca Cola and it's all about red, white. And that's, it's phenomenal. Google it. It's one of those amazing little reads about, you know, how a brand works and should work. And coke does it and it almost does it, it goes we're so precious of our own brand, coke and that name, we can't be associated with like, soft drinks, with like water, you know, all the other brands that they have underneath their parent brand company.

Sally Green 5:41
That's right and that's hard. I mean, I guess, because I used to work for publishing companies and publishers will have lots of different brands under them. Some of the brands are authors who have huge egos, and once a month need a whole new brand, or they're just types of books. I used to work for Penguin, and then under Penguin, there's Puffin, which I think we all know and love, but they also had a lot of you probably don't know they had a whole brand for Pterodactyl, which does actually begin with a P and that was their hardcore academic anthropology. So they had these multiple brands that they're all birds, and they all began with a P. Puffin, Penguin...

Andrew Hancock 6:18
Sally, are you saying that pterodactyl starts with a P?!

Sally Green 6:21
I am telling you pterodactyl starts with a P.

Andrew Hancock 6:24
You know what? Every day is a learning day.

Sally Green 6:26
See, there you go.

Andrew Hancock 6:29
I'm just glad you didn't ask me to spell it. Sally, that's the main thing.

Sally Green 6:32
That's the next time. There's no comma Andy. Managing those sub-brands can be awkward and you know, I think people have to think quite hard about when they think about, oh, we got a new brand new product here, like Sam and I are constantly talking about handbags. If we suddenly said, Oh, we're gonna start selling sneakers in our shop. You have to think quite hard, don't you, about how that's going to work with your uber-brand on the top.

Andrew Hancock 6:59
Yeah, I think you can have a lot of fun with the brand. I think for the brand owners, it's very hard, and, you know, I've worked with big, big companies such as Atos where they have brand police and they are so stringent and they're literally about 50 people around the world checking every single thing, content is pushed out, to make sure it's on brand because they are so absolutely nailed on flights got, tone of voice got to be like this, imagery has to be like this, the logo has to be used in this way. You know, there's so many more things and just, you know, a picture of a copy, your logo stuck on the bottom and it's all got to work together as one, it's almost like baking the most perfect cake. All the ingredients have got to be together in the right way to create this amazing Victoria Sponge with candles and sugar icing on top and all the rest of it to make it stand out. I think that's what every brand wants.

Sam Birkett 7:53
Yeah. I mean, it's interesting what you said as well about because for me, it's sort of there's the... we had a previous conversation about, I suppose smaller businesses and saying, where do you start with creating your brand, sort of the origins of a brand origin, then, as you've already said, Andrew, about the existence. So it exists and it evolves and then it's the manifestations I suppose so the marketing angle, I suppose being the, as you say the brand, the manifestations of the brand in terms of communications, how people find us, how they understand about us, and then the whole aspect of what does that actually mean? So if we do the logo in a certain way, we have a certain tone of voice, we use certain imagery, what are we trying to elicit in the minds of our consumers and the world at large. But I was interested in particular as well about what we've heard an awful lot about this year of 2022 and onwards. I suppose this interactivity, as you said about going right back to the *inaudible*. Yeah, the idea of how people interact with brands, and I mean, there's clearly more technological options. But would you say that that interactivity, that engagement is increasing? Or is it changing? Is it diversifying? Is it harder for brand managers and marketers to achieve that or easier? How do you think that's, that's developing?

Andrew Hancock 9:10
I think it's harder for brands because year on year, there are more tools to be seen on more channels to be exposed to. Take for example, TikTok, you know, only recently now, has been going on for years now TikTok, only recently now, or certainly I've seen it in the past 12 months, more and more high-level brands, advertising using Tiktok as a platform, a serious platform to push their brand out and it's just another target market they're trying to, you know, engage with. I think you have to understand things. I think for smaller brands, it's just being honest with yourself and it's being honest with what the company does and not being this, you know, grand, you know, we do this, this and this and it's kind of being actually we just do this, do it really well and this is what we believe in. This is our USP, this is why we're different and then people buy into that. I think, you know, the general public are very savvy now and they soon go actually, that's a load of rubbish, I'm gonna go with these guys. There are some great brands who do it. I'll try to name a few now, but I think there's somewhere you go, yeah, that really works and engages, and others where you go, actually trying a little bit too hard.

Sally Green 10:22
Okay. So you don't have to be everywhere all the time. So your brand doesn't have to be on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn all the time, everywhere. That will be a mistake you would suggest for some people?

Andrew Hancock 10:35
Yeah, I think so. If your target market isn't there, then there's no point in pushing there. I think it was, was it DOVE? I can't remember who it was and they had literally had a sofa in a shopping mall, where people just come and sit down and have a chat and it was amazing. It was all just about talking, giving people time for a chat. It was the most, it was you know, you can have lots of different campaigns across things. But it was almost like they're, they just went like just stop for a minute, just you know, have a break, life's busy. You know, we're going to do that. I think that's a nice thing about you know, going back to the start with brands, brands need to work with campaigns and the campaigns need to then lead into the brands that reassert what the brand stands for through those campaigns, not just sell, sell, sell, offer, offer, offer. So actually, there's more to it with a brand and a campaign and the strategy that goes with it.

Sally Green 11:28
I think that's really interesting. You often forget that actually, your brand is part of the campaign because often you can just forget you've got the brand there at all when you're doing the campaign because actually, you're selling, let's say you're selling a particular handbag, and just focus on the handbag, what the handbag does, and you forget the Cotswold Leather brand that's sitting above the handbag, and you don't, you're absolutely right and that's a really big mistake and something we all get wrong and so you don't actually put any of the brand's messaging into your campaigns. It's extraordinary, actually, but that's a huge thing you can do.

Andrew Hancock 12:04
Yeah. And just going back to a great brand and ripping off brands, which is a slightly different thing altogether. But I remember being in Turkey on holiday a number of years ago and as one of the, you know, the countries where they like creating fake brands, you know, I thought well, that's this is interesting, I'll have a look at the local market and they had your Rolexes and your Tag Heuers and your Ralph Lauren t-shirts and all of them, you know all for about you know 25p, but you know really good quality. I bought a couple but anyway was at Ralph Lauren and they had a Ralph Lauren store and the classic Ralph Lauren polo shirt, with a little polo horse on the thing and they didn't just do like, you know, the polo player on the Polo horse on your left breast. They had the polo player falling off the horse which I thought was a stroke of genius. So I immediately thought three of those because I thought that's perfect. I'm engaged because they're actually taking the mickey out of themselves for being fake, it's funny!

Sally Green 13:11
That's brilliant. Yeah, that's absolutely genius. That's a fabulous bit of brand abuse.

Sam Birkett 13:16
Yeah. That's great. I have a similar thing where I bought some, you know, I just needed some headphones, I was on holiday, I forgot my headphones, I just needed someone and I knew I was getting it from this tourist shop, which obviously was all going to be fake. So I thought, it was almost an exercise in seeing which had the most entertaining description on the back with the way in which they've actually just, you know, talked about the fantastic combination of words, which didn't make any sense that about something about you know, amazing, magical experience wonderful. So they're kind of someone had gone through a translation machine somewhere and taken what you know, and whatever they were BOSE or whatever it said and then turned it into this weird thing but I mean it's interesting in a way I suppose that sort of idea of as you said people sort of, you either sort of go completely, you have a sort of almost an anti-brand or almost in a way or you sort of you don't try and copy because I suppose there is that temptation isn't there, certainly with people, smaller businesses as well thinking well what are the big boys doing and saying out there, how can we look bigger than we are, how can we, you know, build something, but as you say as well I mean that coming back to your why you hear what you're doing, I suppose for even smaller business owners it's almost this you know like our handbag shop, for example, you know what's your why? What's your purpose of why you're doing this, providing the service? Yes, you want to make a living but you want to make a living doing this particular thing service products and what does that generate? Because I mean Sally and I have spoken about this in the past when sort of that you know, how much the brand ownership, if you can call it that, where that belongs, it's sort of like we're saying that you start something and then as soon as you have followers or an audience or customers hopefully, does the brand, I mean what I've yet to know your thoughts Sally, the brand then but comes almost the ownership of the collective in my mind anyway becomes a community that consumers are very much, it's directed by you. But how do you perhaps influence that? Or do you think that's true at all, that sort of the brand is then sort of effectively almost owned in inverted commas by your audience? How much do you agree or disagree with that statement I suppose, is what I am trying to get to.

Andrew Hancock 15:22
It's quite interesting, isn't it? It's like if, if Coca-Cola suddenly changed their cans to luminous green overnight. There'd be absolute uproar. You know, and the consumers, the market would go, no, we want the red cans back and they're taken back. But you know, I think for smaller, you know, a smaller of business, I think it's slightly different, because I think the brand will evolve and change. So you need to have that ownership of that, you can't be swayed by what your customers want to do you want to be true to your brand. There's an argument that you actually want to listen to what they're saying, because they might be right, they're buying the products. But obviously, you want to be true in terms of actually, what's your vision, where's your direction, where we want to go? As you could be just going, oh, I'm going to be green one day, blue the next and I changed my logo to this, and I've done sans serif font, now I'm gonna go script and I want to go back to Comic Sans, you know, the best brands don't change very much, they're just tweaked. A great example of that is Starbucks. So if you look at the Starbucks logo, it was really complicated, really complicated and over the years, it's been like, you know, pared back, pared back, pared back and now it's a really stylish, simple logo.

Sally Green 16:40
That is interesting because if you actually, if you look at the history of the Coca-Cola logo, the Coca-Cola label started, if you look at the very, very beginning, they launched it, it's a kind of Victorian black and white picture with loads of copy on it, it's very complicated, kind of two people standing with drinks and loads of fabric, clothing, etc. It's really complicated and seeing that brand development is really interesting to seeing it doing that.

Andrew Hancock 17:07
I think what we have, what I do at Brand Asylum is I have this magical KISS, which is Keep It Simple, Stupid. And it's very much taking that, you know, where you've got, everything's complicated, in marketing, in branding and design, in websites and digital, whatever you want to do, it's complicated. The best stuff works when it's the simplest and the purest and what we try and do, or what I try and do is then I take all the complicated from clients, and then simplify it down to make it work hardest in whatever channel it needs to go through.

Sally Green 17:39
Yeah and stop people being so puritanical about because actually, things can change occasionally. Although I think brand guideline volumes are very important. It can be incredibly torturous when you've absolutely got to have the logo bottom left, you think, no, it doesn't bloody fit bottom left!

Andrew Hancock 17:59
Yeah, it's a little bit like, you know, I spent a number of years working on the Mercedes Benz account and again, their brand guidelines were ridiculous. I understand why because everywhere you went, it's a bit like going to McDonald's, wherever you go with those around the world, it's the same. You've got this sense of trust with that, there's a sense of, you know, expertise, you know, a certain sense of, you don't want different dealerships doing really rubbish logos up top and corner and looking a mess and a dog's dinner. That's really bad for the brand for the bigger brand picture. So it's always got to look as smart and as sharp as it can.

Sally Green 18:37
But at the same time brands, when they've got to that stage, they're very powerful and as long as you don't really get it consistently wrong, I think it can support occasionally, the logo being bottom right, as opposed to bottom left, it's not going to the whole world is not going to collapse. If actually, sometimes your logo reverses out wrong.

Andrew Hancock 18:55
Yeah, I agree. I agree.

Sally Green 18:57
I used to work for penguin and penguin also has this very big brand. And oh god, the number of times we had enormous, well, we had brand police at Penguin two and the anger because the penguin was facing the other way. and we said to them eventually we're going to do a poll with people and say which way does the Penguin penguin face and nobody has the faintest idea which bloody way that the Penguin penguin faces?

Andrew Hancock 19:25
You see, I would say, as a branding guy. The penguin should be facing the way you turn the page it wants to lead you on to turn the next page.

Sam Birkett 19:37
Yeah, I'm looking at my shelves!

Sally Green 19:38
I'm just gonna find the book now and look that up.

Andrew Hancock 19:43
Probably goes the other way now.

Sam Birkett 19:44
Yeah, probably does, probably does. Oh, here we are, we have one.

Sally Green 19:47
It faces exactly the other way. If you look at it, it's looking over it's looking to that way.

Sam Birkett 19:53
Contrary penguin, just likes to be in trouble doesn't it.

Andrew Hancock 19:59
Pesky penguins!

Sam Birkett 20:03
Typical! But it's interesting, isn't it because you say the word Penguin, you just said two words, penguin and book, and these are Penguin Books and I've got a vision in my head of exactly what it is, I know the kind of books I know where I'm gonna go to and it's immediately got that trust, interest, whatever, quirkiness and I love the fact it's a tactile thing, even buying a book, buying a penguin book and having them on a bookshelf, they look great. But it's, as you say, the simplicity, I've looked at this, I remember way back to university days, we were talking about how many businesses actually survive and we had this fantastic graph that shows like 1900, to whenever, how many survived, all from the 18th/ 19th century, you know, and obviously, very few actually survived, but some of the big brands survive. One thing I seem to find is that the simplicity seems to... there's an increase in simplicity in terms of both logo and both brands, to a certain degree. I mean, it seems simple. On the surface, at least, you look at some of those immortal, you know, Rolls Royce brands, you mentioned, Mercedes, etc. There's certain icons aren't there, which just developed and developed and then everyone seems to go towards that simplicity. But of course, it's all of the work that's been done around that, that understanding of what that means, isn't it and the reinforcement of what that image means to you. So I suppose it's getting to that point, isn't it? I suppose once you've done the work, and you've allowed the brand to evolve, and you've sort of you've reached a point where you have that recognition, and then you need to work on perhaps simplifying, but I suppose it's an interesting journey, isn't it? How you get to that point, and one thing we spoke about before is the feedback and the understanding, I suppose of how the brand's perceived, certainly if you're on a scale-up business, say, you know, and I mean, how can people do that most effectively, where they think that they can actually understand what does our brand mean, perhaps and then how can we think about simplifying down perhaps. Perhaps we've tried to do a lot and we've had various different channels and product lines, and now we're actually the business structurally, is simplifying, how much do we need to try and understand, how can we most effectively understand, what's the most important thing do you think Andrew, for our audience?

Andrew Hancock 22:14
I think it's trying to understand what the brand stands for, what's its USP, how does it define, what's its mission statement and where does it want to be. I think a good example of that is Innocent drinks, Innocent smoothies, and, and they started off being, you know, just another drink smoothie company, and then they did a campaign and they got lots of old people knit little woollen hats, which they put on top of each bottle in winter and, you know, suddenly, that exploded in terms of one of the first viral, you know, digital campaigns and then they suddenly became, the brand was all about doing good, and pureness, and everything like that, that went into their drinks kind of excluded out of their drinks, it went further out and what they do in terms of what their mission statement was, what their proposition was, why were they were different from Tropicana, which had been like, the big juice brand at the time in the day back in the 80s and 90s. And I thought, little companies, small companies like that, you know, the small SMEs and startups, it's finding that niche, and then being true to themselves, and as they grow, still be true to themselves. So actually, what are we here actually doing? Yes, we might have gone from five people to fifty, but what do we actually stand for? Do we have a platform? What's our mission statement? Yes, it might be tweaked and we want to say this, this and this, but that's all campaign-able outside the brand. If you're so honest with yourself, I go back to this honesty, you know, then you're gonna get more people to actually buy into that, because it's true.

Sally Green 23:46
Yeah, do you think it is valuable for businesses to actually get all their staff together and have a very brief workshop about what their brand is to make sure that everyone's working off the same page?

Andrew Hancock 23:58
I think Sally that's absolutely right. Every year companies do big get-togethers and part of that should be this is what we stand for. This is what we were looking at this year, just to remind themselves almost like this where we want to go.

Sally Green 24:12
Yep, it very, very rarely ever gets talked about brands and that kind of thing, because you're right, it's tragic. There's not a whole section about brand sales conferences.

Andrew Hancock 24:20
Yeah, and even more so now since COVID. You know, when big companies and small companies had to change and pivot and align and, you know, reassess what they do. They're still using an old brand, an old kind of mission, an old strapline, that has actually changed fundamentally and that needs to be communicated. If you think all a brand does, it's a communication tool. It's not only their customers, but also their employees as well.

Sally Green 24:48
Yeah, I think people forget the power of internal communications, you tend to get what you get is someone will have come up with a brilliant idea, that these are the five words that we stand for, you know, truthful, honest, reliable and lovely with all of which are completely pointless words to have but you'll then have on your desk all of a sudden overnight a coaster will have appeared on your desk with those words to make you feel motivated and you think really? I don't think that's really the point of your brand.

Andrew Hancock 25:20
Also if your force fed it constantly, it then loses impact, it's not about that. It's almost like the subtleties of it that you know, being subjective being you know, just gently going actually guys, this is where we need to be.

Sally Green 25:36
Yeah, is there something about a brand that it's quite difficult to put into words, brands are also a kind of feeling isn't it? Just that sense of trust in something, you can't say I love this brand because... you just I love this brand and that's about as far as that sentence can go.

Andrew Hancock 25:53
I think it goes into... I'm going to tell you a little story. I raced a boat around the world back in 2002 and we wore these sailing boots called Dubarry boots and they were kind of you know, you lived in these boots, they're anti-slip so when you're on the deck being washed down the boat with big storms and stuff, they kind of keep you safe so halfway around the world my Debarry boots, the sole split on them. I was in the South China Sea, massive holes in them. The next stop was in China and I literally phoned up Dubarry from China and said I'm really sorry, I'm doing this round-the-world race, this yacht race. My soles have split, it says you've got a lifetime guarantee, any chance you can just send some more out. I had a new pair within 48 hours it was they're from Ireland, an Irish brand, there was no fuss, there's nothing like that suddenly off their back because they just want to see where I've gone I think for their product development. But you know, that's customer service and that's the brand delivering and I will never ever change now that brand because they've always been there when I needed them and their service and so their service started from buying the boots in the first place and then a phone call to them receiving a new set halfway around the world and without complaint, you know it's like the John Lewis never knowingly undersold type thing.

Sally Green 27:16
What's really sad John Lewis have just got rid of that. They've just stopped it. Which is a really interesting thing that you just raised there. You're right that is that knowledge that and I've never ever gone back into John Lewis and said well actually I found this much cheaper in the shop down the road it's just you just know they never that you trust them and like with you said with your boots you just knew that you probably knew inside yourself that when you phoned them up they were just going to send a new pair weren't they?

Andrew Hancock 27:42
Well yes, you'd hope so. I mean they were a small little business, now that they're huge, but it's going back to that brand and you know then I become their best brand asset because I then wants to talk about them all they say to all the rest of my around the world sailors, guys Dubarry do this, got to get yourself a pair of those and that's what the brands are looking for constantly they want people to go, did you hear what these guys did? I had the most amazing experience in the handbag shop in the Cotswolds or you know I had the most amazing... another one was you know you got to stay in a hotel which is much more customer-focused for example, but they're all brand aren't they, like Hilton's and whatever but that customer service, as soon as you step through those doors if it's above and beyond you just go wow, okay, that was unexpected.

Sam Birkett 28:33
As you say I think that sums it up beautifully. It says the moments of either customer delight or just fulfilment of promise isn't it really? It's that promise of service or product, which we're going to say as well. Wow. sounds incredible. Your round-the-world adventure as well. So that's a whole nother podcast episode. That's brilliant. That's very impressive. That was great. Well, that's it everyone. Thank you very much for listening today. In the meantime, if you want to keep in touch you can find us @meanderspod on Twitter or you can get to us on Facebook. You can also email us which is meanderspod@gmail.com So hope to see you or hear you or you to hear us next time anyway and good luck everyone. Take care bye for now.