Our thoughts

Innovation is key to catching a customer

By Neil Svensen

Tuesday, 1 February, 2011

Categories: Brand

This newspaper you read this morning is a unique advertising medium. It's substantial, tactile, portable and, to use current jargon, offers "random access".You can turn to any page you like, right now. It also affords what we in the ad business call "dwell time".You can read, re-read, ponder and com...

Bandwagon wheels roll

By Neil Svensen

Friday, 18 June, 2010

Categories: Brand

I’m writing this half-watching one of the matches at the FIFA 2010 World Cup. And, in keeping with my status as someone who usually can’t contain his indifference when it comes to football, I’m struggling to stay awake. Don’t get me wrong; I have a mix of Norwegian, Welsh and English blood, so there...

Tags: world cup

Revamping political brands

By Neil Svensen

Tuesday, 13 April, 2010

Categories: Brand

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has just fired the starting pistol on an intensive month-long general election campaign. All of which has got me thinking about the state of the political ‘brands’ in London. There’s no doubt that politics and economics became unmeshed in the credit crunch and the ensuin...

Tags: advertising, election, obama, political brands

Language unmangled

By Neil Svensen

Monday, 12 April, 2010

Categories: Brand

As regular readers will by now be familiar, I have a rather particular view of the importance of re-establishing trust between brands (and financial brands in particular) and their customers. In short, it’s a must-do, right now… not a nice-to-have, some time in the future. So when a major global ban...

Tags: brand, messaging, trust

The BBC. Tightening the belt or using the duster?

By Neil Svensen

Wednesday, 31 March, 2010

Categories: Digital

It’s been a couple of weeks since the BBC announced that it was looking to cut back on the investment it makes in its website and digital broadcasting. It’s closing a couple of its digital channels substantially reducing its web content. Now, there are very few organisations able to ride out this ...

Tags: bbc, content

The BBC. iPlayer, can anyone do better?

By Neil Svensen

Wednesday, 17 March, 2010

Categories: Digital, Technology

I am a massive fan of the BBC. It constantly sets the standards for quality. Over the last decade or so, even as the new digital broadcasting networks have matured, the BBC has continued to play the leading role in setting standards. Just look at the success of iPlayer. It was the first and is s...

Tags: bbc, iplayer

Rufus Leonard rebrand

By Neil Svensen

Monday, 15 March, 2010

Categories: Brand

On the 15th March we’re launching our new brand... Hear all about it on my short vodcast.

"I have a picture to deliver to the Boardroom."

By Neil Svensen

Monday, 15 March, 2010

Categories: Brand, Digital, Technology

Pitching to the boardroom is always a challenging experience, no matter what the subject. Company boards are always a complex mix of skills, strong personalities, and sometimes widely differing agendas. You can’t rely on any of them having any sort of understanding of your specialist subject. And ...

Tags: communications, pitching, presentations

Banks,brands,the crunch and the reckoning

By Neil Svensen

Friday, 26 February, 2010

Categories: Brand

It’s been a busy old month. Following January’s gradual start, we’ve come out of the traps like a greyhound, and we’re now busy right across the board. One of our most recent clients, a venerable Scottish bank (with over 300 years of heritage, no less), has just celebrated its brand relaunch as it s...

Tags: brand

Snow business, not no business

By Neil Svensen

Monday, 11 January, 2010

Categories: Digital

At last the New Year is well underway and business is getting back up to speed. I don’t know what it was this year but it’s taken more time for things to get going, despite the fact we’ve got lots of work on at Rufus Leonard. In the UK the weather has probably not helped. Even with a little snow, th...

Tags: social media