Stephen Fenton supports his clients to work out what they want customers to think, feel and do as a result of their brand. Winning client business was the hardest part of running his own business when he started out.  

• Stephen owns and runs Zeke Creative specialising in branding in the home and interior sector.  
• His agency specialises in high-end home and interior clients from small businesses to multi-billion dollar organisations
• He focuses on brand creation, brand development and brand review, refresh and maintenance
• As a result of the pandemic has been involved in helping a client develop a virtual showroom using 3d 360-degree images to allow a virtual tour.
• His agency has a number of clients who he does tactical, ongoing work who have been with him for 10+ years
• The brands he most admires are Bulthaup who are high-end kitchen designers and Perrin and Rowe brassware and tap manufacturers.

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Shireen: Hello and welcome to Brand Tuned, successful brands successful business, the show for entrepreneurs and brand creators, where we discuss personal and business Brands to give you ideas and inspiration for your own brand. I'm Shireen Smith, lawyer, entrepreneur, author, and advocate for developing purpose based brands to change. Steven Fenton's professional career spans more than 20 years advising both private and public sector organizations on marketing and brand management. He studied graphic design. And before Zeke was conceived, he ran domain associates prior to 1997 was the design director of counterpoint. Welcome, Steven to Brand Tuned. How're you today?

Stephen: Very good. Thank you very much. Yes. Thank you for having me.

Shireen: Great. I hope I pronounced Deke correctly. Is it Zeke?

Stephen: Do? Yes.

Shireen: So when did you go into business on your own? Steven, tell us a bit more about your background.

Stephen: So on my own is very much the 9097 year that you've already mentioned prior to that, as you said, I was involved with other companies doing doing similar things. But yes, 1997 was the moment I, I went out on my own, so to speak, and probably a long, long story actually behind that, but but to put it simply, there was a was a lot going on with the businesses I'd previously been involved with it meant, like a lot of things in life, I kind of almost had no choice but to seek a slightly different direction. And that's the best thing I've probably ever done. Actually.

Shireen: Did you find it challenging in the early days at all? In terms of Yes, knowing how to run a business?

Stephen: Yes, absolutely. I mean, I'd had some experience being on the board of directors about these other businesses. But I think it's quite a different thing, when, as a lot of people say it can be a lonely experience initially. And you're finding your feet and, you know, it's, it's all resting on on your own shoulders as it were. But the good thing was, is that as a result of my previous connections, and indeed, what had happened to the business I'd come from, and I don't want to dwell on that. But it meant that I had a bit of a ready made client base. In other words, some business that was sought me out to work for them, rather than it all being about me having to do the new business. Development, obviously, there was a, there was a degree of that. And I think overall, a lot of people in my situation would agree with us about hardest thing you have to do. You know, you can take care of the finances to a certain extent you can get support for other things, but winning client business is by far and away the hardest.

Shireen: Yeah, so that was, so who is your typical client? Has it? Has it changed quite a lot since the 1997.

Stephen: Yeah, it has insofar as in recent times, the business that I know we're going to talk a bit more about later, Zeke is now very specialist in, in a particular sector, which is high end home and interiors clients. Prior to that, I was a little bit more generalist, including some within that group as well. But I had clients from areas as diverse as it financial services. So it was a more mixed bag previously.

Shireen: And who is a typical client now how, you know, what, how do they present to you?

Stephen: So these days, we work with those that are in home and interior sector, with a few in property, and in many ways that that property category is, you know, not dissimilar to the home and interiors world. So we we tend to be quite specialists now. And the size and scale of those companies can vary quite considerably. You know, one of our largest clients is globally a sort of multi billion pound business where we just act for them in respect of the work they do in the UK. So a much smaller part of their operation. But then we've got businesses who might be furniture manufacturers starting out, you know, one man band businesses, you know, just breaking into the world. So, the size of those companies can be very different. But what they tend to be about is luxury, lovely products that are handcrafted in many cases, you know, beautiful design pieces, and say very much about home and interiors.

Shireen: Essentially, what do you actually do for them? Are you, you know, doing everything like brochures, etc? Or do you focus on a particular type of work that you provide.

Stephen: I suppose you could say we have our sweet spot, which is very much about brand creation, and brand development. But quite, but clearly not every client is at that juncture, or at that stage that's going to be appropriate. What we often have is the more established, long founded businesses, if you like, in some cases can be, you know, over 100 years, coming to us for the need to review and refresh their brand, or to, you know, to, for us to undertake a bit of work to understand if there needs to be any realignment or adjustment to where they're at currently. For those smaller businesses that are referred to they're just starting out in life, then of course, there is the need from a very much a blank sheet of paper to understand what they want to be, how they want to look and feel. And in many cases, and I know this is a subject close to your own heart naming the name generation and the trademark. And, you know, that can be very much part of it. So I think our sweet spot is getting involved in those brand creation where we can, but obviously, there's a category of clients for whom much of that is already in place. So arguably, one would use the term it's more about maintenance, delivery, implementation and maintenance of an existing Style Guide and a brand. A set of brand rules rarely.

Shireen: Do they tend to have shops or what sort of businesses are they?

Stephen: We have to, I suppose distinguish between the b2b type of work we do in the b2c? We've got a fairly balanced mix, I guess of those were some clients, obviously operating in both spaces, and an involving us having to be involved in each aspect of that. But yeah, for those that have a consumer focus, they will often have showrooms, and I'm thinking of one client in particular without going into the details of who they are. But they have kitchen products, and nationwide probably now have around 12 or so individual showrooms, where customers, obviously, where they really engage with customers retail level, but we do have quite a number of clients who are talking to the interior design community or the specifier market. So there wouldn't be there wouldn't be a physical space or is in those cases, or they would be a brand who manufacture and make a product where their edge part of their job is to support their retail network. And I'm again thinking of one case in point, which is probably one of our largest clients who, you know, we were involved in a piece of work that helped them roll out a new project to around 100 retailers around the UK. So they don't have their own retail space, but they have product that goes in other people's shops or showrooms.

Shireen: So I imagine for a large number of your clients, they're having to reinvent their businesses in the face of the current crisis.

Stephen: Oh, yes. I mean, it's quite major. We did a very interesting thing for one of our clients who was being very much facing the whole lockdown thing within the weather, we were the week to go with us all obviously, knowing that it was likely to hit. We managed to create virtual showrooms for them. It wasn't for all of their showrooms. But we set about using some technology, which is not new. I mean, it's been it's been applied very much in property marketing for many years. And this allowed us to take 3d 360 degree images, they're often called scans, but imagery that can be pulled together to allow a virtual tour and now that that particular client off from their website, and through email marketing can say to people, we're not open, our doors are not open, but come in and have a look around. And they could do that from the comfort of their own home. And I understand it's proving quite useful to them. So yeah, there are things we have to think quick, don't we? I mean, unfortunately, it wasn't a lot of time for us to roll that. That idea out to everyone, our clients, it wouldn't have been possible. Those that have it now. It's quite useful.

Shireen: Yeah, I imagine as we emerge from this, there's going to be a lot of rebranding work, because of some of the adjustments that businesses will make you know, To be become more digital and such, like So what sort of pre strategy or branding work would you ideally like a client to have done before they engage your services?

Stephen: Yeah, I think this is a very interesting area. Because whilst we want clients to be prepared, and to have an understanding of where they going, and in a commercial sense, here's a business plan, if you like, what we almost don't want them to do is have too much baggage or to come to us necessarily with too many preconceived ideas. It is incredibly satisfying for us to have a much more blank sheet of paper to start with. Now, I can appreciate that it's not possible in all cases, and forgive me using that term baggage. I mean, I don't mean that disrespectfully. But you know that there are times when people have almost done too much work before they so how's that? Well, it's because they, they need really to, I think the analogy one of my colleagues makes is, it's a bit like going to the doctor and you know, you need you need their diagnosis, you can't self diagnose. You can't predetermine by reading online, what your ailment or condition is, you really need to present to them what what the symptoms are. And then they should be able to determine where this goes, right. And that's similar for us, you know, there is there, it's very important for the business, as I say, to understand what its objectives are, where it's heading, but not necessarily to have made any firm decisions and what that means in branding, in terms of branding. Now, of course, it is very different if we're talking about an existing brand that has brand equity built in it, and lots of history and heritage that we've got to take on board. So I don't mean, I don't mean throw the baby out with the bathwater. But what I do think can be a problem is when clients have already forged the answer before talking to us even about the problem.

Shireen: So if, for example, they haven't thought it through, how long does your process give them to think through things like what our purpose is, and, you know, things that require quite a lot of deep thinking?

Stephen: Yeah, well, we have, we have a sort of system and process that we now adopt where it's appropriate to do so with clients more often than not a key part of that is a workshop, a branding workshop. Now, for a larger client, that may mean getting a whole team of people around the table, we would ask them to consider who the key stake stakeholders in the process are, that might be senior management level people. But it might equally be those involved in product development. And if you'd like further into the, into the organization, but what we would like to do is get people to start thinking and talking together. And we tend to facilitate those sessions as say, in a group scenario, it's been a bit hard at the moment, we've got a client, it's talking about doing these virtually next week, it won't be as good as sitting around the table. And some of what we do within that is almost play some games with them, we have a lovely, I'm going to call it a card game, we have a set of cards that deal with brand archetypes, and allow people to explore what they stand for what the personality of their organization needs to be energy rarely say things like purpose that come out of those sessions. So yeah, we have a structure we can take them through. For smaller clients, who maybe don't have the teams to engage at that level, or need to do things more remotely, we have a sort of bit of homework that that we can set them, we can send them a document again, they fill in some of the blanks. It's a sort of templated thing, and they get things back to us. Which give us some of the answers we need. So yeah, in terms of your question, sorry, it was about timeframe, you know, that can take a matter of a couple of weeks or or for some it can take months. Not not not a huge number of months, but it very much depends, obviously when when everyone's available. And we wouldn't ever want to rush the process. Because as you as you intimated, you know, they've got to have the time and they've got to get it right. But we like to use our we like to steer our clients into giving us the answers we're looking for from that process. And, you know, often they tell us they they just enjoy the process. You know, when they come We've had clients who have you know, they get the chance to take the day out for their own businesses come to our studio or sometimes a hotel or a location that we arranged for them and then they get to think outside of the normal routine. was suitably valuable for them? You know, it's really good process, I think, is that old classic thing, isn't it of working on your business? Not in it? You know? Sure, yeah.

Shireen: Sure, yeah. So, in these workshops do provide education on what a brand involves? Or, or how does it work?

Stephen: Yeah, if they, if they need it, I mean, you'll appreciate that some of our clients are very, very skilled, experienced, and seasoned business people, and some of them are marketeers with, with a lot of knowledge already, you know, formal training in many cases, and we don't try to teach them how to suck eggs. So they might know the process, but they, but they may not have done it exactly in our way before. But as I say, they and they learn a lot from it, because because it's, I suppose, a bit of navel gazing, they learn about themselves in their business, and they're saying things, sometimes they're bringing to the surface things that we've always been there, but they didn't really get the chance to notice them in the past, if you know what I mean. And I think that's hugely valuable.

Shireen: And who would be at those sessions for, say, a large company?

Stephen: Well, it does, it does differ from business to business, we've done them before, where for reasons known mainly to the, to the client, senior management, only, that we've kept separate management and, and the other teams if you like, and in other cases, we've done a sort of merge of joining them together, it comes down to whether the individuals feel that's the right term, unencumbered by that, you know, if they, if they feel the glaring eyes of the board of directors on them, they may not always be as free and open with what they're prepared to say and talk about. And, and vice versa. You know, sometimes CEO, or managing directors is particularly want to talk in front of the members of staff. So we have to be sensitive to that and work it out, according to each company, but normally, it's quite mixed. You know, normally they they work really well, when you get somebody from a sort of shop floor, you know, a carpenter or a sort of artisan maker, with the MD, or market marketing director, and often their marketing people, of course, but owners or managers of the smaller businesses. It does, it's very varied, you know, I let the clients direct us to a certain extent on who they want to be there, and who they'd like who they'd like to hear from, we will always advise them, if we feel they're missing some important individuals, we would say, you know, can we involve them too. And we've had, I'm thinking of one case, in particular, which was also a kitchen brand where they were, they have, by definition, very creative people working for them, because they're designers, design spaces and furniture, things. And so they wanted really hands on a very hands on process. So we got them involved in making mood boards, cutting and sticking things. And that was very, very much hands on process.

Shireen: We'll take a short break on it, as I'd like to mention the Brand Tuned series of webinars, which support founders to think through their brand, taking IP into account at the right time, which is good for you make firm decisions about what to create, just visit brand tuned.com. And the webinars are reference right there on the homepage. Okay, back to the podcast. So obviously, the visual is very important, although how do you then make sure that the positioning that they're going to adopt which the visuals will reflect is going to be valuable to their business? Do you just do one workshop? Or how how would you be helping them to work out for better positioning?

Stephen: Well, what you're referring to then was probably take us into the realms of sometimes there are consumer or customer again, if it's a b2b thing, it wouldn't involve consumers but you know, there can be sort of focus groups or sessions involving their end customers, and people from the, from the sector, from their audience, if you like, it's not always just about an internal process. So Yes, I think to answer your point there would, for a sizable enough project, there will be more than one workshop session. And it'll be a combination of things that once or once we've collated all the information from those things and prepared some analysis, which normally takes the form of a kind of written report, we try and keep things as simple as possible. We don't want to weigh clients down with pages and pages and reams of background research. But what we're aiming to do is to distill from each of these elements, enough to give us the brief, because Because clearly, for some clients, it was difficult writing the brief. And one would argue that any creative back to your point about visual or creative and design, anything we produce, the final result is only as good as the brief. So what we're really trying to do here is define a better brief, and a set of pointers and criteria that we can all work to. And yes, so the positioning is another aspect of that, you know, we've got, we've got them, we've got their purpose, purpose, their personality, if you I think you yourself, use the term, often DNA, you know, it's that brand DNA, it's understanding what that's all about. But then the external manifestation of that is what we might do visually in design to, to, to reach the right audience. And I mean, one of the things that I often think about that a number of marketers over the years that I've talked to, and highly respect have used as a very simple way of talking about this, it's, we would ask the client, what do you want people to think, feel and do, I mean, there are three things ultimately, you can distill all this down to whatever work we come up with, it's got to make people think the right way, feel about it the right way. And then ultimately, there's some call to action now, in many cases that do is to go out and buy the product, or to, you know, partake of the service. So, you know, we can keep we can, we can make it very, very simple. Ultimately, I think if we do all this background work, so that we can have a very clear vision, a shared vision between us and the client, and what we're going to achieve.

Shireen: So what is the deliverable then? What are they hoping that you will give them as an outcome from coming to you for the rebrand or whatever work you're doing?

Stephen: Well, I suppose the initial deliverable is, as I mentioned, out of the workshop, and preparatory sessions, they get a document that confirms everything we've learned. And, you know, are we all on the same page? Do we agree with this analysis of it, and then the ultimate deliverable? On the basis that we've been commissioned to come up with it might well be the brand identity or the RE realigned, refreshed branding? And then how is that implemented? Just yesterday from home, I was working on identity guidelines for a client who has had the work that we did for them in place for actually almost a couple years now. At no point did they ever commissioned us to complete the identity guard. And that's fine. This is an almost a not not retrospective, and that this is a thing we've added into the mix. But often, we do that at the point of delivery, so that you've got kind of rulebook for how this branding is going to be rolled out. But I think the deliverables, again, they vary massively, you know, a client may say to us, I'm looking to engage you for a year, you know, six months to a year or longer, in which case, months, by months, we might be delivering something new, something additional to the plan.

Shireen Hey, so if I'm understanding it correctly, then you you're effectively helping them with the brand strategy and the actual identity work is quite separate. They don't necessarily need to go on to have it done by your or....

Stephen: Know, they don't they don't have to have it done it, it is our is our aim to deliver on all of that. Sorry, I mean, I may have confused if, if I'm where possible, budget permitting, and yes, we, we would want to work on all of that. And in fact, you know, what we enjoy the most. I said earlier, it's our sort of sweet spot to come in at the earliest stage, but we love to have long term relationships with clients. You know, I can I can, I can confidently talk about several of our clients that go back 10 years plus I mean, you know, they keep working with us which is a great sign an indication of we must be doing something right. But that's what we like because you get we become almost a brand ambassadors with with the internal team that are pushing the brand we we get to understand and it's that almost that unwritten thing we often don't need new a new brief from the clients because they already The trust in us an understanding of what they their brand is about where they're going. And we can, you know, we can implement additional bits of work with relative ease, because we know we know what it's we know what it's all about the did back to the DNA.

Shireen: So you're working on tactical stuff for them on an ongoing basis.

Stephen: We are Yeah, yes. Strategic. We touched on already but yes. Tactical, ongoing. Ongoing, which could be you touch you mentioned earlier, it could be literature, print work, often these days, of course, web, digital media, we get involved in Yeah, and we am most recently, we found ourselves very enjoyable part of the work for me, because it's something I find very rewarding. We've been working on video stories and video brand messaging brand awareness video. We obviously work with some external specialists who are the camera crew and the Edit editing and the audio side. But it's us. It's often directed by us, you know, the messages come from us. Yeah.

Shireen: So when do you get involved in naming businesses? Products? At what point?

Stephen: Yes, I love I love naming I do. i Yes, because I'm a bit of a use. You said at the outset, I've come from a design graphic design background, and I'm much more of a wordsmith. Often in designers, people fall into the sort of their illustrative visual sort of design, if you like, or they're more of a sort of typographic of words based, definitely a more word based person personally. So I love the challenge of discovering words that work to fit the roof or indeed generating brand new works. I mean, that's also quite a fun thing. Isn't it was with brand naming.
Yeah, it's also very difficult in terms of having a name that's available globally that is usable. That's ownable. How do you navigate all that?

Shireen: Yeah. Now this is where I have to defer to you clearly, your area of specialism but we what I tell you what we do, we do a very rough and dirty sort of depth at a desk research, we, we we essentially go to the trademark registry and conduct a few, a few quick searches. They're not exhaustive by any means. But at least what they do is give us they flag up any early warning signs, and they tell us more than anything, they tell us what to avoid, I suppose. So we've been as an example, we've been working most recently for a client in in beds and mattresses, and they have had us look at three, three or four different names recently I forget, but we, we know that we need to look around, you're gonna you're gonna correct me on this, but I think class 2020 for bedding furniture. And so anyway, so we would, we would make sure that we're not, there's nothing in close proximity, and nothing that's too close to the names that we might be proposing before we even put them in front of the client, because clearly the worst thing in the world is for them to get terribly excited. Lovely, creative direction only to say, Whoa, somebody's got the word or almost identical to it. So, yeah.

Shireen: So you present a few options to the client do?

Stephen: Yes, we do. Yes, we have quite a few options often. Because we, despite knowing, practicing, we've got the brief written, despite knowing quite prescriptively where they need to be there's always subtle nuances of, of slightly different positioning around that core central theme. And so yes, we we put various things to them, we would also initially look up URLs, you know, available domain names, that's such a key thing these days, that it's one thing to say we're in the clear for a trademark, but if there's no hope of getting anything like that, you know, for the web, then we've got to make them aware of that early on. There are so many new suffixes to the URLs now coming popping up, as you will know, which mean that you can be quite creative with how you you know, even even a well known word or name can sometimes now be available as an alternative URL.

Shireen: Yeah, I don't think the.com is the BNN tool, really, because you can have a perfectly good name just because the.com isn't available. I think that's misguided not to go with that name because often, brands end up buying the.com Maybe 10 years down the line. Yes.

Stephen: Yes, absolutely. I think you're, you're so right in what you're saying there that the you know, don't have a blink of view. Think about it creatively. I mean, they stop shop isn't there and they stopped. Alternatives now that can can be considered.

Shireen: Hard enough finding a name without sort of being hampered by the domain name.

Stephen: Yes, it is. Yes, it is. But I just think we want to be mindful of it, what we don't want to do is false optimism around Hey, you know, you can have everything you want with this only to discover that it's so locked down, there's, there's no room for maneuver. Of course, we would always advise our clients to work with somebody like you, as early as possible in the process. And we differ, we can, we can bring a partner in and offer suggestions to the client. But if they've got their own legal IP specialists, or legal advice already, then they may choose to pursue that. But we'd always say, you know, like a caveat really, that says, we've done a very rough and dirty bit of research here. That's all it is. We came up with a really good name for clients, but I think it was late last year. And they were very excited about it. We were aware that this this word, it was an agenda, brand new generated word if it existed. For them it had, you know, we felt it was going to resonate really well in our marketplace. But we discovered that internationally. And I think it was somebody forget where they were, but elsewhere in Europe had already got we're not using the the name, the trademark the name but had protected it. And we suggested to them, they approach those people with a view to seeing whether any trade trading could be done. In the end, it wasn't successful. They didn't get that. But it's still an unused you know, this is a frustration, isn't it when it's protected, but it's not in common use? You know, it's not there. It's not there was there was nothing on the web. And my understanding is the people that own it is still not taking any advantage of it.

Shireen: Yeah, I mean, obviously, after five years, they lose it yet, as you can put them to proof of use. But in the meantime, and maybe they've just registered because they're getting ready to get their brand out.

Stephen: And why possible, I think in this case, and I need it need to you've got me thinking I should check it up again, it was already a few years.

Shireen: All right, well, you've got no problems. If somebody's not been using a name for five years. The onus is then on them, which is really what I often feel that this separation that exists between brand creation and IP is a kind of 20th century approach, which doesn't, isn't so tangible in the 21st century. Certainly I know the Googles of this world, make it an interdisciplinary exercise because they want to get strong brands. And this, they bring in the legal right up front, because it actually does determine what you create, if you know, the walls, the ins and outs of what's ownable what the trademark registers are showing. So, you know, why do you think there is this separation between IP and branding such that, you know, you're not at all unusual, the agency will say to their clients, you should get your lawyers to check it out. And often clients don't bother because they don't realize how important it is.

Stephen: Yes. I, I think it's a separation because in the past, these are two very different disciplines, aren't they? And you're right, the more visionary, the more innovative players out there, like you've mentioned, are realizing that each got to be joined up thinking, I certainly would advocate you know, I'd love I'd love if you like our package that we sell to their clients to be incorporating the the IP element and say, actually, if you like it's a one stop shop, you pay us a sum of money and we make that happen as well for you. Perhaps that is the way forward to get to give people a more a more holistic solution.

Shireen: Yes, well, I'm creating Brand Tuned for that very starting off by looking at the IP and then it doesn't come out with the budget of the design agency because they you know, and it's not very expensive because it doesn't involve protection. It's more looking at the IP situation and educate Seeing the client so that the client then has a resource available during naming, yes. Such like, I'll have to give you details of it when it's available.

Stephen: Yeah, I love that. Because I think that one of the things we've suffered later, I think this is linked and hopefully not going off on a tangent. But one of the things that our industry suffers with is the lack of science, quote, unquote, if you like the lack of structure, because we're often seen as that artistic creative endeavor, with, which plays around with ideas, and yet, actually, you know, these companies have taken it seriously IP is the one of the biggest assets they've got in their, in their whole operation. So it's got to be taken more seriously. And I think anything that can we can do to as you, as you say, educate but also get clients to see that there is more structure than just creative thought processes, is a good thing. And I welcome that.

Shireen: Just to end, Which brand do you admire the most in your industry? Will the industry you're helping with?

Stephen: Well, I wondered if you'd almost allow me to two answers to this. And the reason I say that is, I mean, obviously, there's so many, but we I ended up thinking about it. And it's hard to choose, but ended up thinking about two in our industry, one is is kitchens, I hasten to add, we don't work for them at the moment. But it struck me that what they are is they're not a UK brand. And I wondered if therefore I was allowed to have homespun one and one farther afield. That's the one the one that I would pick up on his bolt up. And they are a saying a German brand of kitchen, very high end. And they, for me, the reason I sort of admire what they're doing is it's nothing to do with a logo, or even a bit of sort of aesthetic styling. In fact, you wouldn't be surprised if you look at their website, to see that very such a man it kind of understated, virtually just black and white, you know, aesthetic to what they do. But it's because their whole story their brand is, is so you know, their name is so inextricably linked to everything they stand for. You know, they're about connecting people and making spaces work, and they're about architecture and architectural approach to space. And and, you know, everything they do, they're they're sort of founder and current, they're the current MD on a video piece, for instance, you know, extol the virtues of material and yeah, it's worth is definitely worth checking them out. And I can send you a link for them. But bolt bolt bolt up, spelt BULTH A up, right.

Shireen: That's not how I suppose you would Yes, it would be useful to add that to the show notes. Yes.

Stephen: And they've got a great video on there. I think I hope they haven't changed it for their website. And I think they've got more than one video, but it's very much about the sort of expression of materials and their passion for detail and making making these spaces work on a human level. So for me, it's it's a great example of, you know, branding, it's not a logo and brand messaging story and back to your wonderful world purpose. And you know, so often we talk to people about the why, why, why, why is the brace is less question to start with, isn't it? So, so that's, that's my number one, then in a in a in a back back, back back at home closer to home. I have to say that Perrin and Rowe, who are brassware brassware in taps, that sort of thing, both for kitchens and in a bathroom context. They have Mayfair London as their sort of little descriptor under their, their branding. And I'm I've been particularly aware recently of some great advertising they've been doing because again, it's about the story. They come. You know, they talk about Barack brassware forged in the Black Country, you know, from the industry, from the heart of the Industrial Revolution, and their latest advertising, which one will see in various trade publications such as ek BB which is essential kitchen. Bathroom is a lovely, you know, hero shot of this beautiful tap. I think it's a brass finished but the backdrop to it is steam locomotives, because their messaging is, you know, it was it's inspired from the same place that 150 years ago, Joseph and George Armstrong built locomotives, you know, we're still making in the same fact we're making In our product in the factory where they were sort of forging, forging parts for the, these these massive steam locomotives. So I just loved the way that they they working on their story. And it's authentic, its authentic. And that's the big thing.

Shireen: I love stories. Definitely, if we could have that as well to add to the show notes so that listeners can have a look.

Stephen: Yeah, absolutely, I'm very, very happy to share those. And neither of those are ones we've worked on. But I take my hat off to the way that they and their agencies have managed to maintain this. And it's a really big one for me authenticity. Yeah, we can all invent things. But if we can take, if we can take the essence of what people what a company is, and its personality and keep keep using that. We, we say in a lot of our work, we're here to uncover what makes your brand special. In some cases, you've you've forgotten what's what's special about, let's help you, you know, resurrect that. And so sorry, there's so many examples, and I have to apologize for the many views. But those are my those are my UK and, and further afield. European Europeans. Yeah.

Shireen: Great. Well, thank you very much indeed. Steven, good to have had you on this podcast.

Stephen: Thank you very much. Great to talk to you.

Shireen: Thank you for listening to this episode of Brand Tuned, where we aim to answer the question, what does it take to create a successful business and brand? I'd love it. If you would take a moment to give me a review. If you have any questions, send me a message. You can find me on LinkedIn, or most other social media platforms, or on my personal website, shireensmith.com.