Guinness: one of the largest and most recognisable brands in the world. After years of planning and building, having spent piles and piles of money, Guinness has finally opened its new tourist attraction and brand showpiece in the prime real estate that is Covent Garden,…

Despite the hate it receives, Ryanair has grown to be the largest airline in Europe and makes an awful lot of money. They’ve done this because they know who their customers are so well (and just as importantly, who they’re not) they know they will…

Southern Water have taken as much money out of the business as absolutely possible for years. Leaving not enough left to invest properly on infrastructure and systems, resulting in leaks galore and numerous untreated sewages spills into the sea, rivers and streams, affecting wildlife and…

You know your prestige brand is in trouble when your profits aren’t great. But you know you’re in really serious trouble when, for the last ten years, you’ve lost £45K on each and every car you’ve sold. How has Aston Martin allowed itself to sink…

You think behemoth brands will last forever. But historically, despite their market dominance and huge profitability, they often rest on their laurels and forget about their audience. Even when there are clear opportunities for them to change and retain their overall position, through poor choices…

Is it ever a good idea to resurrect a brand name or is it better to let sleeping dogs lie? If it died once, it probably died for a reason. But it can bring instant recognition which is invaluable in helping to stand out from…

Differentiation is usually something every brand and product strives for, to stand out and be known for being themselves. But is it ever a good idea to copy the competition? Usually, no. But Aldi might just be the exception. Aldi’s whole business model as a…

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, one of the five ‘Magic Circle’ law firms, is desperate to really break in to the US market. All of them have been trying for years and none have really made much of an impact, especially compared to their success across the…

Electric Vehicles (EVs) are of course going to take over from petrol and diesel cars. But not any time soon. The market just isn’t there yet; the quality is at best mixed; they’re expensive to buy; charging them (unless you have a drive) is a…

Shein is one of the world’s largest and most successful clothing companies with sales around $32.5 billion from 89 million customers in 2023. It also highly questionable labour practices to put it mildly – 75 hour weeks, contravening (even) Chinese labour laws, allegations of using cotton…

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US has finally decided that food dye Red No. 3 (unsurprisingly it makes foods red!) with links to cancer, is to be banned in all foods and drinks. Merely 30 years or so after it was banned…

Paultons Park / Peppa Pig World is a theme park specifically aimed at younger kids. And young kids need the toilet. A lot. All the time. They also find it harder to go (as toilets are larger, mostly urinals for the men, no steps, no…

BT decided in 2024 to convert 60,000 old green street cabinets that they were decommissioning around the UK in to electric vehicle (EV) charging points. A nice idea to reuse street furniture that was already there and wired in and make charging an EV on…

MVP. Minimum Viable Product. Whenever I hear it as part of a project I want to take myself off for a little cry. Based on my experience and anecdotes from friends and colleagues it invariably means whatever’s being delivered will be crap and a shadow…

A lot of senior folk within large organisations have a habit of coming from finance based backgrounds, which usually means they love a well-reasoned analytical argument with some half respectable numbers to strengthen it. They have a tendency to view anything without cold hard data…

A diverse and inclusive workplace is one of the best ways to allow employees to reach their maximum potential. Diverse teams produce more unique and impactful scientific ideas, for example. This can only be good for a company as it impacts across the organisation, not…

Who cares about your latest internal comms or change management programme? Nobody. The sad reality is that outside your team, nobody’s really bothered.* Everyone is far too busy doing their jobs, working jolly hard (now more than ever), and your internal campaign is just one…