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Why Most Teams Struggle to Deliver “Lots of Littles”

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The post What Makes a Best-in-Class Marketing Academy? appeared first on LockSmith.

“You can build a big brand with lots of littles.”

That simple insight from Dr Grace Kite has become one of marketing’s most-shared ideas.

And for good reason.

In a world of shrinking attention spans and splintered media, it makes sense to prioritise short, emotionally resonant, and consistent executions — instead of always chasing the next big hero ad.

But here’s the thing:

Doing “lots of littles” well is surprisingly hard.

What is “Lots of Littles”?

It’s the idea that brands grow by showing up:

• Early
• Often
• Consistently
• In ways that accumulate over time.

Instead of a few big moments, you aim for lots of small ones — each reinforcing the brand and nudging memory. But that only works if:

• Every little execution hits the brand memory threshold
• Teams know how to apply the brand distinctively across touchpoints
• Creative, strategy and media are working in sync

The theory is elegant. The reality is messy.

Let’s break down why this idea breaks down in practice:

1. Most teams don’t know what “counts” as a little

It’s not just more content. It’s brand-building bits — recognisable, consistent, emotionally resonant fragments.
Think sonic logos. One-liner taglines. TikTok-native formats. Display banners. Out-of-home with no copy.
Your team needs the skills to spot and shape these — not just deliver “big” brand campaigns.

2. Most comms don’t reach the memory threshold

According to Dr Karen Nelson-Field, 85% of digital ads don’t pass the memory test. That means most “littles” simply don’t stick. They’re seen but not stored.

“If it doesn’t hit the memory threshold, it doesn’t build the brand.”
— Karen Nelson-Field, Amplified Intelligence

To fix this, teams need training in:

• Distinctive brand assets
• Memory structures
• Asset application across platforms

3. Strategy, media and creative aren’t aligned

“Lots of Littles” only works if every part of your team is rowing in the same direction. That means:

• Planners writing modular briefs
• Creatives designing for recognisability
• Media buying for frequency and salience
• Stakeholders resisting the urge to reinvent

4. Teams don’t always value the boring stuff

Repetition feels wrong. Simplicity gets watered down. Creative egos want novelty.

But “Lots of Littles” rewards discipline over reinvention.

You don’t need 10 different ideas. You need one idea applied brilliantly 100 different ways.

5. Capability is the missing link

This isn’t a comms problem. It’s a capability one.

Teams need practical, embedded skills to make this strategy work every day.

That means:

• Training in asset development
• Building cross-functional ways of working
• Knowing what good “littles” actually look like
• And setting up systems to protect brand consistency

Want the full framework?

We’ve put together a practical PDF guide: “How to Make Lots of Littles Work (In Practice)”
Including:

• The 5 capability shifts teams need to make
• A brand asset readiness checklist
• Tips from KitKat, Dove and other fluent brands

👉 Unlock and sign up to our newsletter on our homepage here.

The post Why Most Teams Struggle to Deliver “Lots of Littles” appeared first on LockSmith.

The best campaigns in the beer category this year weren’t just creative — they delivered serious commercial results. 

From reversing sales decline to unlocking new consumption occasions, the standout Cannes Lions winners in beer show what happens when marketing teams apply real rigour: strategic thinking, strong consumer understanding, clear annual planning, and brilliant execution. 

At LockSmith, we work with marketing teams to build the exact skills and behaviours that sit behind this kind of success. So we’ve rounded up 7 of the most commercially effective beer campaigns from the 2024–25 awards — and unpacked the capability that powered them. 

If you’re looking to build a high-performing marketing team, here’s what good looks like. 

1. $1M in Additional Sales (With No New POS Materials) 

Corona – “Sunset O’Clock” 

What they did:  Corona used the timestamp already printed on bottles to create a simple but powerful retail campaign. Shopkeepers were encouraged to promote “sunset bottles” and rewarded for their involvement. 

What made it commercially successful: The team nailed the brief by knowing their shopper and channel inside out. Rather than creating new materials, they found value in something already there — then brought retailers on board with a simple incentive mechanic. A great reminder that knowing your sales channels, and how to motivate and engage frontline partners, can drive huge returns. 

2. 300% Sales Growth & a New Category Created 

Michelob ULTRA – “Contract for Change” 

What they did:  Michelob supported farmers through the difficult transition to organic, building a long-term sustainable supply chain and turning that story into a compelling consumer proposition. 

What made it commercially successful:  This was strategic thinking in action. The team identified a commercial barrier, solved it at the root, and built a brand around it. It shows how powerful it can be when marketers don’t just own communications — they influence upstream decisions and help shape the business model. 

3. +6.7% Volume Growth and Market Share Reversal 

Heineken – “The Boring Phone” 

What they did: To help people disconnect and enjoy nights out, Heineken created a minimalist phone that could only make calls and texts — reinforcing its brand values around connection and presence. 

What made it commercially successful: This idea was rooted in a real insight about social behaviour and digital fatigue — and it tapped directly into a growing cultural tension. The team had clarity on what the brand stood for and used that to drive relevance in a changing world. Great insights don’t always need new data — but they do need deep curiosity and the confidence to act on what you see. 

4. +23% Delivery Sales and Morning Occasions Unlocked 

Heineken – “Score 0.0” 

What they did:  Heineken promoted its alcohol-free beer as something to enjoy during morning sports events, shifting perceptions and expanding the brand’s role in everyday life. 

What made it commercially successful:  The team used smart partnerships and strategic timing to break down social barriers and build a new consumption occasion. It’s a great example of behaviour change through relevance and visibility — and of planning activity around real-world habits, not just campaign calendars. 

5. +6.7% Sales via Local Activation & Cultural Relevance 

Stella Artois – “A Brand Ambassador Worth More” 

What they did: Stella paired up with a local seasonal ambassador and timed the campaign to land during high-impact cultural moments — helping the brand feel more present and personal. 

What made it commercially successful:  This wasn’t just about celebrity — it was about strong planning. Understanding seasonality, cultural context and how to adapt global strategy for local markets takes thoughtful coordination and sound brand judgement. And when the timing, tone and story all line up, the results follow. 

6. 40% More Efficient Media, 100% of Bars Reopened 

Heineken – “Shutter Ads” 

What they did: During lockdowns, Heineken bought advertising space on the shutters of closed bars, supporting partners while keeping the brand visible in cities worldwide. 

What made it commercially successful: It was simple, fast, and full of heart. But it also required the team to align stakeholders, reallocate media budgets, and act quickly. Knowing how to navigate the business — and bring people with you — is what made it possible to turn an idea into action, and action into impact. 

7. +3x Morning Sales & +23% App Orders 

Heineken – “Gaming Fridge / Women’s Football” 

What they did: Heineken broke through with bold, culturally playful campaigns — from building a fridge that doubled as a gaming PC, to tackling bias in football through witty media placements. 

What made it commercially successful: The work landed because it was clearly briefed, smartly positioned, and brave in execution. It takes confidence to push into new spaces and a strong internal culture to support ideas that challenge the norm. Strong creative outcomes almost always come from strong creative development — not just from agencies, but from the client side too.

Final Thoughts: If You Want Better Commercial Results, Start With Capability 

The brands above didn’t get lucky. They delivered growth because their marketing teams were set up for success — with the right skills, ways of working, and confidence to make bold, smart decisions. 

At LockSmith, we work with marketers in beer and beyond to build capability in all the areas that matter: 

✅ Core marketing principles 
 ✅ Insight & strategy 
 ✅ Shopper & activity planning 
 ✅ Briefing & creative development 
 ✅ Commercial skills & stakeholder influence 

Want to help your team build the skills behind this kind of success? Let’s talk. 

The post Marketing Capability Lessons From Beer’s Best Campaigns appeared first on LockSmith.

We’re proud to be the chosen partner for the PZ Cussons Marketing Growth Academy, a multi-market, multi-phase training programme designed to raise the floor, create a common language and build the strategic muscles needed for sustainable growth.

The challenge: aligning teams around a global growth agenda

With a renewed ambition to become a brand-building organisation, PZ Cussons’ marketing leadership needed to unlock more consistent performance across markets — fast.

But like many global FMCG businesses, their teams were at different starting points. There were varying levels of marketing capability, fragmented briefing standards and an urgent need to shift mindset from trading to long-term brand building.

They knew what good looked like. The challenge was ensuring every marketer — across all regions — could deliver it.

Our solution: practical, fun, and sticky marketing training

Working closely with CMO Paul, the global capability team, and senior stakeholders across markets, we co-designed a scalable academy model tailored to PZ Cussons’ language, processes, and live business needs.

The result? A multi-year programme to drive behavioural change.

Phase 1: “Quick Win” workshops in Indonesia

With the most urgent capability gap identified in Indonesia, we kicked off with two high-impact, high-energy workshops:

• • Unlock Critical Thinking: Helping marketers diagnose problems and write stronger strategies.

• • Unlock Amazing Briefs: Building skills to create tighter, more commercially effective briefs.

By integrating our proprietary LockPicking Toolkit, delegates gained a structured way to approach marketing problems, challenge assumptions, and find better solutions — all while working on live business challenges.

“One of the most engaging and enlightening training sessions I’ve been exposed to during my career in marketing.”
– Marketer, Indonesia

Phase 2: Embedding capability in the UK & Ireland​

With momentum building, the next stop was the UK & Ireland. Again, the focus was on embedding foundational capability — but this time, tailored to reflect local culture, commercial context, and brand priorities.

Two interactive workshops delivered immediate impact:

• • Unlock Critical Thinking: Elevating strategic analysis, insight generation, and decision-making.

• • Unlock Amazing Briefs: Improving the quality and clarity of briefs to inspire agency partners.

The feedback was electric. Delegates worked on live briefs, practiced applying tools in real time, and left the sessions with greater confidence — and sharper thinking.

“The training brought refreshed thinking to live brand projects, pushing complex challenges to the forefront and leaving the team feeling clear on future choices.”
– Alex Glen, UK&I

Phase 3: Deep diving on specialist skills – Shopper Marketing & Commercial Skills

Recognising that brand strategy alone isn’t enough, we then delivered targeted interventions in areas that directly influence commercial performance:

• • Shopper Marketing: Teaching marketers how to convert brand love into purchase behaviour.

• • Commercial Skills for Marketers: Helping teams become financially fluent, ROI-savvy, and confident in commercial conversations.

“Another fantastic LockSmith workshop, challenging habits and really driving the diligence of shopper-led thinking to drive conversion to sale.” – Marketer, PZ Cussons

Phase 4: Train the Trainer

Every great business needs internal champions to own capability. We ran a Trainer the Trainer with James and Tine from the global capability function, focused on how to design, deliver and embed marketing capability programmes that will empower their teams long after the training session ends.

We always include train the trainer in our marketing academy design. Why?

✅ More efficiency – it’s not practical or financially viable for LockSmith to develop & deliver 100% of marketing capability building programmes in a business.
✅ More impact – there are some topics that are definitely best developed internally and plenty subject matter experts within the business to do it. They just need to know how.
✅ More accountability – embedding the behaviour change is best done by ensuring line managers and marketing leaders take personal accountability.

Capability building is about behaviour change. And, while external trainers like us bring expertise and best practices, the real magic happens when the internal team takes ownership of embedding those behaviours day in and day out.

The impact: Trusted partner for world-class capability building

LockSmith didn’t just run training. We embedded capability into the rhythm of the business.

• • Supported the shift to a culture of accountability and insight-led thinking

• • Upskilled 90% of the global marketing population in six months

• • Tailored content to reflect PZ Cussons’ culture, language and live challenges

• • Delivered across 3 markets and 10 brand teams — with consistently high engagement and ratings

“LockSmith are unmatched when it comes to building world-class marketing capabilities… a perfect blend of cutting-edge insights, practical application and highly engaging delivery.”
– Paul, CMO, PZ Cussons

Final word

What began as an urgent need to bridge capability gaps has evolved into a world-class programme that’s helping teams think more critically, brief more clearly, and lead more commercially.

PZ Cussons’ Growth Academy is a shining example of what happens when capability building is taken seriously — and delivered with energy, relevance and real business context.

If you’re a capability leader navigating similar challenges — from securing global buy-in to integrating training with business priorities — we’d love to help.

Let’s talk Marketing Academies

📩 chris@locksmith.works | alex@locksmith.works
📅 Or book a call here to explore what a tailored Marketing Academy could look like for you.

The post The LockSmith x PZ Cussons: Designing a world-class global Marketing Academy appeared first on LockSmith.

If you’re going to build world-class marketing academies, you need a world-class marketing capability team.

LockSmith was founded in 2020 by Chris Lock and Alex O’Rourke with a simple belief: marketing training is the foundation of marketing effectiveness.

Fast forward to today, and LockSmith has become a trusted partner to some of the world’s most ambitious marketing team, delivering global marketing capability programmes that are practical, fun and, crucially, stick. But to keep delivering bigger and better programmes, we need to build an even bigger dream team.

The solution? We’re bringing together the brightest minds in marketing capability. These are no ordinary hires. They’re specialists and seasoned pros from the worlds of luxury drinks, customer marketing, innovation and brand strategy. But what unites them is more than experience: it’s their shared passion for capability-building, and their proven track record of helping marketers thrive.

This is our new Guild of LockSmiths.

A warm welcome

To welcome our new cohort of seasoned subject matter experts, Learning Designers and expert facilitators into the Guild of LockSmith, we hosted an onboarding workshop in London.

From our “Key to Me” icebreaker to sessions on The LockSmith Way, the day was a true celebration of what makes us special: our shared values, our collective energy, and our commitment to creating better marketers.

Collaboration at the core

For our team, collaboration isn’t just a business value. It’s personal.

“I love working with other people. I love helping people work well together. It’s at the heart of who I am, and so it is at the heart of what LockSmith stands for.” Chris Lock, LockSmith founder

That spirit is what drives our approach. We don’t just “bring people in”—we co-create. We learn from each other. We invest in building a genuine sense of team and togetherness, because that’s what fuels our ability to deliver truly transformational marketing capability programmes.

Ready to unlock the potential in the people behind of your team?

With momentum building, the next stop was the UK & Ireland. Again, the focus was on embedding foundational capability — but this time, tailored to reflect local culture, commercial context, and brand priorities.

Two interactive workshops delivered immediate impact:

• Unlock Critical Thinking: Elevating strategic analysis, insight generation, and decision-making.
• Unlock Amazing Briefs: Improving the quality and clarity of briefs to inspire agency partners.

The feedback was electric. Delegates worked on live briefs, practiced applying tools in real time, and left the sessions with greater confidence — and sharper thinking.

“The training brought refreshed thinking to live brand projects, pushing complex challenges to the forefront and leaving the team feeling clear on future choices.”
– Alex Glen, UK&I

Want to know more?

We’re on a mission to transform marketing teams into engines of business growth. Curious to learn more about our Guild of LockSmiths. Visit our Who We Are page to meet the team.

Are you a seasoned marketing capability expert looking for your next exciting chapter? Book a call here to chat to Chris and Alex. We’re always on the lookout for people who are brilliant at what they do and brilliant to work with.

The post The marketing capability collective: LockSmith’s dream team appeared first on LockSmith.

“When you’re the only one driving marketing capability in your company, who do you turn to?”

It’s a question we hear time and again. Marketing capability leaders are often the unsung heroes of their organisations, pushing for transformation, upskilling teams and embedding better marketing behaviours. But it can be a lonely job. That’s exactly why we created the Marketing Capability Campfire.

What is the Marketing Capability Campfire?

The Campfire is a virtual roundtable—an intentionally small, peer-led forum created exclusively for marketing capability leaders. It’s a space to:

• Share real-world challenges in a safe, supportive setting
• Brainstorm solutions with peers who “get it”
• Validate your approach and gain fresh, outside-in perspective
• Walk away with ideas, energy and renewed confidence

Because when you have a network, you’re no longer solving problems alone.

Why we started the Marketing Capability Campfire

t LockSmith, we speak to marketing capability champions every day. Many of them tell us the same thing:

“Sometimes I feel like a one-man band.”

“I want to validate that I’m on the right track.”

“The loneliness of this role is real. This was a chance to feel connected to others.

The Campfire is our way of bringing these brilliant minds together—not just to talk, but to collaborate, create solutions and build community.

What we’ve covered

Every Campfire includes a central theme. Some of the past topics we’ve covered are:

• Embedding learning and behavioural change

• Getting senior sponsorship for training

• Managing capability at scale

• Aligning training with business strategy

And of course, there’s always space for those off agenda topics that matter to the room.

Are you a marketing capability champion?

If you’re leading marketing capability or marketing excellence for your business, this is for you. Especially if you’re a team of one!

Our regular campfires are an opportunity to get help and advice from your peers in other companies. We work on solving live challenges with you. And everyone is there to support one another.

Please reach out to our Chief Learning Officer, Sophie, if you’d like to attend:

📩 sophie@locksmith.works

The post Introducing the Marketing Capability Campfire appeared first on LockSmith.

The real challenge, however, is convincing stakeholders outside the marketing department about the power of creativity and the long-term benefits of brand-building.

Building a business case for creativity involves showing how brand-building principles can lead to tangible commercial impact. That’s why we created The Key to Unlocking Brand Building—a comprehensive, two-part guide packed with the latest case studies of commercially successful brands and the role creativity played in driving those results, as well as practical tips to help you implement these learnings in your business.

In this article, we will dive into three brand building strategies that are proven to drive commercial success.

1. Balancing Short-Term Gains with Long-Term Thinking

One of the most effective theories featured in The Key to Unlocking Brand Building is Binet & Field’s 60:40 rule, which suggests that 60% of your marketing budget should be allocated to long-term brand-building activities, while 40% should focus on short-term activations. This balanced approach isn’t just theoretical—it’s backed by real-world success stories. Brands that effectively implement this strategy see substantial gains in both brand equity and commercial performance.

Consider Guinness as a prime case study to deliver the argument for this strategy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when many companies were cutting back on marketing spend, Guinness continued to invest heavily in brand-building with a campaign centred around the theme of “winning the first pint” when pubs reopened. This decision was rooted in long-term thinking. The result? Guinness not only maintained its market share but emerged as the UK’s number-one pint when restrictions lifted.

2. Leveraging Emotional Connections

Successful brands know that emotional connections can be a game-changer. Research featured in The Key to Unlocking Brand Building shows that emotionally resonant campaigns are more memorable and effective, driving significantly higher sales than campaigns that focus purely on rational messages.

Creativity in marketing is about more than just grabbing attention—it’s about creating a lasting bond with your audience. Take Dove, for example. Their “Real Beauty” campaign has been celebrated for its powerful emotional storytelling, challenging traditional beauty standards and promoting self-confidence. By focusing on authentic, emotionally engaging narratives, Dove has built a strong, loyal customer base and increased its brand value significantly. This approach highlights how investing in creativity and emotional storytelling can lead to sustained brand growth and a stronger market position.

Similarly, let’s look at Heinz and its award-winning “Draw Ketchup” campaign. This campaign not only captivated audiences with its simplicity and creativity but also led to a 12% uplift in sales and a 3.2% increase in market share. Heinz’s willingness to embrace bold, creative ideas allowed it to strengthen its brand presence and outperform competitors, proving that creativity isn’t just a “nice-to-have”—it’s a critical driver of commercial success.

3. Expanding Market Reach by Attracting Light Buyers

Another critical strategy highlighted in The Key to Unlocking Brand Building is the importance of expanding your brand’s reach to attract light buyers. This approach focuses on increasing brand penetration rather than merely deepening loyalty among existing buyers. Research by Byron Sharp, referenced in the guide, emphasises that market share growth is largely driven by reaching a broader audience, including those who are less frequent purchasers. This is because light buyers contribute to a brand’s growth by enhancing overall penetration, which in turn drives up purchase frequency and loyalty.

Greggs provides an excellent case study for this strategy. Historically known for its appeal among a certain demographic, Greggs strategically invested in expanding its brand reach to attract a wider customer base. This included initiatives such as click-and-collect services, extending store hours, and driving customer loyalty through a rewards app. These efforts paid off significantly: Greggs saw an increase in both brand consideration (from 36.9 in 2022 to 39 in 2023) and purchase intent (from 15.6 in 2022 to 16.8 in 2023). By broadening its appeal and making itself more accessible to light buyers, Greggs was able to boost its market share and drive substantial sales growth in 2023.

Conclusion

Building a business case for creativity isn’t just about defending your marketing budget; it’s about demonstrating how creative, brand-building strategies can drive real, measurable commercial success. By balancing short-term gains with long-term thinking, leveraging emotional connections, and expanding market reach to attract light buyers, marketers can showcase the true power of creativity to their organisations. Use these strategies to not only justify but also maximise your investment in brand-building, ensuring sustained growth and profitability for the future.

Have you successfully build a business case for brand building in your business – but now you need help to deliver on that promise? LockSmith can help you raise the floor on marketing capability to ensure your team has the knowledge & skills needed to drive long-term profitable growth. Contact us at chris@locksmith.works or alex@locksmith.works – we’d love to hear from you. 

The post When Creativity Drives Commercial Impact: 3 Strategies To Bring To Your CFO appeared first on LockSmith.

And for marketers in commoditised categories? The stakes are even higher. Consumers in these markets are especially price-sensitive, and brands that fail to stand out risk competing on price alone, sacrificing both profit margins and consumer loyalty. 

The good news? This set of challenges presents a critical opportunity to win and unlock growth by building a brand that isn’t just different for the sake of difference, but is meaningfully different in a way that resonates deeply with consumers. So, what does your marketing team need to know and do to unlock this opportunity?  

Part 1: Brilliant Thinking  

Consider beloved brands like Fairy (“For Hands that Do Dishes”), and Heinz (“It Has to Be Heinz”). These iconic brands operate in categories where products are often seen as interchangeable, with minimal differences in features, benefits, or price. So, what sets them apart? 

Their marketing teams, along with the broader business, understand the power of creating a memorable and impactful identity, especially in highly competitive, commoditised markets. They know they can’t just decide they have a unique space in the consumer’s mind, they need to put the hard graft (and time) in to earn that space.  

When we’ve worked with businesses facing this challenge, from dairy brands like Yeo Valley to Clorox (Burts Bee’s & Ever Clean) and PZ Cussons range of personal care products (such as Original Source, Imperial Leather & St Tropez), we design our training programmes around a fundamental set of questions: How skilled is your team at thinking critically and strategically? Do they deeply understand your consumer? Are they adept at distinguishing data from insight and applying those insights to craft top-tier brand strategies? 

The World Economic Forum predicts that critical thinking, along with problem-solving, will be among the top skills employers will seek in the next five years. In an era of AI, it’s never been easier to fall back on lazy thinking and commonly available inputs, so it’s more important than ever to equip your team with the ability to strategise if you want your brand to win. Instead of constantly discussing tactics, marketers need to be able to look broadly at price, product, place, promotion and other fundamentals of how competitors and successful businesses operate, identify opportunities to unlock growth, and apply this thinking to develop and execute strong strategies.  

Part 2: The One Big Thing 

The ability to think critically is only half the battle. The real impact comes when you can translate that critical thinking into a compelling narrative that enables quality marketing solutions that truly resonate, whether it’s creative, innovation, media or shopper marketing.  

The problem is that many marketers haven’t been trained to deliver a compelling narrative. That means, for many, the temptation is to treat brief writing as a form-filling exercise, an administrative process to rush through in a 20-minute stop-gap between meetings. We see this frequently and it represents a costly missed opportunity for brands, especially for those in commodity categories where brands must work harder and be more creative to connect emotionally with consumers and make an impact. 

Take telecoms, for example. When Orla Nagle, Head of Marketing at Vodafone, approached us, her team in Ireland struggled to write the concise, targeted briefs needed to give their creative or media partners the best shot at producing impactful work. To reframe their approach to briefing, we designed a one-day intensive workshop focused on defining “The One Big Thing” — the core message or insight that drives a campaign. The workshop led to Vodafone’s “Nothing Brings You Closer” TV Play campaign, a real turning point for from the brand to signal the new quality of creative work their marketing team was able to deliver.  

Part 3: Commercialising Your Plans 

In a commoditised category, being a brilliant marketer with a brilliant brand plan isn’t enough if you don’t know how to execute and commercialise your plans. Far too often, we see marketers writing excellent plans on paper but struggling to turn those ideas into tangible outcomes, and selling nothing as a result.  

Forget plans that are 100% perfect on paper but not executed. More significant growth comes from an 80% perfect plan that’s executed brilliantly. Execution is where the real challenge lies.  When Niall McKee, Marketing Director at organic dairy brand Yeo Valley, approached LockSmith to upskill his team for a new era of growth, we designed a  three-day end-to-end foundational marketing skills program that equipped the team not just with planning capabilities, but with the commercial skills needed to bring those plans to life. We included a one-day workshop focused on mastering the art of delivering compelling selling propositions, as well as plenty practical advice to help the team build stronger relationships with sales teams and retailers. 

Conclusion 

So, for any marketing director challenged with transforming commoditised products into powerful brands, ask yourself: Is my team critically and strategically astute enough to create strong positioning? Are we writing briefs that are targeted enough to unlock big, bold work that stands out? Does my team have the core commercial skills needed to seamlessly execute  our marketing plans? 

If you’d like to know more about how LockSmith can help you tackle your capability challenges to drive long-term profitable growth, contact us at chris@locksmith.works or alex@locksmith.works. – we’d love to hear from you. 

The post From Bland to Brand: The Skills Your Team Needs to Grow in Commoditised Categories  appeared first on LockSmith.

I was so excited at the return of one of my favourite childhood programmes I made the whole family sit and watch it with me. My boys are 9 & 10 and we’re at that tricky stage where finding anything we all want to watch is near on impossible, and crow barring them away from YouTube takes serious effort.

So I did what any self-respecting parent does when faced with this kind of situation – I bribed them with crisps and Fanta –and we all settled down together to watch it.

The second the theme tune came on… I was hooked.

While we all sat around marvelling at the enormity of Giant’s biceps (the size of watermelons) and at Fire’s speed (she can run 100m in 11 seconds) it struck me that one of the reasons for the show’s success, and why it was able to captivate both parents and kids a like, is that it’s a really strong brand.

What does The Gladiators teach us about what makes a strong brand?

Stick consistently to what you know you do well. The same music, the same lyrics, the same ‘games’, the same eliminator. Most reassuring, though, was that the most important part of the show – the Gladiators themselves – most definitely didn’t disappoint. The BBC have managed to assemble the most impressive group of superhumans around. Muhtar Kent (ex chairmand & CEO Cola Cola) says “a brand is a promise well kept”. Well, The Gladiators certainly didn’t disappoint for me on that front as I was transported back to my childhood. 

Leverage your Key Brand Assets. The Gladiator logo, branding, colour pallet, and even the audio and programme format. The Gladiators is a great example of something we talk about all the time in our Key to Brand Management programme: build memory structures using distinctive brand assets.

Evolve for modern times. For long term growth, it’s really important that a brand evolves to stay relevant in order to recruit new consumers. With the addition of Bradely and Barney Walsh, and a new generation of Gladiators, the programme has nailed it for my kids too. In partnership with the consistent use of key brand assets, this is a winning formula as far as brand management is concerned.

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Need help applying insights like these in your business? A

Sign up to The Credible Marketer, our monthly newsletter. As part of our mission to give marketing a more credible voice in business, we translate our favourite pop culture story into an entertaining lesson in marketing and leadership theory and share it with you each month. From consumer understanding to delivering great briefs, from managing conflict to telling great stories, each edition covers the module from our marketing & leadership training courses that will be most useful to where marketers are in the brand planning cycle. Subscribers to our newsletter will also get access to a free tool, template or exercise you can use at work to help you apply the learnings in your business context.

The post The Credible Marketer (II): The Gladiators & Strong Brands appeared first on LockSmith.

We’re proud to share that we’ve been commissioned to deliver a bespoke version of our Unlock Better Client Relationships training programme for the award-winning strategy consultancy, The Forge. We’re embarking on a comprehensive six-month programme of learning and doing to help the team change their behaviours so they can become as good at building relationships as they are at delivering great work. 

What is our approach  

We’re coming on board to help The Forge make the shift from account-based, transactional business relationships  project-based behaviour to personal human relationships and invested in a clients career success. ​Comprising of four core workshops, the programme is about empathy and action, covering:

• Understand Clients: Draw on our 25 years’ client-side to learn to see through the clients’ eyes, including client-side cycles, commercial pressures & personas.
• Understand Yourself: Explore behavioural and communication preferences using TTI Success Insights (Alex is an accredited DISC practitioner), looking at ourselves as individuals and how we come together as a team.
• Unlock Better Relationships: Explore how to use insights from DISC profiles to adapt, connect and work better with one another and develop better client relationships.
• Action planning: ​We train the team to turn the learnings into measurable  action plans for The Forge for teams and for individuals

Learning that sticks

At LockSmith, we are passionate about delivering training that drives long-term sustainable change. We don’t believe in one-off interventions. That’s why we’re integrating an ongoing programme of support for The Forge, including a programme of guided self-directed learning, group coaching, peer-peer support, accountability clinics and more. Get in touch if you’d like to know more about our approach to embedding learning for any of your training needs!

We’re here to help 

If you or your team need help unlocking better client relationships or upskilling your marketing team, please get in touch with us.

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