I was reading a post recently from a business owner who had made the difficult decision to put their company into liquidation. What struck me wasn’t really the business itself, but the honesty behind what they were describing. The pressure, the responsibility, the constant feeling of trying to make the right decisions while the ground underneath you keeps shifting.

There are more TV channels today than ever before.

Hundreds of them. Streaming platforms everywhere. Infinite choice, on-demand content, personalised recommendations and entire libraries available at the touch of a button.

Yet somehow, most nights, people still end up scrolling endlessly, thinking: “There’s nothing worth watching.”

Modern branding and marketing feel very similar.

I sometimes wonder whether the design industry has become too accessible for its own good.

That probably sounds elitist on the surface, and I don’t mean it in the sense that creativity should only belong to a select few. Some of the best designers, writers, photographers and thinkers came from unconventional backgrounds, not polished agency pathways or expensive universities.

Somewhere along the way, ‘branding’ stopped being about making your company recognisable and started being about producing documents nobody reads.

These days, every business seems to believe they must have 60-page brand guidelines, a sweeping mission statement, a purpose, pillars, archetypes, personas, tone of voice; the whole shebang.

Nike’s recent running campaign has triggered the usual wave of reaction, criticism of tone, debate over wording, and plenty of people deciding whether it crossed a line.

Some have taken offence.
Others have questioned the thinking behind it.
A few have put it down to poor execution.

That doesn’t feel like the right conclusion.

We get stuck more often than we admit.

At school. Driving somewhere unfamiliar. Running a business. Standing in a supermarket aisle, wondering where on earth they’ve moved the coffee.

What’s the answer? Where am I going? What do I do next?

And yet, so many people would rather stay silent than ask.

We’ve recently launched a new website for Wilson Builds.

Wilson Builds create high-quality, bespoke timber frame homes, so the objective was simple; ensure their website reflects the same level of craft, care, and attention to detail as their work on site.

If you’ve ignored your brand and marketing for years and suddenly realised you need to ‘do something’, it can feel daunting.

It usually starts with a trigger.

An upcoming event.
A competitor seems to have upped their game.
Sales have dipped slightly.
A new employee asks, “What exactly are we doing about marketing?”

Businesses ask me the same question over and over again: How do we stand out? What’s fascinating is that the question is often followed, almost immediately, by a suggestion that they’d like to do something similar to their competitors. A similar tone of voice, a similar visual style, a similar content format, sometimes even a similar tagline. The desire is distinction. The instinct is imitation.

Lance Corrigan, Creative Director at Bespoke Brands, was recently asked a series of questions about how the studio approaches branding and why its process tends to feel slightly different from many creative agencies. It was a good opportunity to reflect on the way Bespoke Brands works and what matters most when helping clients develop their brand.

There was a time when recommendations mattered because they were genuine. A friend suggested a product. A colleague recommended a service. A customer left a positive review. Now, every scroll through social media feels like someone is being paid to like something.

What the research tells us about who we choose to work with.

In business, we like to believe decisions are rational. We evaluate competence, experience and value. We compare propositions. We choose the strongest option.

Behavioural research suggests something more subtle is happening.

When the world shut down, many businesses reacted quickly.

Budgets were cut.
Plans were paused.
Marketing was “put on hold.”

Branding and visibility were treated as optional and something to return to when things felt safer.

Scroll through job listings right now and it looks like every company is hiring social media managers and content creators. Because somewhere along the line, businesses decided social media is marketing. But it isn’t. Social media is just one channel. One delivery method. One tool.

It can sometimes feel like marketing used to take more risks. Look back 20 or 30 years, and many campaigns were sharper, bolder and more willing to provoke a reaction. Some of them wouldn’t, and shouldn’t, exist today. Standards have changed, and that’s no bad thing. But alongside those cultural shifts, something else has happened.

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” But unlike Ferris Bueller, many businesses feel like they can’t afford to take a day off. Marketing moves just as fast, with new trends, competitor moves, and opportunities cropping up all the time.

In a sea of similar firms, standing out can feel impossible. But differentiation isn’t about shouting louder; it’s about clearly showing why you’re the best choice for your ideal clients. If your business feels like it’s blending in, here’s how to fix that with simple, strategic steps.

Every brand wears a suit. Not literally, of course. But metaphorically speaking, the way your brand shows up in the world, its tone, look, behaviour and presence, is its outfit. It's uniform. It's first impression. Some brands look like they’ve just stepped out of Savile Row. Others? More like they threw on whatever was on the floor.