Are you finding it harder and harder to cut through the marketing noise? More channels. More content. More options. How can businesses stand out and connect with people who need their help? What’s certain is that it’s no time to be timid when it comes to brand strategy.

Tara Cloak is Strategy Director at HB, a 25-year-old independent B2B marketing and creative agency working with clients including Microsoft, CBRE and Grant Thornton. She came to brand strategy through design, driven by a conviction that creative work without strategic intent doesn't have meaning. When a former marketing director colleague told her that design was just "colouring in", she set out to combine the magic and logic in everything she does.

In this conversation, Tara draws on HB's own recent rebrand - trying to escape the pigeonhole of their own success. She argues that the most important brand work happens long before and long after the guidelines are handed over. If you're a leader, marketer or entrepreneur rethinking your brand strategy and trying to stand out, this episode is for you.

Listen to this episode to learn:

• Why "I need a new website" is almost never the real problem
• What Veuve Clicquot reveals about the most dangerous decision in any rebrand
• Why a ‘big reveal’ is usually the wrong approach to internal alignment
• Brand results may take years to show up in tracking data, so what are the early signals to look for?
• The one question to ask at your next board meeting that tells you whether your brand is in good health

HB: https://uk-hb.com/

Connect with Tara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taracloak/

0:00:59 - From ‘colouring in’ to brand strategy

0:07:07 - The Driving Idea: what guidelines can't do

0:09:01 - When your people are your brand - and why that's a risk

0:12:08 - Logic and magic: what the research process actually looks like

0:13:52 - Why you should talk to your client's clients

0:18:22 - Why clients rebrand - and whether they should

0:21:55 - Familiarity breeds contempt

0:23:47 - The hidden work: change management

0:26:14 - Limit the ta-da moments

0:29:03 - AI and the end of production value

0:31:37 - What makes a rebrand meaningful

0:32:08 - Rebranding the rebranders: did it work?

0:33:17 - The metric Tara actually trusts

0:35:36 - Brands live in brains

0:36:31 - The boardroom test

-- Thanks for listening.

Curious Business is here to bring you insights, experiences and ideas from founders, leaders and experts to help you think differently about your business and its marketing. Listen to more episode via https://pod.link/1783648578. My name is Stephen Morris and I help you start a fire in your marketing and pipeline. Like to know more? Book a discovery call: https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/ Or sign-up to 'The Prompt' my monthly newsletter: https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/ If you'd like to talk about how podcasts can build reach, enhance authority and fuel your pipeline, visit: www.curiousbusiness.co.uk.

Is what you're building actually connected to who you are? And would you know if it wasn't? Nish Sharma knew. He had the banking career, the best car, the best house, four holidays a year - and a question he couldn't shake: what am I actually doing?

The answer arrived at his grandmother's funeral. In the grief that followed, he found a 100-year-old family story nobody had ever finished: a bootlegger great-grandfather who started an alcohol enterprise with a Scottish army officer in 1940. Nish decided to finish it — in Edinburgh, with a Scottish gin and rum that carries both worlds in, and on, the bottle.

What followed was anything but straightforward. Near-bankruptcy. A wall of silence from UK retailers despite offering to pay for the shelf space himself. He survived a heart attack and put it in an email to a buyer who kept saying no. He chased one contract for five years and felt flat when it finally landed. The private jet he always dreamed of? There's a model one on his desk. Now he drives a van.

Listen to this episode to find out:

• What he actually wrote in an email to a buyer who'd repeatedly rejected him
• How a bootlegger, a Scottish army officer, Indian passport holograms and the Gaelic word for tea ended up encoded in his bottles
• Why angel investors who demand revenue proof before investing have got it backwards
• Why his philosophy is "it has not worked, it is working just now" and what it means if you're building for the long term
• What shaking hands with seven or eight billionaires taught him about wealth, success and what you actually need

Connect with Nish:

• Rutland Square: https://www.rutlandsquarespirits.com/
• On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nishantsharma08/

Chapters:

00:55 — The business, the products, the team 02:25 — "Who am I?" Assam, Punjab, Edinburgh 04:59 — Banking: paid the bills, didn't serve a purpose 07:13 — Four businesses that failed before this one 08:44 — "It has not worked, it is working now" 10:43 — What a decade in banking actually gave him 14:15 — The global palate argument 16:41 — The shelf space offer retailers turned down 18:08 — The funeral and the 100-year legacy 19:28 — "Stories live forever. Products don't." 20:03 — The bottle: passports, tartan, 1940 and 2020 23:13 — Near-bankruptcy and the angel paradox 25:14 — Why Scotch whisky is a generational business 26:36 — How tech broke investor psychology 27:07 — The bigger plan 30:57 — "Elon Musk is going to Mars. I'm just building on Earth." 31:31 — The van, the model jet, the payroll 34:53 — The one thing he'd do differently

-- Thanks for listening.

Curious Business is here to bring you insights, experiences and ideas from founders, leaders and experts to help you think differently about your business and its marketing. Listen to more episode via https://pod.link/1783648578. My name is Stephen Morris and I help you start a fire in your marketing and pipeline. Like to know more? Book a discovery call: https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/discovery/ Or sign-up to 'The Prompt' my monthly newsletter: https://www.curiousbusiness.co.uk/signup/ If you'd like to talk about how podcasts can build reach, enhance authority and fuel your pipeline, visit: www.curiousbusiness.co.uk.