Check out Mentoring with MCR Pathways!!
Helping young people, unleashing potential, supporting society and the greater good, making a real difference in the lives of others and yourself too. Just some of the many reasons to consider becoming a mentor with MCR Pathways.
MCR Pathways are a national charity which supports young people, disadvantaged through no fault of their own, to create better lives for themselves with one-to-one mentoring. An organisation which has been going for more than 15 years and with over 1000 mentors who give an hour a week in Glasgow alone.
Right now they are looking for more mentors so please check out..
https://mcrpathways.org
(Little pic of our Founder Benedetto and Rio, his previous mentee on their very last mentoring session before he left St Rochs secondary school back in 2021. To steal one of the charity’s marketing Iines – one relationship, two lives transformed.)
#MCRPathways #Mentoring
Category: News
Apr
Jan
The Lean Marketer
Potential facilitator of bigger numbers, more sales, fuller pipelines, charts moving in the right direction, people that bit happier, exciting enquiries and fresh interest.
New and interesting things happening day-after-day, week-after-week, month-after-month. More impressive sales numbers, more effective marketing and more magnetic brands.
Always accumulating, eventually snowballing.
At the loft, we’ve been in the game a while now and experience has taught us that smaller actions done consistently well can bring faster, less costly and more impactful change than bigger (seemingly) more exciting actions.
In marketing terms, this means new website pages built on existing templates, interior spaces livened up with company branding, up-to-date pics of the team online, email signatures showing the campaign of the day, those infographics of stats you’ve been promising yourself for too long, new social materials, new words, new pictures, some video, etc. Small actions working in a beautifully predictable and positive way.
Compounding over time.
Nobody loves the big moves, the high-octane actions, the act of stepping into the unknown more than us – exciting digital projects, new brands, strategic partnerships, etc. But some times – starting where you are and building on what’s working gets you where you want to get too that little bit faster.
I heard a lovely quote the other day ‘Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.’
Couldn’t have put it better myself, if you’re looking for a lean marketer, or marketing agency, to make strong, transformative and lasting change to your brand or marketing and like the idea of doing it in stages, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Benedetto
Benedetto is an enthusiastic creative and business person.
His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft – a design & branding agency based in the heart of Glasgow.
He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.
Nov
‘The Godfather isn’t a mafia movie, it’s a film about Family, Capitalism, The American Dream…’
A great line from a great series ‘The Offer’ and one of the best explanations of the value of branding I’ve heard in recent times.
In this case the scene shows producer Al Ruddy trying to explain to a stubborn New York gangster why they should let him use their city to make the Godfather.
He sold the mafia man a higher idea.
All great brand-building is about doing the same thing – think of the well-known companies… Nike don’t sell trainers – they sell athleticism, IKEA may sell you furniture but they also sell Swedish functionality, Amazon sells just about everything under the sun but with their brand they are mainly selling convenience.
For our own company, we sell the full range of Brand-Marketing-Design services but for us, we really sell and eventually deal with impact and growth.
The bigger, simpler and more compelling you can bring to life what you’re ‘really’ selling – the better your brand will do in the marketplace.
Part-10 of our Entrepreneurial Brand Marketing series. As always, If you’d like some help, give us a shout.
Benedetto
Benedetto is an enthusiastic creative and business person.
His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft – A Design & Branding Agency based in the heart of Glasgow.
He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.
Oct
We’re all such lazy people at times. Always were, the internet has just made it worst. Which companies do the best online? Those that make life easiest for their customers, for their audience. Silicone valley calls it ‘Frictionless Experience,’ spiritual people talk about ‘The Law of Non-Resistance,’ (which we quite like…)
However, we like to think of it as..
‘Making Life Easier For People’
A novel idea and Part-9 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.
We’ve lost count of the number of website updates, creative campaigns and general design projects that have been transformed with the simplest of small changes.
Websites in particular…
Radically more qualified leads generated with easy-to-find contact details on the home page, a few less fields on enquiry forms, with the copy written in plain (non-technical language) and service breakdowns in the footer, etc, etc.
Of course, the more savvy amongst you already do this and more – chat functions on websites, direct contact info for staff members, easy-to-understand service/product names, infographics for key messages. The true pros add another dimension – turning their board-rooms, their offices, even their factories into places that people just enjoy being in.
Several years ago, we were thrilled to collaborate with the master of ‘Frictionless Customer Experiences’ Alan Meldrum, a man who takes all of what’s said above to the nth level…
‘Making Life Easier For People.’
A Brand-Marketing game-changer.
If you’d like to find out more, drop me a line.
Benedetto
Benedetto is an enthusiastic creative and business person.
His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft – A Design & Branding Agency based in the heart of Glasgow.
He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.
Oct
Short Sharp Messages!!
In world of clutter and noise, it is harder than ever before to cut through. Social media channels are brimming with content – videos, pictures, stories, information. Many people’s inboxes have 100+ unread messages and even our phones and mailboxes are bombarded with stuff.
In such a chaotic environment, cutting through has probably never been more difficult, it’s enough to give Brand/Marketing folks a nightmare. And it shows no signs of slowing down – more social channels are coming, Web 3.0, even the old classics are making a comeback – Radio, TV, etc. Our world is only going to get noisier.
The answer, we believe IS to do battle on as many fronts as possible for your brand. However, where we can set ourselves apart is by making sure every single communication’s message is crystal clear, to the point and exceptionally well-presented. One message per communication, two to three max and if you’re trying to say lots of things – they better be highly prioritised.
Short Sharp Messages across multiple channels give you the best possible chance to win hearts and minds. Bonus points for a bit of extra creativity too.
Our infographic work over recent years has been designed to (as clearly as possible) present lots of strong messages to our client’s audience over as long a period of possible. The Inspiring Scotland example below is a fantastic example. One main infographic with a simple but brilliant message about a successful programme turned into lots and lots of small impactful messages over the period of a couple of weeks.
Short Sharp Messages!!
Part-8 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand Marketing
#MarketingStrategy #BrandMarketing #Entrepreneurship #Infographics
If you’d like to find out more, drop me a line.
Benedetto
Benedetto is an enthusiastic creative and business person.
His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft – A Design & Branding Agency based in the heart of Glasgow.
He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.
Oct
Branding, the Ultimate Team Sport!!
Who knew??
We’re always talking (probably a tiny-bit too much) about all of those lovely business benefits to branding, to marketing to what we do every day. More sales, better loyalty, higher margins, stronger positioning, business outcome X, business outcome Y and on and on it goes.
But one thing we’ve stumbled on over many, many years is that branding is a wonderful activity for building good will within your own team or teams, regardless if we are talking about finance, sales, product, etc.
One of the best things a company can do to bring together its people, give everybody a chance to contribute, share some ideas, have some laughs and genuinely involve everybody in making the company a better place, is to involve them in a creative project, preferably some kind of branding one. Branding really can be The Ultimate Team Sport.
Throughout the years, we’ve been a part of re-brands, value exercises, website re-designs, brand identity presentations, we’ve pitched to management teams, sales teams, production teams, investors, sometimes all at once. We’ve taken presentations out the board room and fielded what sometimes seem like the most random (but ultimately the most sensible) questions and despite the momentary discomfort – it’s always led us to better solutions.
When the guy in the production line’s words are used as part of the company’s values or the developers words are used as part of a marketing campaign or the CFO themselves has an idea for a logo image, everybody’s a winner.
Great brands always have lots of ideas behind them and lots of enthusiastic people contributing to those ideas – not just the seemingly creative folks…
How to make this happen? Simple – just make sure a couple of extra team conversations are factored into any proposal and maybe give your creative team a warning in advance that they’ll be presenting to everybody in the company and to be prepared.
If you’d like to know a bit more, drop me a line…
Branding, the Ultimate Team Sport!!
Part-7 of Our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand Marketing.
If you’d like to know more, drop me a line.
Benedetto
Benedetto is an enthusiastic creative and business person.
His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft – A Design & Branding Agency based in the heart of Glasgow.
He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.
Oct
Win | Win
Having fun is just brilliant for your brand…
Clearly stating the obvious here but companies with vibrant cultures and happy people are a brilliant advert for your brand. It gives an impression of confidence and success and the good vibes are just magnetic in attracting people to your cause. Pictures of people enjoying themselves at work will always make a company website or social media post light up. Whether it’s sharing images of team-building events, fun days out or just people carrying out their tasks with a little joy.
At the loft, several years ago, we created a ‘Honey I shrunk the Design Team’ visual where we miniaturised our creative team and placed them into a stereotypical studio scene, a fun take on the 90’s movie.
A brilliantly successful visual too, it was used widely – as an intro to the home-page of our website, as covers on our social media channels, we used it in sales proposals and creatives pitches, etc. The image was both tremendously effective in attracting new people to our brand (clients and staff) but also incredibly good fun to do as well.
Part-6 of Our Entrepreneurial Approach To Brand-Marketing.
‘Having fun is brilliant for your brand…’
If you’d like to find out more, drop me a line.
Benedetto
Benedetto is an enthusiastic creative and business person.
His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft – A Design & Branding Agency based in the heart of Glasgow.
He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.
Oct
Give Something Away!!
At the loft, we love giving things away – we’ve hosted barbecues (or Lasagne Fridays) for people we know to meet in our studio, we’ve given away tips we’ve learned from building websites or setting up photography sets, we’ve done tote bags and corporate stationary too.
However, none have been as well-received as our ’Social Media Cheat Sheets.’ A one-page document, A4, easily printed, giving the latest tips of the day on when to post, what platforms and what time, etc.
A tremendous little giveaway shared on our website, our social channels, on our e-mail signatures, etc and one that we know many of our clients and friends relied on for their own social media activities.
Giving Something Away is ‘Part-5 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.’
Giving something of value away can build good will with new customers, energise existing relationships, dial in greater loyalty, help to save a stuttering partnership or sometimes it’s nice to just do something good for the sake of it.
The free give-away has a big part to play in the sales/customer relationship cycle – whether the giveaway is something intangible like specialised advice, general consultancy, tips on how to do something better or something physical like corporate stationary, etc. Everybody loves high-quality tote bags, moleskines and coffee flasks.
Giving something away is also a brilliant way to energise a relationship, it gives companies a chance to serve customers before formally transacting with them, helps to put them in pole position for work to come.
Every successful company does it too – from fast food outlets giving out toys to top legal firms hosting events to give specialist advice on the issues of the day.
Give Something Away, Part-5 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing
If you’d like more info on brand-marketing for entrepreneurs, leave me a comment or drop me a line.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Benedetto
Benedetto is an enthusiastic creative and business person.
His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft – A Design & Branding Agency based in the heart of Glasgow.
He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.
Oct
Serve The Business First!!
‘Part-4 of Our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.’
Increasing sales, improved margins, greater customer loyalty, better staff relations, improved investor communications, a focus on a new sector or even a customer/location/product, etc…
There are many different reasons for doing a creative project, many different masters to serve…
However, at the loft, we believe the first and most important client for any creative project is the business itself.
A clear, unashamedly commercial focus is the best thing that can happen to a creative project. Whether it’s building a new website, setting up an email system or just putting an ad on a bus. A focus on the commercial means everybody is clear on the objective, resources can be concentrated and contrary to what many expect – better for the creative too. A tighter spec allows for better ideas which can be brought to life faster – less process, less drift.
Taking that little bit more time in working out what the client wants, what they really want is definitely worthwhile. With greater understanding comes greater clarity and better creativity.
The website we built with the Percepta team several years ago demonstrates this to best effect. There were several clear priorities in the brief produced but key amongst these was the desire to showcase the more valuable composite services they provide to automotive clients to new and existing clients.
This clarity enabled special landing pages with beautifully-designed iconography, what’s more a beautifully presented case-study library showcasing many examples of their exceptional previous work with clients.
A truly outstanding result for everybody involved and a great platform for the creative team to work their magic. By serving the business first, we were much more able to build a website of true and lasting value to our client.
Part-4 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.
If you’d like to get in touch, drop me a line.
Benedetto
Benedetto is an enthusiastic creative and business person.
His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft – A Design & Branding Agency based in the heart of Glasgow.
He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.
Oct
‘So simple and easy to understand that even your granny would get it!’
A little bit of Scottish chat and also Part-3 of Our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.
Persuading MDs, CEOs and Founders is one thing – a lot of the time with brand-marketing projects – we have to win over lots of other people – finance professionals, procurement people, technical staff, customers that have never heard about you and some who may not even know the first thing about your product or service.
Each and every one presenting a fresh challenge to the tech start-ups, the engineering companies and just about every other company out there with a technical product or offering.
At the loft, we believe in pictures – visuals that wins hearts and minds, that speak a thousand words and persuade new customers to understand or existing customers to fall in-love with our clients work that little bit quicker. Pictures or simple visual ideas that ‘are so simple even your granny would get it.’
Our creative work with Edinburgh-based Petroleum Experts who produce software for the Oil & Gas sector was one such brilliant example – an exceptional technical, globally-recognised product and offering that required buy-in from all those lovely people we’ve just mentioned – CEOs, CFOs, CTOs, (I think you get where this is going…)
A beautifully simple concept of using the idea of a lens of a telescope to showcase the 5 layers of the software and how they give the viewer a clearer view of their oilfield asset.
One incredibly sophisticated, persuasive and easy-to-understand picture and still used today 8 years on since it was first created.
‘Communications so simple and easy to understand that even your granny would get it!’
Part-3 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing
Benedetto
Benedetto is an enthusiastic creative and business person.
His journey has taken him from a career in car design through to his current role as the Founder of the loft – A Design & Branding Agency based in the heart of Glasgow.
He is honoured to manage a great team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many great people in business.