Category: News

14
Mar
Pitch Deck Picture Magic!!

Pitch Deck Picture Magic!!

Pitch Deck Picture Magic!!

A little bit of inspiration for all those out doing the investment rounds right now – raising money, speaking to investors and making their case…

It’s slides 2 and 3 from Dropbox’s Pitch Deck, used to magnificent effect to help the company raise $1.2Million back in 2007 and eventually build the company we all know, and many of us use to this day…

Despite the ever-so-slightly spartan appearance (who said all communications needs polish,) these 2 slides may be amongst the most effective we’ve ever seen at THE LOFT.

Slide-2 beautifully sets the scene of something we all have to deal with – horrifically messy storage and Slide-3 beautifully articulates the actual challenges with digital storage back in 2007.

Beautifully informative and oh so achingly simple….

They do say that a picture speaks a thousand words, in this case, a picture and a couple of complimentary sentences really does make the difference.

Plenty of work still to do, but we’re sure the Dropbox folks had their investor’s attention from the start.

Right now, we’re helping several exceptional Founders/Management teams raise money.

We’re having a whale of a time getting out of our own way, getting to the heart of what we’re trying to say and being as creative as we can in the process.

If you’re looking for some deck support, drop us a line, we’d love to help.

Have a great weekend folks…

Benedetto

Benedetto is the Founder of THE LOFT Branding Agency

 

 

24
Feb
Shaping a More Exciting Future!!

Shaping a More Exciting Future!!

Iconic brand New Holland have recently been blazing a real trail in the future of Agriculture & Construction machinery and equipment with a wide range of customer-centric design and engineering innovations.

We were thrilled and delighted at THE LOFT to be given the opportunity to collaborate with CNH Industrial’s design team to create a show graphic for two of their concepts machines.

To match its advanced propulsion technology, the New Holland W40X Electric Power Compact Wheel Loader, styled in a special edition created exclusively for Agritechnica 2023. Coloured in the ‘Clean Blue’ that characterizes all New Holland electric products, the styling incorporates the iconic New Holland leaf symbol on the rear hood. Imitating the loader bucket shape, an interlocking geometric triangular motif is carried through the length of the machine from the engine hood at the rear to the see-through driver’s door glass and on to the loader boom, unifying the machine’s design language.

The electro-inspired, high-motion, fragmented design has been so well received that they have recently been awarded a prestigious Chicago Good Design Award.

Full credit to everybody involved – The Head of Industrial Design David Wilkie, his colleagues at CNH Industrial and a special mention to Kiera McGrory, of THE LOFT, who did an outstanding job.

You can see more at…

https://gooddesignawards.org/project/new-holland-w40x-electric-compact-wheel-loader-2024/

 

02
Jan
New Year, New Creative Work!!

New Year, New Creative Work!!

A happy new year to everybody, here’s to an incredibly exciting 2025 ahead!!

As we draw a line under the past year, we realise we’ve been a bit quiet recently and wanted to showcase some of the exceptional creative work our team has produced recently.

These creative projects include…

The creation of an outstanding new retail brand called HUSK for the Dubai based ADNH COMPASS. At the time of creation, part of the Compass Group and now formally recognised as ADNH Catering, the largest provider of food and support services across the UAE.  The HUSK brand was created in 2023 and is now being rapidly being rolled across Dubai. It was such an honour for our team to have been given the opportunity to create and develop this exciting new brand.

 

The creation of a new ultra-functional infographic for our long-term clients and good friends MCR Pathways, the new infographic comes in several variations and highlights the outstanding impact the organisation has had in Glasgow as well as wider Scotland.

 

The branding of Flixbus’s Bristol Bus Depot, we worked closely with FLIXBUS’s outstanding team in London to create the first formal branding of a depot for FLIXBUS in the UK.

Unsurprisingly, we anticipate a very busy year ahead, with much more to come on the projects mentioned above too.

Watch this space..

Once again, here’s to a great 2025…

Benedetto

 

Benedetto is the Founder of THE LOFT Branding Agency

<<<<< To find out more about THE LOFT

Or Benedetto >>>>>

 

08
Dec
Creative Assets

Creative Assets

Maximising the performance of your marketing team, brilliantly expanding the appeal of your brand and providing a reference point for future communications.

Creative assets give everybody something to lean on with the inevitable flurry of deadlines, milestones and forthcoming activities – launches, trade-shows, conferences, appearances in the media, onboarding new suppliers and the like. Many of the types of occasions that await the rapidly growing brands of today.

Like all good assets, after the initial investment has been made, creative assets provide compounding results over time. They can be used and re-used over and over again, sometimes over years. They are also incredibly good fun for the team to produce, whether that’s internally or with your agency partners. Showcasing the best of yourself, your colleagues and what you do is never a chore.

Creative assets have many titles, brand halos or hero content, they are generally items of highly produced creative content. They can include anything from tailored graphics and infographics to properly art-directed photographs, high-quality video clips and even passages of very tightly focussed text. Whatever the asset – versatility, quality and durability over time are their strengths.

Creative assets should be considered a solution to more than one problem, they should have a strategic element to them and should be able to stand that test of time. They should also be created with the idea that many different people will use and re-use them over certain periods of time.

The next time you’re speaking with your agency or marketing partner, ask them what scalable creative assets they could potentially create for your organisation, what that can deliver added value over at least a year to eighteen months?

Or, and as always, if you’d like to find out more, drop us a line, we’ve included some previous examples below…

Benedetto

 

Benedetto is the Founder of THE LOFT, a Brand & Marketing Agency that provides rapid-growth ideas, services and solutions for its ambitious clients.

<<<<< To find out more about THE LOFT

Or Benedetto >>>>>

 

Examples of Creative Assets

Example of Creative Assets - Altia Sub-Brand Identities The Altia Sub-brands were a cornerstone of all brand communications over many years, particularly useful when the company was growing internationally at an incredibly quick rate.

 

Example of Creative Assets - Petex Visual This Petex visual is still widely used by the organisation on all of their communications, more than 10 years after it was created!!

 

Example of Creative Assets - Scottish Leather Group Infographic The infographics created for Scottish Leather Group were widely used and re-used many times over giving the organisation almost a year’s worth of marketing content in one go.

 

30
Aug
Existing Clients First!!

Existing Clients First!!

Increasing sales as quickly as possible is pretty much the holy grail of all high-growth companies, of all Business Founders, Leaders & Entrepreneurs, for all those individuals in a hurry to make it happen.

More sales staff, new campaigns, marketing materials, etc.

All potential answers.

Sometimes the main answer’s closer to home.

Serving (and eventually) selling to existing customers can be massively easier and faster than building trust with new people – stats say up to 6 times faster. A number that gets bigger with high-value services.

Direct mail, letters, targeted social media, even organised high-quality telesales campaigns are all great ideas.

However, we just love the value-add of newsletter systems.

Carefully crafted emails sent to help existing clients.

Several years ago we collaborated with a Glasgow-based software company to help increase license renewals (and sales) of their financial software tools. We had found that their users were only using a fraction of their software programmes. We worked closely with them and their team to send a simple newsletter each week. Every time, introducing one new feature of their software to existing users.

No hard-sales, just good service and tremendously well received too. What’s more, the exercise itself helped improve customer-service.

A marketing success story repeated several times over during our many years working with the company and as a result, massively increasing license renewals and sales.

By giving first, we gain permission to try to sell.

(Not exclusively but) Existing Clients First, Part-1 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.

Have a great weekend folks!!

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.

<<< To see more of the loft’s brand solutions 

To check out The Entrepreneurs Loft >>>

10
Aug
Making Life Easier For People

Making Life Easier For People

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.

<<< To see more of the loft’s brand solutions 

To check out The Entrepreneurs Loft >>>

10
Aug
Short Sharp Messages!!

Short Sharp Messages!!

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.

<<< To see more of the loft’s brand solutions 

To check out The Entrepreneurs Loft >>>

10
Aug
Branding, The Ultimate Team Sport!!

Branding, The Ultimate Team Sport!!

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.

<<< To see more of the loft’s brand solutions 

To check out The Entrepreneurs Loft >>>

10
Aug
Have Some Fun!!

Have Some Fun!!

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.

<<< To see more of the loft’s brand solutions 

To check out The Entrepreneurs Loft >>>

07
Aug
Give Something Away!!

Give Something Away!!

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.

<<< To see more of the loft’s brand solutions 

To check out The Entrepreneurs Loft >>>