THE BLOG

04
Aug
‘So simple even your granny would get it!’

‘So simple even your granny would get it!’

‘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.

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

To check out The Entrepreneurs Loft >>>

04
Aug
A Higher Idea

A Higher Idea

‘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.

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

To check out The Entrepreneurs Loft >>>

03
Aug
Max Out Creative Content!!

Max Out Creative Content!!

Part-2 of Our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.

‘Max Out Creative Content’

Creative content produced for websites, re-formatted for brochures, introduced on social media, re-purposed for print ads, used for digital mail, traditional mail, animated for YouTube, inserted into proposals, placed in Powerpoint decks, etc, etc.

The number of destinations for high-quality and effective creative content is absolutely limitless.

Whether we’re talking about impactful infographics, art-directed photography, story-telling videos or even carefully crafted text. Whatever the medium, whatever the end-use, at the loft we advise our clients to truly maximise every last bit of resource invested in creative projects.

Creativity you’ve invested money in, dedicated time too and worked hard to produce alongside your own team and brand/marketing/ creative providers.

The work we created with one of our industrial clients several years ago for their Sustainability Report was used and re-used in the most fantastically effective and resourceful way.

Infographics used in the initial report, re-purposed as social media campaigns, re-formatted to be included in pitch-decks and animated as videos for YouTube. What’s more they were re-branded for their sister organisation and the initial report itself became a customer-facing document too.

An exceptional way to maximise a creative budget.

‘Max Out Creative Content’

Part-2 of our Entrepreneurial Approach to Brand-Marketing.

Drop us a line if you’d like to find out more.

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 >>>

29
Jul
London 2012, Timelessly Ahead of its Time…

London 2012, Timelessly Ahead of its Time…

The Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony has been in the headlines a lot these last few days. I have to confess I’ve only seen snippets on the internet. But it got me thinking back to our own efforts 12 years ago and & what an amazing job they did for London 2012.

After a quick re-watch of the highlights on YouTube, what struck me most was how well the ceremony worked for the main audience on the TV and also online. So many wonderful moments… The drama of the Industrial Revolution, the poignancy of War, Sir Tim Berners Lee, The Queen, James Bond, Mr Bean, Sir Steven Redgrave and who can forget the insanity of Thomas Heatherwick’s Olympic Cauldron at the end.

All gloriously combined with the finest of British music and culture through the last century and a bit.

A real reminder that true quality always stands the test of time…

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 an outstanding team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many inspirational people in business.

18
Jun
MCR Pathways Infographic, Knocking It Out The Park!!

MCR Pathways Infographic, Knocking It Out The Park!!

Knocking It Out The Park!!

Many of you will know the incredible work carried out by the Glasgow-based national charity MCR Pathways. An organisation that helps young people, who are disadvantaged through no fault of their own, to realise that bit more of their undoubted potential. They do this in a number of ways, pre-dominantly by providing mentors who volunteer an hour a week at schools all over the country.

The charity has been going for quite some time now and year after year they just knock it out of the park in terms of their impact. 5,109 young people supported, over 63,000 mentoring hours logged, 82.9% of MCR young people progressing to college, university or employment compared to a national average of 69.1%.

We were delighted to be given the opportunity to support the organisation in pulling together some of these incredible numbers, stats and stories with a bold infographic. The design had to get a lot of information across, showcase the impactful nature of their work and also fit on one page. Designed at a very important time for MCR Pathways and testament to the incredible work of all involved, we were delighted with the final results.

MCR Pathways, An Hour A Week, A Lifetime of Impact!!

 

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 an outstanding team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many inspirational people in business.

13
May
Doing The Right Thing.

Doing The Right Thing.

Doing The Right Thing.

Everybody knows Glasgow folks have one hell of a social conscious. That people are the heart and soul of the city. That it’s a city with a unique spirit and most of all a city that cares..

MCR Pathways is one of Glasgow’s finest inventions, an outstanding charity that gives disadvantaged young people the chance to create a better life for themselves. They’ve knocked it out the park year after year after year after year after year. Thousands and thousands of young people with better, happier and more fulfilling lives making their own dent in the universe as a result.

Everybody overlooks things, everybody makes mistakes, unintended consequences, everybody is human.

Come on Glasgow, let’s do the right thing, let’s re-open the budget, look a bit harder, dig a bit deeper and explore how you can give one of your most successful social programmes its funding back.

It’s the common-sense thing to do.

It’s the Glaswegian thing to do.

It’s the right thing to do…

 

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 an outstanding team, work with great clients and have a lot of fun mixing with so many inspirational people in business.

02
Jan
MCR Pathways Mentoring

MCR Pathways Mentoring

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

18
Dec
The Lean Marketer

The Lean Marketer

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.

<<< To see the loft’s brand solutions 

The Lean Start-Up (possible further reading) >>>

04
Sep
The Entrepreneurs Loft, Service List

The Entrepreneurs Loft, Service List

Shameless plug alert!!

Sorry just this once, we’re going to go down the slightly more direct route.

We’ve finally got our working service list and landing pages together for The Entrepreneurs Loft.

Check them out…

Brand Marketing
https://entrepreneursloft.co/brand-marketing

Marketing Strategy
https://entrepreneursloft.co/marketing-strategy

Marketing Support
https://entrepreneursloft.co/marketing-support

Brand Strategy
https://entrepreneursloft.co/brand-strategy

Brand Culture
https://entrepreneursloft.co/brand-culture

Social Media Marketing
https://entrepreneursloft.co/social-media-marketing

The Entrepreneurs Loft is the big brother/sister of the loft, a new agency-offering exclusively supporting the growth journeys of High-Growth Founders, Leaders & Entrepreneurs.

In-line with our lightweight approach – everything’s pretty minimal for now, used as much for learning as it is for gaining business, will almost certainly be improved in due course (yes we will add some pictures & graphics) but most importantly done, out there and hopefully strong enough to get this bit of the job done. For Now!!

Let us know your thoughts?

All comments welcome…

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
The Entrepreneurs Loft

The Entrepreneurs Loft

Working with High-Growth Founders, Leaders & Entrepreneurs has always been one of the most enjoyable, rewarding and fulfilling parts of our journey at the loft – over the years we’ve been lucky to help high growth companies and impactful leaders in technology, software, food and drink, charity organisations. The work is always challenging, tight for time and a little chaotic but as mentioned it really does help us to bring the best out of ourselves…

The Entrepreneurs Loft is a new sub-brand offering created by the loft to serve High-Growth Founders, Leaders & Entrepreneurs – to help them build businesses of scale with fast, imaginative and a completely personalised service. We’ve taken everything we’ve learned in 10 years in business, all our wins, all our losses and most importantly the lessons we’ve learned along the way and packaged them to create a unique service.

We can’t wait to share more about The Entrepreneurs Loft but for now, this is the link to the new microsite. https://entrepreneursloft.co

Drop us a line, let us know your thoughts and as always, if there is anything we can help with – please don’t hesitate to let us know?

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 >>>