I’m hosting the Social Media & Community Marketing stage at DMWF London in May. I also host this stage in New York, and having seen some of these speakers there already, I can say this with confidence: it will be a very good day. And even better nrew - I have a couple of tickets to give away….

The Sharp's closure is the most honest thing to happen to cask ale provenance in years.

Doom Bar is a brand built on Rock. And that has become a problem. Every cask brand with a postcode on its label should be asking whether they have made the same mistake.

I walked past Coca-Cola on shelf this week and didn’t recognise it.

That sounds ridiculous. Few brands on earth are more instantly recognisable. Which is exactly why it caught my attention.

These were Coca-Cola’s Premier League promotional cans. They happened to be facing the wrong way round. From that angle, most of the familiar brand assets had disappeared. At a glance, it looked closer to Karma Kola than Coke.

There’s been understandable debate about Heineken’s decision to alter London Underground signage as part of its media idea.

The core concern is accessibility. Any change to a system people rely on for navigation, especially passengers with disabilities, deserves scrutiny. That’s not noise. That’s a legitimate constraint that brands should take seriously. And yes, some elements of the execution feel clunky. Not every adaptation lands cleanly. Not every asset looks elegant when stretched across a network designed for clarity, not creativity.

Marie Curie’s fashion-led shop, Edit, is a sharp piece of category thinking disguised as retail. I happened to pass it a couple of weeks ago. If you don’t know what you’re looking at, you could mistake it for a small, well-curated independent fashion boutique rather than the charity shop it is. Which is exactly the point.

This isn’t just about better rails, nicer lighting, or improved merchandising standards. Those are table stakes. What Edit really changes is the reason someone gives themselves to step inside.

Challenger brands are everywhere, but real challengers are becoming increasingly rare.  When a rebel brand starts to scale, the slow creep towards beige and bland begins. Then comes the copycat retailers, corporate takeovers, outsourced ‘craft,’ and lost culture.

In this fireside chat, Sauce Shop co-founder Pam Digva and marketing strategist Gareth Turner (Big Black Door) debate how indie brands keep their soul and protect distinctiveness when you hit the supermarket shelves, and why so many “challengers” quietly become caricatures of themselves. This is a no-fluff, no-PR-spin session featuring new research for SXSW on how brand leaders can stay truly distinctive.

Gingerbread has officially escaped the biscuit tin. Asda’s declared a “gingerbread takeover” (thegrocer.co.uk), Nestlé’s coated KitKats in it, Pepsi’s even bottled it and Doritos have given it a crunch! 

Walk any supermarket aisle right now and it’s clear that gingerbread is leading the flavour pack for Christmas 2025. Once the preserve of iced houses and festive biscuits, it’s now turning up everywhere from bakery to soft drinks. Comfort, nostalgia and warmth, gingerbread offers it all. 

Digital is not a f***ing strategy.

Louder for those at the back.

I spent 2 days hosting a stage at DMWF in New York a week or so ago. Different time zone  same marketing truth: channels change, fundamentals do not. If you want growth, keep you’re a firm hold of the brand building basics basics.

We went along expecting to be wowed by new tech wizardry and techniques for growing your brand, but there was a suprising (to me anyway) and refreshing theme that emerged.

The red thread:  Almost every session circled the same core ideas: understand real people, reach as many of your category buyers as you can for the budget available, show up with a clear story, and give it time to work. The tactics flex by platform. The principles do not.

Few confectionery brands inspire as much affection as Terry’s Chocolate Orange. With around nine million UK households buying one each year (source: confectionery news), it’s a firm Christmas classic. But with that love also comes a problem: how do you grow a brand that’s so tightly tied to one flavour and one season?

I love a little ‘surprise and delight’ on a piece of packaging – especially in the mundane moments of the everyday..

A little detail not everyone will notice! It won’t necessarily drive choice or hit a measurable KPI, but it is what separates brands from products. It’s about bothering to try to create a relationship with the consumer after you got them to take you home…

After decades leading campaigns for brands like Heineken, Arla and Weetabix, there’s one lesson I’ve seen prove itself again and again: Simple wins. Every time.

In marketing, it’s easy to equate complexity with intelligence. We’re surrounded by strategy decks, frameworks, and the pressure to be clever. So we layer on extra features, extra messages, extra channels – hoping to impress. But more often than not, “more” gets in the way. Because while you might live and breathe your brand, your audience doesn’t.

They’re busy. They’re distracted. And blunt truth they don’t care as much as you do.

A great product alone cannot guarantee attention. Growth comes from delivering the right message, in the right place, at the right moment. Three tools work together to achieve this outcome: a comms hierarchy, a focused comms plan and a balanced messaging strategy. And here’s a link to some of the templates we’ve used over the years to help get this right.

Every millimetre on a pack is prime real estate. If a line, icon or logo can’t prove it’s driving choice, it distracts and should be removed. Take BrewDog’s new look: the cans carry a “Brewed Fresh” lock up. Nice sentiment, but does it tell shoppers anything that any other brewer wouldn’t do by default, or is it just squatting on space that could work harder?

Rebrands seem to be everywhere right now. But that doesn’t mean they’re always the right move.

We’ve noticed a wave of FMCG brands refreshing their visual identities in the past 12 months. Cleaner designs, pastel tones, and nature-inspired storytelling are in. Tone of voice is getting warmer. And there’s a growing trend towards “heritage with a twist” – modernising without losing the brand’s roots.