If it doesn’t scare you now, it won’t scare your competitors later

Last week, Clare Leeland, our Sales Director stepped outside her usual brand and packaging design space to dive into the broader world of marketing at the Festival of Marketing in London. Here are Clare’s top takeaways from some of the most thought-provoking talks, quoted directly from the experts themselves.

How to build a disruptive brand: Gymbox

Rory McEntee, Brand & Marketing Director, Gymbox

‘Disruption is not for the faint hearted. You’re going to f*** off a lot of people. Be unapologetically different. Ask for forgiveness, not permission. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. It’s easy not to be different enough, because you’re scared of offending people. Disruption isn’t for every brand. If you’re in financial services, this strategy probably isn’t for you.’

Rory’s talk started with a bang. He explained that only 15% of the population have a gym membership and Gymbox’s edgy proposition and locations only appeal to a niche within that small market. So it’s easy to f*** people off.

Gymbox brands itself as “the antidote to boring gyms,” which invites complaints about loud music and excessive lighting. Rory’s attitude is simple: “If you don’t like it, then leave and join Pure Gym.”

Disruption, he argued, is about doing something new and being fearless in the process. Rory shared an idea he had to advertise on the top of a bus, which he mocked up, pitched it internally, and admits he should have checked that it was possible to do, first.

Although his media team confirmed you can’t advertise on top of bus, Rory did it anyway with a manipulated image. Gymbox received a media backlash, and as a result, a lot of PR. Rory confirms it was the best ROI (return on investment) he’s ever had.

His final note: Have some fun with your marketing. Make people smile.

How AI Personas are about to change the world

Marcos Angelides, Co-Managing Director, Spark Foundry

Conversations are currently focussed on generative AI as a business tool. But how are AI relationships shaping people’s lives?

Character.ai, for instance, has over 200 million monthly visits from people seeking AI friendships. These personas are not just fictional – AI can embody real and fictional people from the past or present, allowing you to interact with historical figures like Sherlock Holmes or Cleopatra as if they were mentors.

And there’s serious money involved, Lil Miquela, a digital persona (pictured below) made over £10m in brand endorsements, well not her, she’s not real, her marketing team, did.

Looking ahead, how will AI influence shopping? What role will a brand have, when shopping becomes about ingredients being listed and ordered by AI?

Personal shopping assistants will become the norm. Amazon is expected  to launch its own AI-powered shopping assistant in a few months.

Custom personas are next. Soon, you’ll be able to customise your AI persona – imagine Steve Jobs as your personal mentor, offering advice based on every public statement he’s ever given, tailored to you.

The benefit is, AI has no human bias. If you ask it “this is my plan, what have I overlooked?” don’t be surprised by the answers. While we may not like hearing uncomfortable truths from a robot, AI’s impartiality can provide valuable insights. This is why AI therapy tools are proving to be popular – people are more comfortable sharing their true thoughts with a non-human entity.

Stop data gazing, start creating

Dr Helen Edwards, Associate Professor of Marketing

We love data, research, and analysis but it can’t provide ‘the answer’. Dr Helen Edwards emphasised the role of creativity in driving breakthrough marketing strategies – whether it’s brand strategy, communications, innovation, process or even pricing.

If data doesn’t give us the answers we want, we gather more data, and that creates the sense of moving but not going anywhere.

The solution is to accept that data gives you great questions but no answers.

Good answers need creativity – no amount of marketing science will work without imagination. Are we losing this ability because we’re obsessed with data?

Why does creativity feel uncomfortable? The clichés don’t help, because they’re how you want to feel, not practical instructions.

If you believe creativity is ‘only for creative types’, then you’re being defeatist. Think of it as commercial creativity. And that requires being very honest about creating something consumers care about.

Marketers love positivity and hope. The reality is: your customers are customers of other brands who occasionally buy yours. That’s brutal honesty that can drive a creative outcome.

Helen explained that a great example is Toucan, a language-learning app that discovered its users couldn’t commit to learning a language for more than 10 minutes consistently every day.

But the same people are online, browsing the web every day, sometimes for hours. So, Toucan created a plug-in that translates 1 in 10 words of any article, so you can lean new words, in the context of what you’re already reading. This is the epitome of understanding your consumer, and creating a product that makes their lives easier.

Her advice is, if your ideas don’t scare you and everyone says ‘that’s nice’, then it’s probably not a good idea. If it doesn’t scare you now, it won’t scare your competitors later.

It will be interesting to see how these insights could start to influence not only the broader marketing landscape but also brand and packaging design in the near future.