Towards the end of last year, we took the leap and decided to overhaul the office. Before we got the sledgehammers out and started knocking down walls (fun!), we finally had to sort out the bookshelves (no fun).

What started as a boring task quickly became a pleasure. Sifting through pages we hadn’t seen for years, we found a few favourites to share:

Marty Neumeier – The Brand Gap

The brand-building bible. A sermon on substance. Marty closes the gap between business strategy and brand strategy – making it easy to see how all the parts fit together. Thousands of us have tried to explain that a logo is not a brand, but never quite as well as this…

David Crystal – Words Words Words

If you like words you’ll love this book. Where they come from, what they mean, why we enjoy them, how they evolve, how we play with them. It’s just a lovely little book packed with great anecdotes and guaranteed to rekindle your love of language.

“Words aren’t harmful. They are, after all, only mouthfuls of air, handfuls of marks on a surface, or clusters of pixels on a screen. It is the people who control the mouths, hands, and screens that are the problem.”

Matthew Syed – Rebel Ideas

This one’s a real eye-opener. From the CIA to Johan Cruyff, via the Google HQ and an Everest rescue operation – Syed shows us how diversity can help remove blinkers and reveal blind spots. It’s a warning against building a kowtowing culture – and a little glimpse into the power of diverse teams who have the freedom to disagree.

Ed Catmull & Amy Wallace – Creativity, Inc

A must-read for anyone building a creative business. Half handbook on running a creative company, half behind-the-scenes exposé on life at Pixar. Packed with a tonne of useful little nuggets and funny stories.

Alan Fletcher – The Art of Looking Sideways

The heaviest book on the list, this is one to keep handy – in case you ever need a weapon, or just a little boost of imagination. 530+ hardbacked pages of playfulness, this self-proclaimed ‘primer in visual intelligence’ reads like a giant scrapbook of ideas, words and visuals. All jumbled together and bound into a paper soup. In a good way.

Les Binet & Sarah Carter – How Not to Plan

There’s no shortage of thought-leading nonsense in the world of strategy and planning. This book is the perfect antidote. A myth-busting guide, each chapter takes an often-repeated, seldom-worthwhile slice of ‘wisdom’ and rips it up. Challenging assumptions, using evidence, and setting out a better way of doing things. You’d be hard-pushed to find a more practical and useful planning book.

“Anyone could be called Les Binet or Sarah Carter. But over time our names accrue meaning. And we grow to own them. So let’s stop ducking responsibility. When next presented with a potential end-line, the right question isn’t ‘Is it own-able?’, it’s ‘How can we own it?’”

Dave Trott – One + One = Three

A collection of immensely readable anecdotes of creative thinking in all walks of life. The book’s philosophy and content can be summed up in this one quote from the intro: “The more varied the input, the more unexpected the combinations, the more creative the ideas.”

Jeff Tweedy – How to Write One Song

Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy’s book of songwriting tips serves as a great little intro to any creative pursuit. He strips away the mystery and fear, and gives away practical tips to get started, to make creativity part of your everyday, and to keep going despite the tricky bits.

“We have a choice – to be on the side of creation, or surrender to the powers that destroy.”

John Hegarty – Hegarty on Creativity

A collection of 50 provocative little thoughts gleaned from decades at the top of the ad industry. All the advice you could ever need is in these pages.

“Inspiring people isn’t a mathematical process. You’ve got to surprise yourself as well as your audience. There is a randomness to creating that must be celebrated not scorned.”

James Webb Young – A Technique for Producing Ideas

Just 48 tiny pages. And with big writing too. First published in 1965, you can dust this one off in an hour or so but it’ll be a really valuable hour. A step-by-step guide to coming up with new ideas. Love the notion of the ‘mental digestive process’.

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Last week, our Head of Creative and Strategy, Dave King, chatted about branding and food provenance at The Knowledge Bank, delivered by Scotland Food & Drink Partnership.

Dave’s talk, part of the Profiting from Provenance session, focused on what we do best – getting to the guts.

On the face of it, food provenance is about where the food is from. Scottish products aren’t shy about showing their colours these days. It’s common to see saltires on packaging and places in names – from Scottish salmon to Ayrshire bacon. But how can you take it further?

The origin story

It all starts with seeing provenance as more than a place…

Your brand is a shortcut for shoppers. A hook that helps people remember you. From a brand point of view then, provenance isn’t a place. Provenance is your origin story.

It’s Peter Parker getting bitten by a radioactive spider. It’s Batman’s mum and dad getting gunned down in a Gotham alleyway. It’s your blockbuster biopic peeking behind the scenes of your formative years.

Closing the gap

From Rocketman to Ray, biopics sell like crazy. They add context, layers, and depth to a star’s story but, most importantly, they reveal truth where there was mystery. And they add some much-needed empathy where there was apathy.

Getting back to food and drink for a second – the modern shopper is about as disconnected from food and drink production as we are from celebrities. A good origin story can close that gap, helping us remember you and choose you.

It takes confidence and transparency to show off your origin story, and that gives us shoppers confidence in the quality of your products and the ethics behind them.

But is it relevant?

Work forward from your origin story and back from the consumer story. Rinse and repeat til they overlap in an interesting way. If you do, you’ll find you suddenly have something with genuine and intriguing depth and substance – we call it guts. You’ll have something people might just believe in and connect with, something uniquely yours that couldn’t belong to anyone else.

The relevance of your origin story is where your power really lies. How strong a link can you find between your origin story and your consumer proposition?

While competitors will always be trying to muscle in on your consumer proposition and your product range, it’s very hard for them to take your origin story with it. Can you honestly imagine trying to sell another story about a bloke getting bitten by a spider and turning into a superhero?

All killer no filler

Like any good biopic, you need to find the drama – think of it like the Rocky IV training montage. Ok, the metaphor isn’t perfect – Rocky Balboa is, unfortunately for planet Earth, not a real boxer – but the montages are the perfect example of cherry-picking the interesting bits in a process. You don’t have to summarise the whole thing, you just need to find the little gems that tell people something about you. Rocky chops wood and runs in the snow, surrounded by his family and friends, while Ivan Drago is rigged up to a high-tech machine surrounded by stone-faced scientists with syringes. We’re supposed to believe Rocky is therefore more authentic,
harder-working – the everyman hero.

Find your provenance’s version of that. Who are you as a brand, really?

Your provenance story will be different if you’re, for example, a down to earth, homely brand or, say, a cutting-edge tech enterprise. The crucial part is to find your own version.

Provenance is not for sharing

At a basic level, provenance can lift the whole Scottish food and drink industry. Saltires on stickers and place names on products are definitely effective. But if you dig a little deeper and find a real connection between your brand’s origin story and consumer proposition there’s still plenty of room to stand out with substance.

Real provenance should be yours and yours alone. Real provenance should give you an edge against the competition.

You can get your mitts on a handy PDF version of this blog here

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Today is our birthday and we’re not likely to forget our 17th year in a hurry. Somewhere between the million Zoom calls and the ebb and flow of anxiety, we did some of the gutsiest work we’ve ever done with some of the gutsiest people we’ve ever known.

A huge, huge thank you to everyone who supported us on this rollercoaster year. 🙌

And since the world isn’t quite ready for blowing out candles and sharing cake just yet, we’ll save the party for next year. But for now we’d like to celebrate the two things that matter most to us – looking after our people, and making gutsy work for clients we respect and who respect us…

Substance and Standout

A few of our recent favourites

A rock solid new Volvo Group brand.

Refreshing the Jura Whisky brand.

A blockbuster National Galleries of Scotland campaign.

Sharing seafood’s unsung heroes with Seafish.

Who the LR are we?

A tight-knit team of total troopers. Some of this year’s highlights:

• 🌟 Nic won Rising Creative Star at the Marketing Society Star Awards
• 😎 The incredibly talented quartet of Mel, Ben, Joy and Lisa joined us, and instantly made us 50% cooler
• 🙌 Andy was nominated for Inspirational Agency Leader of the Year
• 👴 Dave celebrated 10 years at StudioLR
• 🎓 Mark, Rhona, Andy and Dave all completed Mark Ritson’s Mini MBA in Marketing (and swear they didn’t copy each other’s answers)
• ❤️ We were named the Marketing Society Scotland’s Employer Brand of the Year

Shout if you want to stand out

Andy@StudioLR.com
Lisa@StudioLR.com
0131 454 3200

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Every successful project starts with a good brief. And every brief should be given a good shake. You never know what’s going to fall out.

Our clients value this process – it usually highlights new angles and opportunities. At worst it makes sure we really understand the brief. Like a pitbull in a butchershop, we don’t stop til we get to the guts.

The line of questioning varies depending on the brief and the brand, but there are themes that always come up. Whether you’re a creative, strategist or marketer looking to bullet-proof your brief, here are over 50 questions to ask yourself…

What is the brief aiming to achieve?

What do we want to happen … what do we want people to do?
Why do we want that?
Is it possible and what are the barriers?
How will success be measured?
Are KPIs already defined and, if so, can they all be realistically affected by this brief?
Is it clear which KPIs are the real priority? (focus is key!)
Are there any other potential outcomes (positive or negative) that haven’t been considered?
Is the belly as big as the eyes? (does the project have the senior backing, timescales and budget to make the impact it aims to?)

What’s the context for the brief internally (for the brand)?

What’s the brand’s big idea? Its focus? 
How does this project tie into that?
Where does this project fit in the full plan? What else is going on around it?
Is it co-reliant on any other project’s progress? 
Why is it happening now?
Has this been tried before? If so was it a success? What can we learn?
Are there any ongoing projects we can learn from or collaborate with?
Are all the right people involved and invested in the project?
Are there any politics around it?
Does this message complement or clash with anything else the brand is doing or saying just now? If so, why?
Does the brand have a clear visual identity and tone of voice?
Is there any good reason to deviate from that? (eg. is it a collaboration?)

What’s the context for the brief externally (for the audience)?

Firstly, do we know enough about the audience? 
What research is available and is it up to date and relevant?
What do the audience currently think?
What led them to think that? 
How deep-rooted are those beliefs or opinions? 
What are we looking to change or build on?
Why should people believe what we say?
What else is going on that could affect the way they think about this? (it could be a competitor offer, new technology, new regulations, cultural/behavioural trends, seasonal changes/events)

Is the medicine right?

Is the brief prescriptive of outputs rather than outcomes?
If so, where did they come from? Are they definitely right for the job?
Is there a better way to reach the audience?

What do we know?

What experience do we have of this type of project or industry?
What can we learn from previous work? 
What precedents are there for this type of project? 

What don’t we know?

What doesn’t add up or make sense?
What are we missing?
Who could help bring this project to life with knowledge we don’t have?

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Intuition is great but everyone else has it too. The most valuable ideas are the ones other people don’t have yet. Finding these stand-out ideas takes a bit of counter-intuitive thinking. Like the Buddhist fishermen who claim to ‘save fish from drowning’, it’s all about finding a new perspective on the familiar. 

Whether you’re just starting out your creative career, or you’re looking to get some fresh ideas into your team, here are a few tips and techniques for generating NEW stand-out ideas. They won’t all work for every person or every subject, try them out with an open mind and see what works for you. Remember, all you’re looking for is the spark of something new, then you can allow your logical brain back in…

3 Top tips for generating stand-out ideas

The golden rule – think first, edit later

Creating and judging are two different things. Never confuse the two and never judge your ideas until you’ve put them down on paper and said them out loud. Your brain is wired to avoid embarrassment and will censor out anything remotely interesting or new if you let it. Do not invite a ‘devil’s advocate’ into idea sessions. They are useful after you have a list of ideas, not during the creative process. All they will do is shut down everyone else’s creativity.

Enjoy it

Don’t be too serious about all of this. Serious makes people nervous and nerves kill ideas – encourage a laugh and the ideas will flow.

“When work sucks, the work sucks”
– George Tannenbaum

Search yourself, not Google

You’d have to be very lucky to find a genuinely new, stand-out idea on Google or Pinterest or Reddit or Twitter. They’re great sources for background info and even audience insights but once you’ve got those, shut the tabs and do some of your own thinking. You can always come back when you’re working up the idea, but for the initial spark nothing beats brains.

8 Techniques to try

Technique 1 – What if it didn’t?

1. List all the expected features of your subject. For example if you’re talking about restaurants, you’d list tables, chairs, menus, chefs, food, etc. Aim for 10 things.

2. Now take those things away one at a time and imagine how your restaurant could still work. For example – maybe a restaurant with no chefs is an open kitchen with ready-recipes and some porters. You book a slot and make dinner with your friends, using the best quality produce and kitchen facilities, the porters take care of the dishes etc and you pay less than normal.

3. Keep repeating Step 2 until you get to an interesting starting point for an idea that you’ve never heard of before – now develop it up.

Technique 2 – Bad ideas

The easiest way to come up with good ideas is to come up with lots of ideas and throw away the bad ones. Build your team’s confidence up by sharing deliberately bad ideas. For example, think of 10 innovative ways to lose a football match, bankrupt a business, or ruin a meal.

Technique 3 – 50 uses for…

1. Get a few sheets of blank paper and pick a simple object to do with your subject. For example, a brick, a spoon, a saw.

2. As fast as you can try to come up with 50 alternate uses for the object. What else could you use the brick for?

Technique 4 – What’s going on in this picture?

1. Find a photograph that relates to your subject and write down what’s happening in the picture.

2. Now make-up 3 alternative explanations of what’s going on in the picture. Be as wild as you can.

3. Now imagine what you’d think was going on in the picture if you were:
a) An alien
b) A child
c) A dog

Technique 5 – Non-stop writing

1. Agree the subject that you’re thinking about and set a timer for 5 minutes.

2. Write about the topic non-stop for 5 minutes – don’t stop to think, don’t lift your pen off the paper. Just write everything that comes into your head to do with the subject. Don’t stop to judge whether it’s good, bad, boring or interesting – write everything.

3. When the timer stops, go back through your notes and circle anything unusual that makes you think about the subject in a new way. Try to develop the circled bits up into an idea.

Technique 6 – Non-stop drawing

Repeat technique 5 but instead of writing for 5 minutes, draw for 5 minutes. 

Technique 7 – Idea swapping

1. Pick a challenge related to your subject – for example ‘ideas for a new restaurant menu theme’.

2. Fold your paper into three columns and on the left column write the numbers 1 to 5. Now quick-fire think of 5 initial ideas and write them beside the numbers.

3. Swap your paper with a colleague. In the second column, they add 5 new ideas based on your 5 original ones. They can vary from slight tweaks to the original ideas, to whole new ideas inspired by them. Repeat with a third partner in the third column. With just 3 people in 15 minutes, you’ll now have the start of 45 ideas. Do it with 10 people and you’ll have a lot more…

4. Gather in all the sheets and review them as a team, circling the interesting starting points and deciding who will go and develop the best ideas.

Technique 8 – Forced connections

1. Make a list of verbs from a certain field, for example sports – jump, punch, kick, pull, lift, bend, climb. Aim for 10.

2. Make a list of nouns to do with the field you’re working on – window, jacket, rug, car, cobbles, radiator, light switch, roadworks. Again, aim for 10.

3. Combine them and see what sticks out as an interesting thought and the starting point for an idea. For example… windows punching holes in walls, roadworks jumping out of the ground, the light switch pulling your room into the light, or your jacket bending your arms behind your back. 

4. Repeat the process with adjectives rather than verbs. So you might end up with a musclebound promise, a tall noise, or an arrogant morning. You’re looking for phrases you’ve never heard before that make you think of something in a new way.

Look for the start, not the end

None of these techniques are going to hand you your golden, stand-out idea on a plate, but collectively they’ll help you find new perspectives, and stop you banging your head against a brick wall. Go easy on yourself. You don’t need to find the final version of the idea or the fully fleshed-out idea, you just need to find the start. Good luck!

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We’ve raised a few eyebrows with all our talk about guts. Particularly when we promised our clients we’ll serve up their guts on a plate. But it’s really not as aggressive or messy as it sounds. At StudioLR, ‘guts’ stands for two things – substance and bravery. If you’re looking to sharpen up your brand and stand-out, here’s where we’d start…

Part 1. Strategic substance
(AKA: Getting to the guts)

Having guts doesn’t mean shouting the loudest, or being the brashest brand in the room. It’s about knowing exactly what you stand for, and having total conviction in it.

It’s a question of focus. Sharp, single-minded focus. What is the one thing you want to be famous for? Don’t confuse narrow with small – a sharp, singular focus will propel you much further than a vague notion. Like a powerful power hose, rather than a sad puddle.

Here’s an example…

Imagine you just wanted your business to behave and be known as ‘good’. Seems fairly safe territory, doesn’t it? But think of the resources you’d have pour into covering all that vague ground. And think of the contradictions you’d have to make to your team and your customers…

• You’d have to prove you were fast and responsive (because that’s ‘good’) but also that you were considered and fastidious with the details (also good)
• You’d have to prove you were big and reliable but also small enough to be personal and to really care
• You’d have to prove you were interested in unity, teamwork, and community but also that you had ‘stand-out’ and valued individualism
• You’d have to prove you took safety and security seriously but also that you took risks to innovate

To be useful, brands have to be much sharper than people.

You’re probably familiar with these ‘everything to everyone’ sorts of strategies. The definition of ‘good’ is so wide that it’s almost impossible to convey and is an instantly-forgettable brand. Brands built on vagueness become walking contradictions that stand for nothing. They’re more expensive to build as they have to cover so much ground. Their employees don’t know what’s expected of them – so they don’t give a consistent service. And their customers don’t feel anything about them beyond the function of the product.

People are walking contradictions. We all are. But people care about people. Nobody inherently cares about your brand. Nobody will devote the time to really get to know every side of your brand. 

A singular, sharp focus will make you stand-out, be memorable and easier for people to understand. And, if you’re really lucky, to relate to too.

Getting to that singular focus takes a lot of gut-digging – poking around deep in the workings of your organisation, asking awkward questions about your leader’s vision, your competitive landscape, and your customer’s wishes. But once we get it, the rest is (almost) easy…

Part 2. Creative bravery 
(AKA: Having guts)

Armed with a single, sharp focus, we put our efforts into magnifying, dramatising, and following through on it – 100%. 

The beauty of focus is that it takes some of the subjectivity out of judging creative work. And it takes some of the personal risk out of making ‘brave’ work. 

We’re no longer looking for ideas we ‘like’, or the ‘best’ ideas. We’re looking for ideas that are right and ideas that are the most [insert your brand focus here].

For example…

If your brand was focused on freedom (like Harley Davidson), whether you’re judging a new product idea, a sponsorship opportunity, a new product name, an ad campaign,  brand identity development – your question is always ‘Is this the most free?’ rather than ‘Is this the best?’ or ‘Do I really like this?’.

Not everyone in your team has to like it. But everyone should remember it. And see how it fits your brand’s sharp focus. Remember, camp-splitting is usually the sign of a high-impact idea – it’s hard to have a genuinely strong opinion on a bland idea.

Focus gives you a license to think big, and create surprising, eye-catching, stand-out work. Safe in the knowledge that it’s underpinned by a sound, consistent strategy. It’s not about a marketer’s ‘bravery’, or willingness to gamble with their career. It’s about their guts to believe in their decisions, to shun vagueness, and to commit to building a sharp, valuable brand.

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