Standout branding in the digital era with Laura Weldon

In this episode of Delivered,  you can learn about branding that drives business growth and how to get your message across all channels and touchpoints in the digital-first economy. 

We sat down with Laura Weldon, founder and creative director at Studio LWD. With over 15+ years of experience, she’s helped build some of the world’s most iconic brands, such as Virgin, Nike, Tesco, Aldi, and British Council. 

Key learnings:

• Learn what a brand is and its lesser-known elements
• Find out how to establish a brand presence in the digital world
• Understand why brand and product strategy go hand in hand
• Get inspired by real-world success stories and trends in branding

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About Infinum
Delivered is brought to you by a leading digital product agency, Infinum. We've been consulting, workshopping, and delivering advanced digital solutions since 2005.

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Transcript

Hi, Laura.

Welcome to Delivered.

Hi. Nice to have you.

Nice to be here. Thanks.

How are you doing?

I'm very well, thanks. I'm very well.

I'm very excited by this conversation, purely because I love talking about strategy, of course, very biased. Secondly, I get to talk to someone from my part of the world in the UK, the northern, Blackpool area. So it's a nice feeling. So yes, welcome on board.

Thanks, Chris.

Thanks. 

First and foremost, we should probably just talk about brands.Right. You know, brand is your game. Brand is important, and you know what to you, what brand represents and what are those things that brands can bring to a company, big or small.

Well, for me and for all of our clients when I speak to them is that it's kind of, brand is the foundation of your business. It's really integral to everything you do as a business. If you want to grow, if you’re starting out, you know, it needs to be that foundation of everything going forward.

So, what is your brand essence, what do you stand for, what are your values? Who's your audience? Why are people going to buy into and believe in your brand and your business?

So yeah, again, I'm probably biased. Also, for me, it's like the number one most important thing that you need to get nailed. And either for a startup or a business that wants to grow. It's so important. Yeah, absolutely.

And how do you kind of fit into that world? Well, so I've looked obviously at the Studio LWD website. I know your background briefly, but for the listeners at home, let's talk a bit about you and your business.

Yes. So we’re about to celebrate our ten-year anniversary. So a big week for us this week. So, we are a full-service creative agency specializing in obviously, brand and brand strategy. And what we really focus on is how we can align strategy with graphic design. And I think sometimes, there can be a tendency to focus very much on the visual side of things  and the fun, and the pretty part, but without the strategy and the thinking, and the understanding behind it, it can fall down.

So we really focus on bringing those two elements together to look at bringing the return on investment for the businesses that are invested into the brand.

Yeah, that's great. And I think really what resonates with me on that conversation is, you know, at Infinum, we do a lot of strategy around the business. And it could be innovation strategy, it could be, you know, design, strategy, could be anything from validation of an idea or product. And I feel like it also shares the same concept where, like strategy, it might not be everything, but it's in everything. And I think also the idea that you're saying is where brand strategy is like, it's almost the first glimmer of an idea to what the company wants to become,

like an aspiration almost. And I feel like a lot of people look at that and go, yes, it is things like colors and fonts and logos in a very primitive sense, but obviously, there's so much more to that. Maybe we can lean into that conversation a bit more about what a brand brings to a company.

Yeah, well, for me, it's all about giving the company focus. You know, I think especially like If you’re starting out, if you want to grow, you know, we have the tendency that we want to be all things to all people.

And ultimately, you know, we want to generate sales or generate revenue and get money in the bank, which is understandable with businesses.

But without that hyper-focus that strategy brings, we tend to be kind of scrabbling around and, you know, we'll try a bit of this, then we'll try a bit of that.

So, for me, it's giving that real clarity and focus to the business.

So, you know, it's mapping out that day one of who do you want to be, what do you want to stand for, and who are you speaking to? You know, even if you only do those three things, if you think you can't do anything else but do these three things, it'll give you that real clarity in the business.

Now, if you don't know who you’re speaking to, you don’t know how to speak to them. So it starts to unpick lots of different avenues to go down.

And, as you say, there are different types of strategy, but this kind of is like a threadthat runs through everything. So you've got the brand strategy nailed that can then run through innovation strategy or your product strategy or, you know, the digital marketing strategy. But this becomes that kind of thread that weaves in everything for you.

Yeah, absolutely.

And is there any areas  that you think people would not be conscious of is like it's part of a brand strategy because in my mind I think people always lean toward like the visual stuff and you always think, okay, if I'm doing a brand strategy, it's just about visual, you know?

Yeah, obviously, there's much more to that. 

And again, from my inside track of doing strategy for people, I understand there's more to it than that. Maybe that's just like a layer beyond the visual. Like, you know, what else could it bring to a company? 

Yeah, well, for us, when we start with these projects, we always start with strategy. We don't do any visuals. So for us, the visuals are completely off the table. And sometimes, people find that a bit uncomfortable, because, like you say, the colors and the fonts, that's the fun bit. That's the exciting bit. But it is taking that off the table and it's looking at what’s your positioning in the marketplace. What do you want to stand for as a business? Why people are going to believe in you? You know, more and more, we've seen, especially with B Corp, and these are the things that businesses are going for, and people really want to believe and buy into brands. They don't just, you know, they want to understand them or feel that they’re part of something.

Yeah.

So, making sure that that's really clear is key.And that's how you're going to then build this kind of dedicated, brand-loyal audience that will repeat buy, that are going to shout your name from the rooftops and go buy into this brand. It's amazing. So it's about generating that loyalty from day one. And that to me, is more about attitudes and behaviors as opposed to it's a blue logo with a sun. You know, that is just like, I always say that’s like building a house. So that is kind of the furnishing of the house. And the strategy is the actual building of the house, and that's going to be the thing that stands the test of time as opposed to just kind of enticing visuals. And I think that's really important as well, because, with the rise of things like Canva and other things that people can do themselves, it's you know, if you look on Instagram now or you know, any of the social channels, you'll start seeing a sea of things that all the same brands are starting to all look the same. And that's because there's no real strategy behind it. They don't really understand what they're trying to do. So then it becomes a that looks good. Let's try a bit of that, you know, there's no real purpose there.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it makes me think about, you know, we can have a talk about anything, brand-based, about talking about the golden circle, right. You know, the classic Simon Sinek. How, what, and why. I can't imagine how many times I've had to run that exercise. And I think you're right. I mean, looking at, like, what you're saying there and what we do, I guess the Infinum’s point of view, what we have kind of is like a process of analyzing the business, doing the market research, doing the validation of a product or an idea, then building like a solution and blueprint. I don't almost imagine brand or branding strategy would sit at every phase of that, essentially where you would always have the brand’s goal, and the brand’s narrative wrapped into it. I think that's a really good learning from my point of view already. Yeah, well that for me, that should always, you know, when you're giving those pieces, it should always be coming back to that brand.

So it should be, you know, if you're then building out your kind of product strategy that needs to be, sense-checked by the brand strategy. So, you know, this is the product strategy, but is it hitting is it aligning with the brand values of who we are? Is it aligning with that brand manifesto and our essence? And ultimately, is it going to appeal to our target audience that we've mapped out in the strategy?

So I would say that's kind of like that. It's like a checklist. That makes it sound really unsexy, but it is it's like the checklist to say if it doesn't meet these criteria, that’s laid out in the brand guidelines. Then it's not right. It's, you know, it needs to be tweaked to make it work.

Yeah.

So it becomes again, it becomes that kind of hyperfocus and guiding light for you to help you. And then it should make those or that strategy pieces, like the innovation and product, It should ultimately make that slightly easier to do because you're not starting with a blank piece of paper every single time. Yeah, I think that's right. 

And I think sometimes you have to, you know, I wish everything was, you know, quote unquote sexy that you do. But I think sometimes, like, what we are here to do is de-risk companies. And again, that's an equally unsexy word. But when I'm talking about strategy to people is that it's like, yes, you can go and do anything, but the margin of error is going to be significant if you follow a process, i.e. a strategy of any magnitude,especially one that’s layered, multiple strategies, you're going to just bring that risk down and hedge your bets in a much more positive way. So I totally subscribe to that, that mindset.

I think also, you know, in terms of branding as a principle, I imagine as well that you could, you know, debate that it's useful externally to talk to the right people in the right way, but equally probably as powerful internally inside a company, right, fostering a culture that they want to, you know. Yeah, I would say we've seen a massive shift in this over the years, especially since that, you know, the pandemic.

And I would say. Probably if you asked this question five years ago I'd say it's probably like 20% internal and 80% external kind of the weighting of how important it is, I would say it's pretty much getting to that 50-50 mark now. You know, we're building teams that are a lot more open to remote working, hybrid working, You know with people, staff all over the world. Now they're not all just sat in a little office together. So how do you build that team culture? How do you get that buy-in where again, everyone is kind of living and breathing your brand?

Because if the internal staff aren't living and breathing the brand, how is that going to be communicated externally? So for me, I'd say it's just as important because if your team isn’t living and breathing it, then you’re definitely not gonna be communicating it properly. So it's really important how you can build that and employee culture. And that's not to say, you know, we're going to put brand guidelines on a big wall, so everyone can read them every day. Yeah, I'm sure people have all been in offices like that where there’s just poster on the wall.

Yeah.

You know, there's more engaging ways in which you can do it. But again, it comes back to that, that foundation of who we are, what do we stand for and what do we want our team to believe in? It's not always about target audience. So what we start doing now is when we're mapping out the target audience,  one of the audiences is internal, so we will map that out, so how does this work internally? What you know, how do we gauge the team internally? What do we need to do with them? And we also map that out as a separate piece as well, and that’s what often gets missed a little bit and we just focus too much on the external, whereas I personally think it is important to have both really.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I'm just thinking about my visits to consultancies in the past, you know, the big fives and it's like, yeah, first and you see is those lists, is that brand statements in the lobby. That’s not right or wrong, it's just like, you know, it's observation, but you know, and I guess I guess what's interesting to me as well is, you know, like you're saying, since post-COVID, since, you know, the world is now even more digital, if you are, for example, let's say a small to medium-sized business, you know, you have a presence of sorts online. It's not very prominent, but it's there.

You have some customer base. You know, how would you then position the brand, o start a brand, let’s call it a facelift or something like that, something that just kind of is in the market, has something there, but it just having like narrative? How does that resonate? I'm thinking more about like products here. When we talk about products, we're always looking at like the user stories and the user, you know, journey maps. We can't position a story for that user, but I guess for a company, the brand's story, and the brand strategy, it’s that facelift they need. They need to kind of externalize their dreams and vision. So how, how would you start that?

Yeah, well, we have we always look. So I like you said that it's a product, but the business is the product, so the brand is the product as well. My sense is looking at it as the whole thing

wrapped up, it’s a product in itself. And, again, we just bring it back to, we tend to find that the established companies that need that facelift, that need that refresh you would presume that you've got okay, you've got you've got the strategy, let's see your strategy let's see your guidelines. Let's see what's got what's going on. Let’s see what’s in order. And then we can see where the holes are. I would say 75% of the time. They’ve still got no strategy. If these big guys don't have one. Yeah, and then they’re like, what strategy, we don't have that. So it's about looking at that, if you do have a strategy as well, we’re saying you need to be looking at it probably every 18 months, two years. What's going on now. The world's changing and as we all know, it's changing at such a rapid pace year on year, it seems to change quicker and quicker and quicker. So we need to make sure that we are, you know, going back, checking it. So I think people tend to think that once it's done, it's done, and it's filed on a server, and it's always an asset, like a book or guidelines. It's like yeah, we’ve done it, tick, that job's done, but you need to be living and breathing it. Yes, it’s something organic that needs to, you need to grow with it, and it also needs to grow with you. So it is kind of a two, two-way approach, I think really, making sure that it grows together, I think is the best way of thinking about it. 

Yeah, I really like the idea because we have this like our brand strategy, and brand narrative has the statement neverstop, you know, Infinum, etc. And I think that is a really pointed thing that you're right and no thing actually is ever done or ever perfect. And, you know, businesses and products continue. So for me, it's like, yeah, that's really, really important for people to understand. And you're right, a lot of times I'm talking to clients about how to build strategies. Or just build, you know, an idea or a plan. And I think that education piece is really what I think the first hurdle starts is like, okay, let's come together and figure out what we're doing and why. But actually, I just start with like, what's the point of doing any of this stuff in terms of the education?

Yeah, because I think once you have that, then essentially you have good filters to go on. Is the client the right client or not essentially because they either prescribe to that method or they don't you know, as we know, the risk is dropped massively. yeah and but even I'm not like sure if the client is a good client or not it's it's sometimes they don't know. So it's taking them on that journey and we've had so many clients at the beginning that have been really hesitant. I mean this isn't for us just, just do us a logo. It doesn't really work like that and right. And so sometimes it's also about educating the client and bringing them on that journey with you. And because some people just don't know what they need to do, you know, if you're like me, someone asking me to fix a car, I don't know how to do it. You know, this is this is our skillset. So sometimes it is it's about educating the client as well.

And that's something that we do a lot here is that we kind of bring the client on the journey with us and make sure that they're involved. All touchpoints, you get them. It's a really collaborative process. Yeah, I think the danger sometimes where we see projects going, we've seen projects go wrong, and the clients and they've come to us and said we've had a nightmare. This hasn't worked. And it's because the agency has worked in silos away from the client. And I think that's when that danger happens. So as long as it's being approached in a really collaborative, open discussion and I believe there's no bad clients, maybe that's just me wearing rose-tinted glasses this morning. But yeah, I think, it’s about education and holding people's hands and taking them on that journey with them.

Yeah, I do love that. I mean, it's one of my favorite metaphors ever when I'm talking about doing workshops and discoveries like in the journey together and the metaphor of like, pick your favorite movie. It's even like a Star Wars thing or Lord of the Rings, there is a guide, heroes. I think that's so true, and I think I do love the optimism actually. In fact, it's really effective. I do feel like, yeah, you're right, maybe there is no bad clients. It's just a process that maybe isn't so great that then discourages them to join the journey or the right journey. 

Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Interesting. 

Yeah. So I guess let’s say strategy is one thing, education is the other, but together that's where the magic happens. That's a big part of it. Yeah, it really is just that open dialog and communication and, and also making sure we get feedback before. And clients have come to us and said, you know, we've worked with other agencies that made us feel stupid. And I always am like,  I think it's about having that open dialogue where they feel they can ask. But you know, we live and breathe this every day. Don't we? We might use terminology that is alien to people, if it's not their day-to-day, you know, it's not their day-to-day role. So I think it's again, it sounds very cheesy, but it's like making it a safe space that you can just say, I'm not sure what that is. Is that okay? And again, you can have these open conversations. And I think that that's so important for us as well is making sure that they feel heard and involved and part of the process. Yeah, it's interesting drawing the parallel because I think it is a part of it is like coaching unofficially when you're talking with clients.

But I think equally on the brand side of things, it's almost a similar journey for their clients and customers. It's like you probably need to communicate clearly, like yes, what you're about, but equally the education of what you're selling, why you're selling it as well. So it is a kind of a dual-track education, I suppose.  I feel like we had a bit of a lightbulb moment. So yeah, that's a really good point. So just to dial into like, you know, you know, I’ll lean to the product world a bit more, just to be a little bit more Infinum-centric for a second. So we have a brand strategy, you have a brand strategy, and that's great to know where to go, there’s a guide there. How does that, how would that essentially affect things like features and functions and the technical things that would create a product, for example, like do they have a parallel or no?

Yeah, I believe they do. So if it was something like, say, you mapping out that features and functionality of a product, you know, part of the brand strategy is the audience. So for me, it would be starting with that audience. If you're mapping out a product for, for children let’s say the functionality of that is going to be very different from say there's an elderly generation that are not tech savvy. So again, you would know all this in the strategy, this would be mapped out. Who they are, what age they are, what do they do, what are their likes, dislikes. So you would use that as a basis then of kind of, okay, well, this is the basis of who they are. So we've already got that information with the strategy. And then we'd also look at the kind of the brand personality and the tone of voice. So from a functionality point of view or even messaging in the product in the way that we’re like conveying things.

Yeah. Okay.

So we know the brand personality is fun and energetic and engaging, so we'll maybe make some of the functionality represent that or it's very professional. So there’s things that you can bring in from the brand strategy, such as the tone of voice guidelines, audience, and overall essence of the brand that would then help implement the product as well. You can kind of bring that information out of the guideline, the strategy, sorry, to then start to build the blocks for the product strategy.

Yeah, I love that.

And I guess really the ultimate goal here is and it's the dreaded moment of truthwhen all this lines up, it's the launch day of a particular brand product business, whatever. I guess for me,

the brand's part of that has to be so baked, integrated into the product and business at that stage. So when they go live, you know, so, you know, maybe talk a little bit about experience on that front as are launching these things, products, businesses, etc. Yeah, I think for me that I think people get really bogged down with launch. Everything has to be perfect. You know, it's got to be absolutely spot on. And yeah, I don't think we've ever launched anything perfectly.

So I know that’s bad advertisement for us. But you know, things will never be perfect and you need to kind of, need to launch it, test it, refine and go again  You know, we can't it's never going to be perfect. And I think sometimes when we have clients and it's they've delayed and delayed this isn't quite right, I think as long as it’s pretty much there. And you know, we’re solid with the brand, it's cohesive, it's consistent consistency is something I bang on about all the time. It's probably the most boring word ever, but you have to be consistent.  You know, people are looking at, you know, buying a product, downloading a digital product, you must be consistent across these touchpoints, across all these channels, across your email marketing. You know how we build this consistent brand journey for people throughout product and then marketing and things like this. 

So my advice would always be don't try and get too bogged down on the launch. It becomes, you know, for the people involved, it's almost like D-Day and, you know, the world's going to change when this happens. You always press that and then you're like, anticlimax. Oh, hi. It's still Monday afternoon. And, you know, Yeah. So I think the danger is that, the only issue I see is that then once it's launched, then people just leave things, that is like the worst thing that you could do.  So like I said, with strategy, with the product, with product strategy, anything, once it's done, that's not, you don't just tick that box and say, we've done that job, let's do something else. You need to keep sense-checking these. You need to be looking at the data, what's working, what's not working? How to constantly make this better, to strive to deliver a better product or better service, or a brand. So yeah, for sure. 

And it's a couple of points there that sort of make me smile from history of doing these things. It's like, right, like that D-Day thing is massive. And the funny thing is when you launch stuff, usually, no one cares in the world more about this launch, whatever it is, more than you, because it's your thing. But like you say, everyone else is like it's just a thing happening somewhere in the ether. But yeah, we have this statement in kind of workshops that we run. It's like, you know, it's better to start than make it perfect, because I think that's the hardest thing, like just getting going and then like you're saying. Layering and consistency after that, that’s key to keep that momentum up, and the right process and the right, you know everything. Let's go with it. So I think, yeah, you're right completely on that front. And I guess also just a touch on this and get more context. You have any stories of I guess, you know, your company, for example, transforming a business with branding. You know, you're transforming in, you know, the lightest term. It’s a massive word, but you know what I'm saying? You've rolled it in, and it's made a significant differenc to them as a company.

Yeah.

So, gosh. There are so many of them. Great advertising. How egotistical is that answer? You know I think, yeah there is a couple that stand out. So there’s one that we worked with and they were really small. You know, they wanted to kind of grow and they had a great management team in place and there was about 20 of them and they've since grown to about 250 staff. And, and for us, the great thing with them was that they really bought into what we were doing. They didn't quite understand it. It was massively out of their comfort zone. They worked in manufacturing.  You know, you couldn't get more polar opposites of what we do, what they do. But they were willing to go on the journey. They were willing to go on the journey, they were willing to be educated and learn and they also were willing to kind of keep finessing and refining. 

So we tend to find the ones that don't always work the best is that once it's done is that they are almost like especially with us, they’re like thanks, guys. You've done your bit, and the ones that we can build that lasting partnership and lasting relationship that just really, really helps because, you know, we can all work together and bring the best minds to the table to help kind of. And again, it helps with that return on investment. But yeah, it is about getting that kind of the ones that were the best is when it is that buy-in that we’re all together working to the same page you know we may not understand everyone's bits but as long as we're working together and that's also not just for the client but we're collaborating with other agencies as well. So we'll do our bit, there might be a digital agency that comes in. There might be guys like yourself that are coming into work on the product side of it and the innovation side of it. And for me again, it is making sure that everyone is collaborating and having those open conversations to do the best for that end product and brand, whatever the end result is, all working towards that as one common goal. And sometimes, I’ve seen in the past that that's not always the case. I don't know if you had that.

You know, there is that danger sometimes when other agencies come in and that collaboration can either be amazing or it can be the opposite of that. So yeah, it varies. It's all about working together for that common goal really. That's a very, I love that beautiful message. It's about collaboration, right? That is so true, to answer your question. Yes. Like I've had a lot of experience where you know it's been. There's been an agency, there has been a horror story, there's been a thing, or you're on a project and other agencies coming in and it just kind of that awkwardness between it because you're both agencies and it's like, well, why are we doing all the work, you know?

Yeah, Mexican standoff.

Absolutely. Yeah.

But you're right in terms of like in terms of the, taking the branding strategy principles, it's like, okay what you really good at is your target audience, and they might be an agency in another sense you know but they're not, they’re different. They have different, you know, audience, a different skill set. So yeah, I mean, you're right. I think if collaboration is key. That’s a beautiful message we get out of all of this. I guess just like a, riding high on that message, you know, is there anything, any kind of advice you would just give, you know, either as an early stage, in fact, in any shape or size, right, that you say it's, no matter where they are in the journey, is there just some initial words of wisdom from your experience you would just bestow upon companies to say, okay, this is what you should be doing if you want to get your branding stuff in order. 

Yeah, I’d say give us a call first. So now I think I think it's sitting down with the team and seeing if you can carve out a budget for this. You know, I think these sort of things is something that people tend to think they can do themselves, like with things like Canva and stuff like that and that is very much like this kind of DIY sort of. So, which is fine for the visual side of it. I think the strategy side of it, definitely invest in an expert if you can.

If not, get on YouTube and watch as many videos, read as many books, you know, The Brand Gap, Start With Why,  there’s all those books that we can speak about. Try and educate yourself if you can't afford to invest in an expert. But yeah, I think it is really about kind of having that expert touch. And even if you’re going and seeing speakers going to events that do these things, and just trying to gain as much advice and knowledge as you can yourself, I think that's really important. Another key thing, if you are trying to do it yourself, is research, again boring, but I love research, It’s the cornerstone of everything we do.

Yeah yeah you know and you know you can do your research, understand the market you're going into, or just the market currently in, what are you competitors doing what are you who are your audience what are they buying into. Where are they spending all their money. You know, how can you get them to spend on your business or product. So, really nail that research

You know that is something you can do yourself or with your team internally. But all this information and data should start then to help you build up a picture of what you need to be doing. And then if you've got that, that would then help you to go to an agency. This is what we're trying to do. You know, if you are struggling with making that investment, Absolutely.

It's very well said.

And I think it's actually a perfect segue way for we have we have some questions from various viewers who have companies. They have challenges and who better than Laura Weldon to answer these questions. So I'm going to read you a couple of these out and then see where it lands. So Luca has asked, I have a SaaS business. It's just starting out. We’re at the MVP stage. We have a product, we have a potential investment coming up. We've never done anything on branding, and we have an idea of who we want to target. It's going to be a dating app which also has a stigma attached to it, dating apps. Where do we begin to carve out a plan for these products you know, at branding level.

Yeah.

Okay so, and did he say, Luca, hi Luca, I would say just what we're saying. That's the research. First thing do you research. Go, go on. You know, look at all the other products that are in this market. What are they doing, What does their, you know, start with the top easy things. What does the brand look like? What's the message, and how are they speaking? What type of personality do you think they are who are they aiming themselves at? Who is their audience?

And then, do you want to slot into that? Do you want to be a challenger brand? Do you want to be a disruptive brand? What is your kind of route into the market? Are you coming in to say those dating apps have all got it wrong, and we're going to get it right. You know, what is your message? What is your hook? And I, we always say that could easily be you start,  and then see where you want to sit in that marketplace or where would you sit around everyone else.

And, you know, what do you want to stand for? I think that’s the, you know, some quick wins that you’d be able to do yourself and then really start nailing down and drilling down into the details of the audience and who they are, what do they like. And the danger is, people always just look at the market that you’re going into, but also look at that kind of peripheral market. So, you know, you are competing for people to buy your product or sign up for your product. What all the things you're competing against, are those lifestyle products or, you know, food or anything, all the things that, don't just look at your market, look at a wider market as well.

I think that's a really great advice and hopefully that is something that powers Luca's business. I have to say, and I think I have one more question from another Laura actually. That’s not you, is it? Yes.

So Laura says, I have an international business, which is basically around painting and paints and textiles. It's like a chemical business. It's a very old business. The brand has not been touched for at least 20 years, give or take, and it's time to bring it into the new, you know, the new 21st century look and feel to kind of give them a better look and a better, I guess, modern approach. Where would a business that’s already been around for a long time you know, start in that case.

Oh, that's a really interesting one. And I was just reading last week about the Johnson Johnson rebranded and if you've seen that, but they've changed the logo, so that was like a big thing where this is heritage logo that's been for hundreds of years. They’ve changed it. And so my thing on that would always be don't change anything that's not broken. So don't have a reaction of, you know, it's 20, yeah did you say 20 years old, and we, therefore, need to look modern and funky. I think it's again bringing it back a step. So, don't think about the visuals,  you know, map out the audience. So is then what you've got visually going to appeal to the audience Are you looking at going into new audiences? Are you trying to get maybe a younger demographic involved? Definitely do some market research as well. You've been going for so long. Speak to current customers, clients. What do they like? What do they not like? And again, start to build that picture. And then it might be that it's just a slight brand refresh where, you know, you might keep logo as it is, but then we're just bringing in some nice colors and photography and making you a little bit more modern. Or it might be that everything gets thrown out the window, and you’re starting again. You know, take a step away from the visual for now and do that research. So who is your audience? What kind of markets are you going into? Is it new markets and then start to build a picture from there? But I do we do see this a lot where people will get bored of the brand, you know, they’ve got it for ten years or whatever, they’re fed up of seeing it, you know, every single day for the last ten years. And so make sure you're speaking to your customers as well.  And also if you are going into new markets, or to new customers, speak to potential new customers as well. How do you speak to these people? So if you are saying going into a younger market, can you market test your current brand with them? Say, what do you think of this? What does this make you think or feel? And so it is a decision grounded in kind of facts and data rather than something emotional and subjective. That is, I just don't like this anymore.

Yeah, I think that's really good advice. And I think that, again, hopefully, empowers the other Laura to go off and make changes to her business and yeah, and to make positive change. So I guess that's really it, Laura I’m gonna wrap it there because I’m conscious of your time,

I know you're a super busy person, and thank you again for the time. It's been beautiful to have a good conversation about strategy as always, and where can people find you online, etc. for your world and what you do. 

So, you can go on our website, which is studiolwd.co.uk, or you can find us on Instagramor you can find me LinkedIn. So Laura Weldon, I’m every day on LinkedIn. So if you want any gems or knowledge for branding, we share lots of helpful information on there. And so feel free to give me a follow. That’s great Laura, thanks again.