Sonder & Tell is a brand strategy agency that solves problems with stories as a tool. Proud B Corp
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'Hanging around for a stroke of genius is like expecting to find the love of your life while rotting in your PJs on the sofa.' Rae Boocock, 2024. If you've ever wondered where the best ideas come from, this week's Sonder & Tell newsletter doesn't have the answers. But it's a great place to start. Give it a read: https://lnkd.in/eUbRXSuC
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Are you actually creating a category or are you Jojo Siwa? On category creation in this week's Sonder & Tell newsletter: https://lnkd.in/dzDBvQ2P
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💥 Our personality & tone workshop is back 💥 Join Sonder & Tell for a half-day workshop where you'll develop how you show up in the world. You'll leave with a refreshed sense of who you are, how you cut through the noise of competitors, and guiding words for your voice. Plus a follow-up one-to-one to refine thinking from the day. 🗓 when: 14 May, 10-1pm 📍 where: Farringdon DM me if you'd like to find out more! Kate Hamilton Emily Ames Emily Dehn Rae Boocock 🔌 Allie Impey Rosie Cordingley Georgia Marshall
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How to Sell Brand to the CEO 💡 In Agencyland, teams receive briefs with clear challenges. They whip up proposals and get sign off within 2-3 days. The Head of Brand and the CEO are fully aligned. The confirmation is handwritten and delivered by flaming phoenix in a gilded envelope sealed with unicorn tears. Clients don’t live in Agencyland. In reality, everyone has a different challenge they want to solve. And different metrics. There’s a pitch between agency and client; but there’s often a pitch internally between “brand people” and other key stakeholders, too. For those situations, read Sonder & Tell's tips for selling brand to the CEO ⬇️
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The difference between *having* a purpose and being *driven by* purpose is three words and an entire world. All businesses can and should have a purpose – a reason to exist beyond selling their product. But being purpose-driven means that you’re guided by purpose even when profit might be on the line. It’s hard work! Customers don’t always care about it!! That doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do. This week, Sonder & Tell hosted a conversation with our pals Karma Drinks for #BCorp month. After customer insight from GlobalData Plc, we asked Mindful Chef | B Corp, Homethings and Pip & Nut | B Corp to help us unpack purpose and how to talk about it. 1. Purpose might not acquire customers, but it could retain them. Hook customers with the personal motivator first, then talk to them about the good you do along the customer journey. For Mindful Chef, this meant using ‘healthy made easy’ as a lead message and then sharing relevant social impact stories to keep them signed up. 2. People want to hear good news. Especially if it involves them. Customers might glaze over at the nuts and bolts of soil. But good news is a tonic. It helps if you can tell the human success stories: this Karma Cola will help send a woman in Sierra Leone to university. 3. Make it personal. Help the customer participate in your purpose and understand the difference they’re making by choosing you. Mindful Chef made a Spotify Wrapped-style round-up to show how much carbon they’d saved with their low-carbon range, and how many meals they’d donated through their One Feeds Two scheme. 4. You can educate and entertain in the same breath. A serious message doesn’t need a serious tone of voice. Homethings are a challenger cleaning brand in a sterile category (no pun intended) who’ve leant into a maverick tone of voice to keep customers engaged in the plastic problem. 5. Your purpose should cost you something 💸 Being a purpose-driven enterprise might mean that you grow more slowly than incumbent competitors. But building measures of success beyond the financials is the whole point. Pip & Nut have KPIs informed by B Corp, and highlighted the importance of working with investors who are bought into the good that you do. Thanks to x+why for hosting us and all who came down!
We're often asked which business books to read to be a good strategist. And honestly? The question's a bit... boring. As we celebrate #WorldBookDay, we're reaching beyond the business section with Kelli Corney's newsletter on the brand lessons we can learn from fiction (think empathy, metaphor, rigour) as well as the titles that will make you think again about creativity, leadership and working life. Read the newsletter here 👉👉👉 https://lnkd.in/eTd4UgHB
NON-BUSINESS BOOKS These titles won’t tell you how to optimise your time, atomise your habits or leanify your start-up. They will get you thinking about creativity, your style of leadership and what makes a working life. 1/ The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin S&T strategy is based on the hero’s journey, one of the most common story arcs in epic fantasy. N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy ups the stakes – with characters undergoing rigorous training, battling earthquakes and volcanoes in a post-apocalyptic world. 2/ Bittersweet by Susan Cain We’re all taught to prioritise happiness. But Cain says the most fertile ground for creativity is The Bittersweet. “There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in” (TY Leonard Cohen). 3/ The New Me by Halle Butler A millennial office novel with a scathing inner monologue. Uplifting it is not. But it is hilarious, brave, full of observations most people wouldn't admit even to themselves. ““I look for something else I could do for work but feel unqualified for everything interesting and repulsed by everything else.” 4/ Think Again by Adam Grant I think about this book most weeks. In it, the psychologist Adam Grant argues against resolute beliefs and for the value of changing your mind. "If knowledge is power, knowing what we don’t know is wisdom". 5/ Cultish by Amanda Montell This title is referenced so much within Sonder & Tell it might well as be our company handbook. On cult status and how to achieve it. “Words are the medium through which belief systems are manufactured, nurtured, and reinforced”. 6/ Intimations by Zadie Smith Written in the early months of lockdown Zadie Smith looks at the relationship between time and work as well the value of writing itself. "Talking to yourself can be useful. And writing means being overheard.”. 7/ The Conscious Parent by Dr Shefali A leadership book disguised as a parenting book. All about separating yourself from your ego and giving kids guidance, assurance, discipline, resilience, values to live by – but never trying to mold or shape them into a version of yourself. s/o to team Sonder & Tell for the crowdsource on #worldbookday 📚 What are your non business books?
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Every brand has a story, but turning it into one the press wants to hear about is a different ball game - one that many brands struggle with. Join us alongside Lucinda Toole, Senior Strategist at Sonder & Tell, for an exclusive online workshop on crafting a brand story that the press will want to feature. Discover: ✔ Where a brand should start when crafting a story ✔ Common storytelling misconceptions ✔ Integrating storytelling into your overall brand strategy, including PR And more! See you on Wednesday, March 20th, at 1pm, alongside 83 others who have already signed up. 🚀 Register below:
Withering Scopes. How to Win Fans and Influence Culture. One Hundred Years of Amends. In this morning's creative prompt, we riffed off SURREAL to create the Greatest (Brand Strategy Agency) Books of All Time. Anything you’d add to this library? I Feel Bad About My Deck Brand Guidelines, Revisited Angus, Thongs & Full-frontal Strategy Great Expectations; No Budget Allocated The Lion the Witch and the Meeting Pod The Brand with the Resounding Voice Brave New Financial Year The Version History A Journey to the Centre of the Vortex Creative Prompts for the Soul Beautifully Concise Feedback, Where Are You? In Search of Lost Time(sheets)
Pirates. Wizards. Aliens. Hungry caterpillars. A feline with some nice headgear. These are the sort of exciting things most books are about. Spreadsheets. Emails. Networking. Tax. These are the sort of things most books are not written about. But fear not - we've been down our local library and dug out all the most LinkedIn-friendly books we could find. There's no drama, no plot twists and no excitement - but you'll probably find the letters "R", "O" and "I" on every page, and that's what we all really wanna see, isn't it?
Are you a #scaleup facing a challenge? Work it out in a free one-to-one. "We've explored performance marketing, now what? “Our business is growing and our brand needs to evolve too.” “Our teams are fragmented, how can we re-energise them?” “It’s hard to stand out in this category.” “Should we *really* be talking about ‘purpose’?” 📈 Bring your problems, challenges, bright ideas 🧠 Discuss in a 30-minute 1:1 with an S&T strategist 💡 Get fresh eyes, expertise & plan next steps 🗓 Sessions available throughout February Schedule your session: https://lnkd.in/eAsY-WDK
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If Depop was at a dinner party they’d be the fashion student dressed head to toe in tartan, smoking a vape, talking about conformity and identity. They would agree with Chloë Sevigny: there are too many people with dogs, wearing Lululemon and they’d have the solution. And Vinted would be…who? I wrote Sonder & Tell's newsletter The Word this week.