Articles – Brand Tools & Tips

Useful articles about brands and the world they live in.

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  • Brand Builder + Keynote Speaker Gerard Tannam: Brandbuilder & Keynote Speaker - I aim to leave audiences with a practical sense of what they can do to build great brand relationships with their customers.
  • Branding for SMEs: A Brand New Guide - Branding is something we leave to the marketing department. Because branding is really about our logo, right? How very wrong!
  • Branding for SMEs – A Guide - A strong brand is good for business. Branding for SMEs - A Guide serves as a real bridge to practical action, and is packed with insights, tools and techniques to help small and medium enterprises to build robust brand infrastructures.
  • A Reality Check: Bridging the Gap Between Perception & Truth - A reality check serves as a powerful tool for navigating the complex terrain where perception and truth intersect.
  • Brand-building for Competitive Advantage - A strong brand is especially important for small businesses, which are unlikely to have the spending power or marketing resources available to larger competitors. The smaller business can play to the strengths of its brand relationship with its customers to distinguish it from other businesses in the marketplace, and so level the playing field.
  • How to make business a handshake rather than an arm wrestle - Too often, as a business grows the customer gets left behind. When a brand is understood to reflect the relationship between the buyer and the seller, then a thoughtful, fair, and fruitful exchange is much more likely to be the result, which makes for better business all-round.
  • Make Your Brand The Bridge To Recovery - A brand helps an individual make an informed decision about the purchase they're looking to make. View your brand through this prism as we enter this recovery period, says Gerard Tannam
  • Take On A Hard Thought Battle To Stand Out From Your Rivals - Sharing knowledge and expertise is a cost-effective way of establishing your company as a leader in its field, finds Sandra O'Connell in the Sunday Times of September 26th, 2021
  • Islandbridge Rebrands To Keep Building Bridges - In business, there are few changes as significant as a rebrand. As your brand reflects the relationship you have with your customers, it’s understandable that many business leaders feel trepidation at the thought of undertaking a rebrand.
  • Using The 1% Rule To Strengthen Your Brand - It’s incredibly tempting to start the new year with a list of goals you want to accomplish in the next 12 months. But, while the intention is very good, executing on multiple goals may turn out to be more onerous than you thought.
  • Your Brand Is More Than Your Logo - Don’t get us wrong; logos play a big role in helping to embed your brand’s visual identity in people’s minds.
  • There Are Two Sides To The Branding Coin - Just as it takes two to tango, two separate elements must join forces to create a successful brand. Namely, these are the social and technical elements that go into building a brand that people love and customers buy into.
  • Bridge That Gap - 6 Tips On How To Build A Brand That Connects With Customers
  • Seven Great Reasons To Brand - What Can Branding Offer To The Small, Local Or Independent Business?
  • 3 Do’s And Don’ts For Connecting With Customers - Being in the same room as a customer does not a connection make! Here's some ways to connect with customers in a meaningful way
  • 3 Do’s And Don’ts For Engaging With Potential Customers - Sometimes, we can be too eager to impress a potential customer rather than focusing on what's important for them during that first meeting
  • Always On My Mind: Three Do’s & Don’ts For A Great Business Relationship - We don't mean to, but we often lose focus on our customers and on what they need from us
  • 3 Do’s & Don’ts For Business Growth - It's not that we don't work hard enough or fail to plan; it's just that we don't always finish what we started
  • Me And My Big Mouth - Six Ways To Lose Friends & Alienate People Online
  • You’ve Got To Have Heart - You've got to have heart. Otherwise, even the most inviting stores can become unwelcoming places for your customer
  • Whistle A Happy Tune - In times of uncertainty, it's more important than ever that we open our door wide and make our customers welcome to do business with us
  • Hitting The Target - In times of uncertainty, it’s more important than ever that we open our door wide and make our customers welcome
  • Creature Comforts - So how did the decision to build a brand that doesn’t check in its personality at the door work out for its owners?
  • Sell Me What I Want - People are spending, but just not with the same abandon and lack of critical judgement as before
  • The Show Is About To Begin - In whichever marketing arena we find ourselves, we must learn to play to our audience and deliver a performance that brings our customers to their feet.
  • Roll Up, Roll Up - For the successful brand-owner, there is truly no business like show business, and brands that draw the greatest crowds know how to play to the galleries.
  • In Trust We Brand - Where must we start to regain lost trust? Why, right at the beginning, of course! One Night To Bring It
  • All Eyes On The Customer - The 'customer bull's-eye' - this is the ideal customer, the one who wants exactly what it is you have to offer
  • A Meeting Of Minds - As we know from experience, nothing changes if nothing changes
  • A Knight In Branding Armour - This, mark you, is a true story
  • Purpose – Built for Success - The best taglines capture something of what's on offer to the customer in a catchy and memorable way and can help bring a brand to life
  • Time To Take A Stand - It stands to good sense then that the first decision of the business-owner should be made around position and stance
  • When Words Fail Us - In business, our words are often the first thing our customer sees and hears from us
  • Let The Mystery Be - The typical customer shuns complexity and unnecessary detail. He doesn't have time for it
  • The Leading Role - In a real world, the business-owner has many customers, each wanting to be king and each vying for attention
  • Finders Keepers - If a customer relationship marketing approach is to truly succeed, it must go to the very heart of the brand relationship and play to its strengths
  • Branding To The Power Of Three - Brand-owners are urged to build awareness by stepping out from the crowd and offering something startling and rare
  • Irish Entrepreneur Magazine – A Brand New Start - Entrepreneurs can come in all shapes and sizes, but we typically have one thing in common: an eagerness that's difficult to resist
  • All The Riches In The Night - The challenge for the host is to rediscover a language of hospitality and to ensure that is spoken throughout the business
  • Guests Of The Nation - Stories of the hospitality industry that is occasionally in two minds as to how it should treat its guests.
  • By Accident Or Design? - The Role Of The Brand In Your Business Success
  • Filling The Space - An approach, which invites us to enter a world of make-believe, has the effect of somehow making the world in we operate more real
  • Empty Space - The space that lies between a business and its customers and of the importance of stepping in there and taking charge
  • Don’t Stop Me Now! (I’m Having Such A Good Time…) - The team at Quality Hotels Ireland decided to set their course to shoot beyond the stars.
  • Business & Finance – Branding Your Start-Up - In the absence of a brand, the new business lacks purpose and direction
  • Seven Steps To Brand Success - Let's be clear from the outset. The road to brand success is not easy
  • That Certain Something - Graduating into leading hoteliers, tourism chiefs and venue managers across the world
  • The Magic Ingredient - Taking charge of your brand destiny and building a business that stands on its own two feet and really makes a difference.
  • Building A Great Brand For Your Business - To Brand Or Not To Brand? That is the question
  • Tell Me A Story - The success of every type of communication we create in business comes down to our ability to tell a good story
  • This Time Its Personal - People are much more likely to be moved by story than by argument
  • Telling The Brand Story - When we tell our own business story, we have the opportunity to draw our customer audience in on our side
  • The Brand As Story - If we can weave our own business experience into a compelling narrative, we stand a much greater chance of engaging with the customer.
  • The Brand In Action - Let's take a look at what happens when theory is put into practise.
  • Writing the Recipe for Brand Success - In writing the recipe for our brand we are seeking to build as much certainty and consistency as possible into our processes.
  • Choosing Ingredients for your Brand - We must resist the temptation to simply lump everything together into the pot, stir it up and hope for the best
  • How To Raise & Keep A Brand - The challenge in raising a brand is to describe what sort of people we are, how we relate to others and how that makes us different.
  • Essential Ingredients for Successful Brand Building - How To Cook Up A Great Brand For Your Business
  • Keeping The Faith - The Road To The Promised Land of Brand Greatness