Legend Articles

New at Heart

Chris — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 16:09:42 +0000

Only on new host

A picture paints what…!…?

Chris Bourne — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:34:42 +0000

It happened again this week. Trying to explain why we should give particular attention to a piece of content because it came at a critical point in the site visitor’s journey towards a buying decision, and the client interjected with…

“A picture paints a thousand words”

It’s time to uproot this pernicious little weed of an idea.

Read the Article – A picture paints what?

What use is a website to a local business?

Chris Bourne — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 14:08:21 +0000

So many local businesses, especially retail service businesses, like plumbers, hairdressers and so on, rely solely on personal recommendations to get new customers. This means that your marketing relies upon other people’s accidents of conversation. Mary happens to meet Angela, Angela happens to comment on Mary’s hair, Mary happens to be in the mood to talk about her hairdresser, her hairdresser happens to be you. Bingo! Four accidents in a row and you just got a recommendation.

But surely your website can’t actively draw in new customers can it? Perhaps you have a single location, a shop in Yourtown, what is the point of promoting your business on the interenet when 99.9999% of people who might see it couldn’t possibly access your service?

Yes, your website can attract people local to you who have never heard of you, and it can be extraordinarily effective.

Login and see how

This article is in the free Subscriber’s Section

Bad news can be good for business

Chris Bourne — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 14:35:24 +0000

How you deal with negative news can turn a potential disaster into a hugely positive step forward.

Subscribe and see how

This article is in the free Subscriber’s section.

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Chris Bourne — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 19:52:04 +0000

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Probably the shortest post ever… yet

Chris Bourne — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 00:23:50 +0000

This isn’t really a blog post, it’s a small explosion. I have been pressing for better understanding of the function of the brand for many years now. Progress is uneven, as it is with so many ideas that are believed by many to be abstract but in fact are utterly concrete. So it went again today with a nameless potential client. I left that conversation with a powerful desire to go stand at the top of the nearest hill and shout the point to a bewildered world. Well, there were no hills around, so this will have to do instead.

After an hour with someone who would only discuss the brand of his company in terms of his competitors… it just had to be said bluntly.

Your brand is not primarily a tool to distinguish you from your competitors. It is fundamentally a tool for getting close to your customers and your publics. Your relationship over against your competitors will be a product of this, not the cause of it. Do it your way and you will only ever develop this company as if it were to be seen only in comparison to others. They will define you. Do it right and you will become the one the others are compared with.

Melodramatic

Chris Bourne — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 12:37:51 +0000

We’re delighted to be working with the creative musical hot-house, Melodramatic, to create their new website. Melodramatic are the label and producers for Amy Macdonald, whose new album has already hit the European Number 1 spot and sold more than half a million copies in less than three weeks. The site should be up and running within the next couple of weeks. We’ll post a link when it is launched.

Brand Narrative – a new article

Chris Bourne — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 14:54:20 +0000

Beginning to populate the pages from our previous blog. An article on brand narrative is now available here.

Is recession a good time to invest in your brand?

Chris Bourne — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:46:01 +0000

Perhaps. And perhaps that is not the response you’d expect. It really depends on how your comany’s brand functions and what role you have given it.

If your brand is just a badge, just a way of identifying the company, or if your brand is what is left over if you take away your products or services… then the answer is no. Recession is not a good time to invest in that sort of thing because that sort of branding is only rarely worth investing in. A badge is a badge, a symbol is a symbol. A real brand, one that repays its invesment many times over, is not just a badge, it is the reason your customers come to you rather than your competitor, it is what comes to mind when they hear or see your name. A real brand is everything that is good and important about your company, distilled into an instantaneous impression. It is the story that others tell about you, and our claim is that you can build that story and change the behaviour, and hence the performance, of your company by building that story.

Any investement in branding, especially in recession, has to be an investment in meaning, in something distinctive and concrete… the rest is just decoration.

Legend – bringing brands to life with creative content

Chris Bourne — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:24:11 +0000

In a nutshell, that’s what we do. Legend is a creative agency with a strong emphasis on content and huge experience of brand leadership and development, honed in some of the biggest and most complex organizations around.

And this blog is our way of publishing articles about brands and how to make your brand pay you back for all that you have invested in it.