As 2025 draws to a close, it’s time to look back at some highlights from the 50 blog posts we’ve published so far this year. We’ve picked the most popular post from each month, based on the number of views on Linked In. In this first of two posts we look at the top posts from January to June.
JANUARY: WHY KITKAT DOESN’T NEED A BREAK FROM ITS CAMPAIGN
We kicked off 2025 with a reminder that creative consistency is a marketing superpower. System1 testing showed how Kit Kat’s latest “Have a Break” execution scored strongly for both long-term share growth (4.4* rating) and short-term sales potential (1.25 Spike rating). The post looked at what made it so effective: giving the product a heroic role, relentlessly amplifying distinctive assets (including the astonishing 68-year run of the tagline) and adding freshness through the contemporary tension of workplace stress
FEBRUARY: LEARNING FROM PERSONAL PASSION BRANDS
February’s highlight post looked at the joy of applying brand growth principles to “personal passion brands”. Passion brands included the Personal Futures recruitment business, the Dance for Good social enterprise and the travel inspiration platform I launched last year with Mrs Taylor called The TRIP {COLLECTION}. The post distilled five practical lessons: be the consumer (instant immersive insight), define a clear purpose & positioning, build distinctive brand assets, choose a memorable name (short, essence-led, 4–5 syllables), and use an inspiring peer group beyond direct competitors.
MARCH: PROPER BRAND BUILDING BY YORKSHIRE TEA
In March we featured the striking success story of Yorkshire Tea. The brand doubled share from ~20% to ~40% in eight years to become market leader. The post mapped out six drivers behind the rise: a crystal-clear positioning (“properness”), a long-running campaign structure with fresh consistency (office setting + celebrity humour + repeatable assets), a stubborn focus on the core, an obsession with product quality, disciplined price premium building (c.10% price premium) and stability in the team/agency ecosystem.
APRIL: WHY BIG IDEAS MATTER EVEN MORE IN AN AGE OF AI
With generative AI making content creation cheap and fast, the risk is constant output heading off in all directions. The result is fragmenting the brand’s investment instead of building distinctive memory structure. April’s post explored how to use AI to amplify the brand idea rather than dilute it. Most fundamentally, a big brand idea to drive everything is more important than ever, such as the “It Could be You” campaign for the Irish Lottery. The potential of AI is to then help create multiple campaigns that bring to life consistently the brand. We posted here on an example of this approach, showing how O2 and their agency VCCP are using AI to create multiple, on-brand executions of their Bubl brand mascot.
MAY: WHY JAGUAR BRAND WAS RIGHT TO REVISIT ITS RADICAL REINVENTION
May’s post was one of the most read we’ve ever done with over 24,000 views. It covered the debate around Jaguar’s “Copy Nothing” relaunch, following news that the brand planned to replace the agency behind the controversial campaign. We argued that the radical reinvention missed a trick by ditching all the brand’s distinctive assets, including the leaping cat logo. We also suggested that the “Exuberant Modernism” campaign had lots of emotional “sizzle” but missed some product “sausage” i.e. a car! A better route, we recommended, would have been to “brand it like Bond” by refreshing and revitalising what made the Jaguar brand famous. The proof, as always, will been in the product pudding when the actual car range is revealed.
JUNE: CORONA ISLAND — BRILLIANT BRAND ACTIVATION
June’s highlight showed “storyDOING” at its best: Corona turning its beach-based brand world into a real-life experience via Corona Island — a private island off Cartagena, Colombia. We worked through why this is such a strong equity-building mechanic: it taps a passion point angle (island escape), brings the “This is Living” brand idea to life and has a direct link to category via purchase-linked entry. It also becomes a repeatable, scalable distinctive activation asset. The bonus: the island can be booked via travel platforms, turning the activation into a revenue-generating platform, not a marketing cost!
That’s a wrap for the first half of 2025. Pop back next week for the final post of the year with a look at the second half of 2025!
