
Natasha Collie
Senior Brand Marketing Manager at Penguin Random House UK
At the start of the year, Ladybird Books approached Sonder & Tell with a dream brief. In 2021, a year that’s been particularly challenging for...
In conversation with
Senior Strategist at Sonder & Tell
Leeds-based Alyssa Babaran is a Senior Strategist at Sonder & Tell. She joined just in time for our Christmas party and we can’t wait to see what she brings to the team in 2023.
With a background in branding, she’s no stranger to brands heroing themselves instead of customers and hyping up logos before words and strategy – which is why she’s all-the-more excited that at Sonder & Tell, she’ll be creating brand worlds with a strategy and words-first approach where customers are our heroes and teams get support beyond the brief. And as the team member who’ll be steering our B2B ship, she’ll also be helping turn brands typically thought of as bland and functional into businesses with compelling and inspiring narratives.
I have always been fascinated in human behaviour and how the power of stories, language and ideology are wildly interconnected.
Businesses are arguably the most powerful institutions in the world. They have the resources and vision to generate monumental outcomes for society and culture.
On the flip side, individuals are navigating the world governed by their own beliefs. Particularly as we’re living in mad times! And a huge part of this is what we consume. There’s power behind our wallets. It’s always fascinated me how one person opts to shop at one place over the other, when the outcome is more or less the same. We expect good products, that’s the baseline. But what sticks with you is everything that surrounds that product. From the ethics behind sourcing, the way workers are treated to the way you feel when entering a store. Everything is held together by a unified belief. And I think that’s why I’m drawn to brands.
I want to have a part in creating belief systems that can generate positive outcomes. This may not have been the case for every project I have worked on, but it’s always the hope.
I learnt about the power of good design with a simple and emotive idea at the heart. I also saw firsthand the value of a really inclusive studio. The ideas generated from different experiences and walks of life is something I’ll always treasure.
B2B is still people to people. And I would love to see that reflected in the language used. From what I’ve come across, the language in B2B can be very product focussed, jargon heavy, exclusive and quite dense. It makes it hard for a person or another business to understand what’s in it for them.
The challenge for B2B businesses is to find how they can tell that emotional story without sounding disingenuous. But in future, I hope these types of businesses will be braver and separate the product story from the brand story.
Also, when it comes to finding a tone of voice, stop being lazy and saying you want to sound human … what does that actually mean?
“B2B is still people to people. And I would love to see that reflected in the language used.”
I think that strategists are just curious souls trying to make sense of the world. It’s not my style to prescribe, but the three qualities that may help with the day-to-day:
Be an immersive deep diver, but know when to come back up for air. There’s so much reading, listening and talking to be done. For fleeting moments of time we need to understand our clients’ world and their consumers. We empathetically put ourselves in so many shoes! So it’s good to go in with an open mind, not to project and to just soak everything in. To use an S&T term, we’re entering ‘The Vortex’. It’s easy to get lost and bogged down in vast amounts of information. But part of the discipline is to be able to climb back out of one after a deep immersion. If anyone has tips, I’m always keen to hear.
Be an active player in the nuances. One word could change a direction completely, and it’s all about respecting that and having fun with it. I love listening to two strategists chat, because on first impression it sounds like they’re more or less saying the same thing. But upon closer inspection, they’re saying something fundamentally different that really changes and shapes meaning.
Finally, and perhaps my favourite, is to be a disciplined, no-ego refiner. Axe, cull and cut. Don’t be precious. It’s about being clear and simple.
Everywhere. You can find me in the depths of a Reddit forum, on a TikTok doom scroll or listening to podcasts while I’m cooking. I do love a good trend report. I particularly like LS:N Global from The Future Laboratory. But nothing is better than talking to people. Understanding human behaviour in depth comes from proximity and intimate conversations… I am guilty of eavesdropping on train conversations for this!
I really love the female healthcare brand Tia. They’ve got such a compassionate yet challenging position and voice – a hard balance to strike. And it’s not just about how they sound. They go deeper than that – it’s more about how they use their voice.
Sexy B2B. Watch this space.
Senior Brand Marketing Manager at Penguin Random House UK
At the start of the year, Ladybird Books approached Sonder & Tell with a dream brief. In 2021, a year that’s been particularly challenging for...
Founder Of Simple Politics
Talking about serious issues doesn’t mean defaulting into a serious tone of voice, or using complicated language. If anything, accessibility, clarity and a touch of...
Brand & Community Manager at Homethings
Creating a tone of voice from scratch can be challenging. But a blank slate to work from also mean there’s room for something a bit...
Co-Founder of LOAH