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
Co-founder at Spin Brands
Meet Max Whicher, one of the driving forces behind Spin Brands, a data-driven social media agency known for their work with brands like MUJI, Merrell, and Napolina. Max’s journey is a testament to the limitless possibilities of the digital age. With a passion for creativity and a keen eye for emerging trends, he’s paved the way for Spin Brands to become a trailblazing force in the digital marketing landscape. We spoke with Max to uncover the secrets behind their success and delved into the importance of having a strong online brand presence, the role a defined tone of voice and personality has on engagement, and how these factors contribute to the success of organic and performance marketing efforts.
Hugely – The best examples of brands smashing it at the moment are ones who really know themselves and have humanised the brand with a playful personality and TOV, organic + performance benefit from this primarily with creative, but the real competitive advantage comes when your pour in a good serving of community and conversation on top. Especially as responding to comments or questions on TikTok works so well as an ad format now.
We think like clients, not an agency. We’re business first, marketing second. Our background is brand-side and when we ventured to the dark-side (of agency) 7 years ago we vowed to always stay true to this. In addition to this, we’ve got the full-suite you need to deliver social, at scale, fast – under one roof. In our world, moving at pace and reacting to what’s trending is fundamental. That’s why we’ve built our processes to cover all social needs at speed.
The best way to reach the right audience, is in fact to remain authentic to the brand values and to create a community that also relates. Which is why it’s important to get this right, and not be flippant about the back bone of the brand.
100%. Storytelling is the way knowledge has been passed down for generations long before the internet. It’s part of what it is to be human – it’s the most powerful way of sharing your purpose and message. Organic social is the shop-window of your story, with consistent snippets of the content that you value and find inspiring. Paid social isn’t too dissimilar depending on where in the funnel the customer is.
“To successfully navigate the ever-changing social landscape you need to be fully immersed and confident in your brand, the values and energy you want to bring to the table.”
It’s a creative-first landscape now, performance advertising best practice is increasingly more ‘less is more’ when it comes to optimisation. So once you’re clear on your objective, work on creating plenty of social-first assets with unique marketing angles to lean heavily into a strong testing framework and iteration process to finesse and find a few winning ads.
Remember: Driving relevant traffic to your brand is only half the battle, a clear and compelling product or proposition is invaluable in the process.
Jacquemus – set the trend of large scale out of home stunts but digitally generated. They were some of the most share-worthy content I’d seen from a luxury brand in ages.
Barbie – (the movie) but now specifically the brand… they’ve definitely raised the stakes for the film industry on making a splash for both digital + physical activations that are culturally relevant and entertaining.
Spin Brands – working hard make b2b services fun on social is always a challenge but we’re big believers in practicing what we preach so a cheeky bit of self promotion here 😉
To successfully navigate the ever-changing social landscape you need to be fully immersed and confident in your brand, the values and energy you want to bring to the table and with that it should be an effortless decision on what’s for you and how you approach everything from memes to TikTok. If this isn’t effortless, I’d reflect on how well you know your brand?
With one big caveat: your brand can grow and develop as we do as humans. It’s never too late to level up and upgrade your brands emotional intelligence IMHO. We work closely with brand agencies and brands direct on an immersion phase to help them get really comfortable with who they are on social and how that reflects on their brand. Thankfully, in an AI-advanced world, being HUMAN is on-brand so this should be easier than ever.
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...
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