How to grow (better)

On 25 October we held our first summit on brand growth, ‘How to grow and change the game’. This video is the third in a series showing the highlights of the day.

In the part of the day entitled "how to grow better” Simon Tucker of the Young Foundation, Kate Raworth of Oxfam, Lily Cole of Impossible and Samantha Mangwana of the Fawcett Society discuss how to grow better. The discussion is facilitated by Robert Jones, visiting professor at University of East Anglia and Head of New Thinking at Wolff Olins.

Watch earlier videos in the series here:

How to grow - overview

How to grow - everywhere

How to grow - everyday

How to grow everywhere

On 25 October we held our first summit on brand growth, ‘How to grow and change the game’. This video is the second in a series showing the highlights of the day. 

In the part of the day entitled "how to grow everywhere" Allan Pamba of GSK, Frederik Ottesen on Little Sun and James Turner of Dyson discuss how to reach new customers in new places. The discussion is facilitated by Robert Jones, visiting professor at University of East Anglia and Head of New Thinking at Wolff Olins.

Watch an earlier video in the series here: How To Grow - overview

How to grow (and change the game)

On 25 October we held our first summit on brand growth, 'How to grow and change the game'. Over the next three weeks we'll be posting a series of videos looking at the summit's three themes: how to grow by being everywhere, how to grow by becoming everyday and how to grow better.

The film below is an overview of the day told, in part, through your tweets. Enjoy!

How to grow and change the game - overview from Wolff Olins on Vimeo.

Twenty ways to grow

By Robert Jones

On Thursday 25 October Wolff Olins held its first brand summit, “How to Grow and change the game”- an event that welcomed twelve speakers from some of the UK’s most progressive brands and over sixty guests from great established brands and innovative start-ups.

The summit revealed a host of game-changing ways to spark growth. Here are my top twenty things I learned from the panelists at yesterday’s How to Grow event at Wolff Olins in London.

Getting everywhere

1. Be a start-up – however old or young you are (EE, Dyson, Little Sun, GlaxoSmithKline)

2. Don’t chase the money, let the money find you (GlaxoSmithKline)

3. Take a hit on profit in the short term, to create long-term market growth (GlaxoSmithKline)

4. Be hated as well as loved – the deepest responses are created by brands that polarize opinion (Dyson, Little Sun)

5. Enjoy inventive competitors, but not mere copy-cats (Dyson, Little Sun)

6. Use tech to outsmart the counterfeiters (GlaxoSmithKline)

7. Change the model – whatever market you’re entering, do things very differently and (through design) much better (Dyson, Little Sun)

Becoming everyday

8. To earn a place in consumers’ daily lives, understand those lives (Faber, National Trust, Skype, Virgin Media)

9. Be canny about free – make sure there’s a strategic dose of free stuff in what you offer (Virgin Media, Skype, National Trust)

10. Use ‘social’ literally – events where you meet your consumers face-to-face (Faber)

11. Use ‘social’ virtually – the fastest way to learn about the good and the bad from your consumers (Virgin Media, National Trust, Skype)

12. Adopt the latest tech – but give consumers a choice to use the gadgets that work best for them (Skype, Faber)

13. If you have content, make it as widely available as you can (Faber, National Trust)

14. Stay restless (Faber, National Trust, Skype, Virgin Media)

Growing better

15. Go beyond the fashionable idea of ‘exchange’ (of goods or skills) and think about ‘giving’ (Impossible)

16. To get things done, match ‘bees’ (small, buzzy organisations) with ‘trees’ (big, rooted ones) (Young Foundation)

17. Offer your employees shared parental leave, to help both women and men climb the career ladder (Fawett Society)

18. And get more women at the top of your business (Fawcett Society)

19. Plan your business to operate within the ‘doughnut’ (maximizing social impact while minimizing environmental harm) (Oxfam)

20. Be optimistic (Fawcett Society, Impossible, Oxfam, Young Foundation)

Robert Jones is visiting professor at University of East Anglia and Head of New Thinking at Wolff Olins. 

How to become everyday

By Morgan Holt

The year is drawing in, and as it gets colder we find ourselves reaching for the Kleenex. And if you can’t find a Chapstick, often Vaseline will do just as well. Being everyday is the jackpot for brands, so how does a modern brand win that elusive prize of being on everybody’s lips? Despite what some agencies try to convince their clients, no one person or company is telling the mass market what a branding word will be – any more than you can commission a ‘viral’ video. (It’s a video. Viral just means ‘popular’ and the only person who decides that is the customer.) But what clearly stands out this past decade is the shift from passive consumption to active consumption. Twenty years ago a marketing department could create a message, add a sprinkle of creative, and pump it out on channels of their choosing. Branding was more passive then. Products were put on a pedestal and presented in a regal and timely fashion. Success was when people wanted a ‘thing’. A Frisbee, a Coke, a Jacuzzi. Success was a noun. These days, brands come alive by being used. They are carried and passed on. Their passage is owned by customers, not by brand police. They are rewarded for being portable. For adding to the electricity of a person’s life through the activities that the brand helps them to do, or do better.

Success in the modern age is a verb. We Google and Skype. We look people up by Facebooking them, often to find thattheir profile picture has been Photoshopped. So then for fun we Pin it and tweet about it.

Being everyday cannot be guaranteed and you shouldn’t let any agency tell you they have a secret sauce that promises your popularity. Least of all trying to hastily force your name to look like a ‘doing word’ without changing your brand experience to fit.

But one thing you can definitely say is that if you’re not doing something, if you’re not putting activity and usefulness into your customers’ lives, then you cannot be everyday. You cannot be the Verb you want to be.

Morgan Holt is a senior strategist and principal at Wolff Olins. He is also a faciliatator at How To Grow and change the game, Wolff Olins summit on growth.

Morgan Holt is a senior strategist at Wolff Olins London.

To be part of our unique conversation on growth, join the summit LinkedIn group. Or follow our twitter stream #HowToGrow. For more information visit How To Grow.

How to grow (and change the game)

As the financial gloom worsens and with new crises emerging almost daily, the question on everyone's mind is how to grow? Growth at any cost, however, will no longer cut the mustard. This time around it needs to be sustainable, better still it needs to be game changing. 

We are excited to announce that we are holding our first summit entitled How to grow (and change the game). Not only are our speakers from the most impressive game changing brands of today, all our guest are leaders of brands that are shaping the new future.

We're bringing together the brands that have in their power to set new standards not just for business, but for the society in which we all live.

The day will be a rich, interactive, hands-on experience where the participants are the driving force. Guest can submit ideas for the event in advance on our website, and we are committed to help each participant walk away with something concrete to act upon.

Last but not least, Michelin-starred chef Angela Hartnett will be here to host our lunch.

 The topic is  HOW TO GROW (and change the game). The date is the 25th of October 2012.

Are you one of them?

Register your interest at [email protected]