My marketing thoughts, my marketing projects and anything in between. Since that £150 logo project to now, my journey in marketing, always learning. 20 years and counting in marketing working with small, medium and large businesses. Get in touch today - info@nutsaboutmarketing.com

I saw a brilliant little example of the AI debate playing out locally this week. Llandeilo Service Station posted four potential new logos and asked people which one they preferred. The problem was that the designs had clearly been generated using AI, and the comments section spotted it almost immediately. People called them “AI slop”, questioned why a local designer had not been used and, perhaps most importantly, recognised that the designs did not really represent the busi

Think of Paris and there is a good chance you picture the Eiffel Tower. Think of London and Big Ben might appear in your mind, while Sydney can immediately bring up the distinctive sails of the Sydney Opera House. You do not need to see the name of the city alongside them because the image itself is enough to trigger the association. These landmarks are not distinctive brand assets in the traditional marketing sense, but they behave remarkably like them. They have become powe

There is a particular type of social media graphic that I am starting to recognise before I have even read it. It has too much text, an odd mixture of fonts, a slightly over-designed background, colours that do not quite belong to the business and a layout that somehow feels familiar even though I have never seen the advert before. Then I look a little closer and realise why. It is another AI-generated social media poster. The strange thing is that the businesses using these

Marketing people naturally enjoy new things. A new campaign gives us something different to create, a new visual identity is exciting to design and a new strapline gives everyone something fresh to discuss. There are absolutely times when brands need to evolve, but I think the industry can sometimes underestimate how valuable consistency is precisely because marketers become bored with their own work much faster than customers do. Someone working inside an organisation might

One of the easiest mistakes a business can make is to confuse an ambitious target with a marketing strategy. Targets are useful because they create focus and accountability, but they become dangerous when they are detached from historical performance, available resources, market conditions and the mechanics required to achieve them. I once worked within a marketing team where success was heavily judged by the number of marketing-qualified leads generated. There was nothing un

Why rural destinations need to think beyond social media, and start treating tourism marketing as economic development. There is a common misunderstanding about destination marketing. People often reduce it to social media. Post more reels. Make the Instagram grid look cleaner. Use better photography. Capture sunsets, food, coast, mountains, families and local businesses, then call it a strategy. Social media matters, of course. A destination that looks inactive online is mak

There is a strange problem in marketing. Much of the theory we learn is built from some of the biggest and most successful brands in the world, yet the overwhelming majority of marketers do not work for businesses like Coca-Cola, Nike, Unilever or McDonald's. They work for smaller companies, regional organisations, owner-managed businesses, charities, universities, sports organisations and SMEs where budgets are limited, teams are small and every pound spent has to work incre

Some of the best marketing opportunities I have worked on have not begun with somebody saying, “We need a marketing campaign.” They have started with an operational issue, a commercial conversation, a customer problem or an idea that sits somewhere between several departments. That is because customers do not experience organisations through the same departmental structures that exist internally. A customer does not care whether ticketing belongs to commercial, the website be

I have spent a huge part of my career working in digital marketing. Websites, social media, email, online advertising and digital content have been central to what I have done for years, so I am hardly going to argue that organisations should turn their backs on screens. But some of the marketing ideas that excite me most at the moment are physical. There is something interesting about a real object in a world where so much communication disappears with a swipe. A sticker, sh

For years I have described myself as an ideas man and a problem solver. Give me a coffee and a business or marketing problem and my instinct is usually to start thinking about what could be built, changed, communicated or created. That part of my personality has probably driven most of my career, from graphic design and websites through to social campaigns, events, sponsorship, email marketing and digital projects. What has changed over time is not my enthusiasm for ideas, bu