J P Hildreth is an engineering-led business helping manufacturers plan and deliver complex capital projects and operational change. As the business evolved, its brand needed to better reflect the expertise, ambition and way of working behind it.

Brand Forensics uncovered a position built around deep understanding, practical innovation and shared ownership. The resulting brand strategy brings that thinking together through a new story, positioning, purpose, mission, vision, values and promise.

Odyssea Yachting creates tailored, high-end sailing experiences from its base in Guadeloupe. The new brand needed to capture both the luxury of the offer and the freedom of exploring the world by yacht. 

The minimal wordmark takes its inspiration from the mechanics that allow a yacht to move so serenely through the water. The brand line comes from William Ernest Henley’s Invictus: ‘I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.’

Former Subaru World Rally Team race engineer Warren Heath now runs a specialist automotive engineering business with particular expertise in classic Aston Martin models and WRC-related cars. The challenge was to build a brand around the business rather than the man alone. 

Brand Forensics helped reveal what really mattered before I developed a new purpose, story and identity. The work has since grown into an ongoing programme, including content designed to establish Warren as a recognised voice in specialist automotive engineering.

Two Michelin-starred chef Aktar Islam wanted Kush to challenge expectations of the local curry house. The idea celebrates India as a continent of cuisines — food eaten by emperors alongside food eaten on the street, all treated as equals.

I created a handmade identity from more than 20 pieces of Indian street art, giving the brand the energy, texture and imperfection of the places that inspired it. The first Kush is now open in Clifton, Bristol, with more planned.

Fostering can feel like someone else’s problem. This campaign makes it local, urgent and personal. Regional statistics bring the scale of the crisis right to people’s front doors, while the door itself avoids making assumptions about what a foster child or carer looks like. 

Anyone could be outside needing help. Anyone could be inside able to offer it. A simple image turns an abstract national problem into a direct call to action: open your door.

SIS Pitches is a global sports surface business with multiple products, services and markets. The challenge was to bring all of that together under one clear idea. I wrote a new brand narrative and developed ‘Powering more play’ as the theme to unite the business and give it the confidence to claim a leading position in its market.

The rebrand won support from senior leadership, internal teams and the incumbent agency. The following year was the company’s most successful ever across several key measures. Created with Threerooms Branding Agency.

Sometimes a small change unlocks something much bigger. Brand Forensics revealed that ‘Plunkett Foundation’ was creating the wrong impression of this national charity and the work it does to help rural communities own and run local businesses. 

Removing one word created Plunkett UK. I developed the new identity around that change, clearing away years of accumulated brand clutter and giving the organisation a simpler, more accurate platform from which to move forward.

Deathrow began with a simple idea from the team behind The Plough: Cuban sandwiches ‘to die for’, served from an Airstream at festivals and events. Deathrow Sandwich followed. Successful installations at Attic Brew Co. led to a permanent partnership and the birth of Deathrow Pizza.

I built both brands around the same attitude — bold type, brash red, dark humour and food that takes quality seriously without taking itself too seriously. Parental advisory. Explicit flavour.

How do you advertise Viagra without making people squirm? By acknowledging that almost everyone has their own name for the equipment. This Sky AdSmart campaign brought Viagra Connect and Coop Pharmacy together through a very British bit of humour. 

A cast of men and couples shared their preferred terms of affection before landing on a simple thought: whatever you call it, you can now feel good about it. A sensitive subject made approachable, human and memorable. Yes, of course there's a bloopers reel.

Buying an electric car often means balancing what you want with what you can afford. The MG4 offered space, technology, safety and style without the expected price tag. Rather than use the proposed pan-European campaign, we developed a UK-specific idea built around refusing to compromise.

‘Say NO to compromise’ gave the car a simple, positive position for British buyers. In 2023, the MG4 became the UK’s second best-selling electric vehicle, with more than 20,000 sold.

The agency Christmas card: usually the last brief anyone wants. After one particularly tired brainstorm, somebody suggested turning the agency into a pub. So we did. For two weeks, Superdream became The Sup & Dream Public House, complete with lounge, bar and its own locally brewed ‘Fairy Ale of New York’. 

What started as a Christmas greeting became an agency-wide experience and week-long campaign. It made Creativepool’s best agency Christmas cards of 2016 and won Gold for Best Item of Self-Promotion at the 2017 Cream Awards.

Two campaigns, two different creative problems. First, I was asked to extend the life of an existing TV campaign. An animal-loving voice artist provided the answer, using impressions to give the established idea an unexpected new charm. 

Next came ‘Wild Times At Every Turn’, an idea inspired loosely by Jumanji. We turned the Park into a story waiting to unfold, using a poetic script and illustrated storybook world to capture the sense of adventure around every corner.

WPR had grown into one of the UK’s leading independent PR agencies, but its brand hadn’t kept pace with the quality of its work or the confidence of its people. Working with the leadership team, I developed a new brand narrative around one simple idea: ‘Get the world talking’. 

It captured both what the agency does and its ambition, giving WPR a clearer position, a flexible platform for communications and a brand with the confidence to match the reputation it had already earned.

Trading Apps wanted to move forward without throwing away the value already built into its brand. Rather than start again, I evolved it. A diamond grid from the existing identity became a new multi-coloured icon representing the many sides of the business, supported by a broader visual system and the line ‘Say hello to potential’. 

Trading Apps was subsequently acquired by EquiLend — another example of a business I’ve rebranded going on to attract a buyer.

Birmingham trains great creative talent. The problem was persuading more of it to stay. Pitch Consultants wanted to connect graduating students with agencies and businesses across the region through an awards programme offering paid placements. 

One Friday afternoon in the pub, a conversation about Birmingham being a ‘hive of creative talent’ gave us the answer. B-Hive was born. Years later, its alumni can be found working throughout the region and beyond, including in businesses of their own.

ABC Boat Hire wanted to show a younger audience that a canal holiday could offer an alternative kind of adventure. The answer was hiding in the name: Adventures By Canal. 

A social film followed a group from Blackwater Marina as they navigated a lock, stopped for a pub lunch and crossed the spectacular Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. No airport queues. No 'following the herd to Greece'. Just a slower way to go somewhere different.

Develop Consulting helps organisations improve how they work, but its existing brand was holding it back. Brand Forensics helped uncover what made the business different before I developed a clearer purpose, story and identity around ‘Go further’. 

The new brand gave Develop greater confidence and a much clearer way to explain its value. In the following year, the business won several household-name clients, expanded its work with the NHS and began spinning out its online training offer into a separate business.

The Birmingham Publicity Association has been bringing the region’s media, marketing and advertising community together since the 1930s, while raising money for local good causes. I sit on its leadership team on a voluntary basis and look after much of its creative output. 

It gives me the chance to support an organisation I care about, help keep an important piece of Birmingham’s creative community moving and occasionally make something simply because it feels worth doing.

Own Your Numbers helps business owners understand how well their companies are really performing financially. Created by ‘plug-in’ finance director Ciaran O’Donnell, the offer centres on a scorecard that turns complex financial information into something useful and easy to read.

I developed the brand around ‘Every business dream comes with business reality’, with the Donut as its visual centrepiece — a simple progress ring showing the financial health of the business and its owner at a glance.

Holy Moly began as a street food business inspired by a memorable meal in a Harlem soul food restaurant. When an investor came on board to take the idea onto the high street, the brand was built around that origin story. 

‘Bringing Back Proper Mac’ combined 1970s Harlem, street furniture, neon, graffiti, bright colour and hard edges to create a little piece of New York in Birmingham’s Grand Central. The identity and tone of voice ran through everything from the restaurant itself to the napkins.

COVID created a perfect storm for fostering. Enquiries fell as jobs disappeared, spare rooms became home offices and filming real foster families became impossible. Capstone needed a campaign that made the growing shortage of carers feel urgent without relying on the usual imagery. 

The answer was a dripping tap. A simple visual metaphor turned the steady loss of foster carers into something approaching crisis point. The film was made on a tiny budget, in a bathroom in Bromsgrove, with BTV.