Brand Story Coaching

In this conversation about truth and spectacle, Alex and Ivan look back at how they apply coaching to brands, and get really excited about the power of a good core story.

We discuss what brand story coaching is and why do we think it matters.

Our simple definition of a brand is that it’s a collective story that helps a group of people achieve a common goal. 

Organisations should be consistent with that story when they communicate with the world and themselves, and express it beautifully wherever they do their work.

As brand coaches we help organisations understand the stories that already exist within, make them visible to everybody, and get alignment and agreement on what their core story is. We then enable people to tell that story themselves in the best possible way with the help of creative tools.

In coaching one of the core objectives is to build accountability, and if you coach teams it’s all about building shared accountability. 

If you translate that into brand coaching it’s about building shared accountability around one story, one brand. Not relying on one department and asking them to tell that story to a client or audience, but being able, comfortable and confident to tell that story right here and now yourself.

The biggest change moving from brand experts and consultants to a methodology of coaching and co-ownership of the brand is that everyone understands the core story, and owns how they share that story. It could be how they represent the brand in a service, or how they introduce themselves to clients, or how they react in social media.

• We’ve discovered that brand coaching enables our clients to get down to the core, to cut down all the noise that is around things. 

• It’s vital to first unearth the stories that already exist across the organisation, let everyone hear them, and then craft them into a brand story.

• Brand coaching helps create accountability, and gives people permission to do things themselves and own them. In an organisation or a product team, you do that collectively. We all have shared permission, accountability, and responsibility for the brand. 

Which is really exciting because suddenly its your brand and the story belongs to you.

That’s pretty cool.

Alex Mecklenburg is a creative business and leadership coach at Consequential CIC, a fellow of the RSA,  and storyteller in residence at SIX, the Global Social Innovation Exchange. Ivan Pols is the creative director of what3words. Together they are the co-founders of Truth & Spectacle, creative consultancy coaches.   

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Find us on LinkedIn: Alex or Ivan / Twitter: Alex or Ivan

Drop us an email

A Gentle and Awesome Creativity

When we started Truth & Spectacle, it was done with the belief that people are more creative than they imagine. 

We assumed that being ‘creative’ was something that teams and organisations wanted to be - but we learned quickly that it wasn’t that straightforward. To many people creativity is a ‘gift you’re born with’, for others creativity evokes stories of ego, genius, loudness or elitism.

We'd like people to experience creativity as an inclusive, more gentle force.

In this podcast Alex and Ivan talk about the definitions of creativity, the associations of the “creative” label and some simple, useful principles to work with.

We discuss how we design creative processes that balance idea ownership and craft, the delight of making new connections in teams, and being surprised by your colleagues.

Creativity is a journey that has lots of paths, many are correct. We’ve even transformed our own way of being creative.

It’s a skill you can learn. Teams can get better at questioning, connecting, imagining and making. 

If you’re interested in this topic for your organisation we’ve designed a new, more inclusive workshop. [create space] is a workshop game that’s designed to help every member of your team develop their ability to think creatively about big questions and turn their ideas into actions. It’s surprising and fun and you can see more here.

Look after yourselves wherever you are and keep creating. We hope you enjoy the episode.

Alex Mecklenburg is a creative business and leadership coach at Consequential CIC, a fellow of the RSA,  and storyteller in residence at SIX, the Global Social Innovation Exchange. Ivan Pols is the creative director of what3words. Together they are the co-founders of Truth & Spectacle, a creative consultancy.   

Subscribe to this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Stitcher.

Find us on LinkedIn: Alex or Ivan / Twitter: Alex or Ivan

For more news about Truth & Spectacle sign up to our newsletter.

Stuff we mentioned in the show:

• [create space] - a workshop game

• Slack - business messaging

• Figma - UX design tool

• Truth & Spectacle - creative business consultants

• Monday - project management

• Frame.io - video management platform

How to make virtual workshops more fun, useful and creative

Since our business and personal worlds have suddenly relied on video calls like never before, we thought it would interesting to talk about the new challenges of running workshops, what virtual work is, how to make deep connections with colleagues and how to do this with no post-it notes or snacks.

Alex and Ivan discuss their experiences and share what works for them. It turns out that virtual workshops are a powerful tool for teams to be creative and they’ll definitely be part of a new blended tool set for working on certain kinds of problems as groups.

We talk about how to get prepared for a workshop, how to help the participants be present and give them control, the difference between virtual connections and working in real spaces, how to use provocations to stimulate creativity and team bonding, the tech platforms we prefer and embracing working open.

We hope you enjoy it.

Alex is a creative business coach and an associate at the digital think tank Doteveryone, a fellow of the RSA, and storyteller in residence at SIX, the Global Social Innovation Exchange. Ivan is the creative director of what3words. They are co-founders of Truth & Spectacle, a creative consultancy.

Find us on LinkedIn: Alex or Ivan / Twitter: Alex or Ivan

Subscribe to our podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Stitcher.

For more news about Truth & Spectacle sign up to our newsletter.

Stuff we mentioned in the show:

• Miro Board - white board tool

• Mural - white board tool

• Zoom - video conferencing

• Provoke - the webinar game

• Google G Suite - slides and docs

Alex & Ivan talk about big questions, quick answers and team dreams.

It’s Spring 2020, and we’re in the middle of the Covid-19 meltdown. Alex Mecklenburg and Ivan Pols had a conversation about how much has changed, what hasn’t changed, and what we’re doing now.

We talked about our mass emotional roller coaster, dealing with new expectations, signalling, kindness, grief, and teams that dream. Among other things.

Alex is a creative business coach and an associate at the digital think tank Doteveryone, a fellow of the RSA, and storyteller in residence at SIX, the Global Social Innovation Exchange. Ivan is the creative director of what3words, working with a world class in-house marketing and product team.

Find us on LinkedIn: Alex or Ivan / Twitter: Alex or Ivan

Subscribe to our podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Stitcher.

For more news about Truth & Spectacle sign up to our newsletter.

Stuff we mentioned in the show:

• Miro Board - white board tool

• Mural - white board tool

• Remo - video conferencing

• Zoom - video conferencing

• WeTransfer - file sharing

• Provoke - the webinar game

MegaPops talk about their brand, the ad industry, and their passion for creating a difference

“Live in neon, not beige.” - Meg

MegaPops are Megan Egan & Poppy Cumming-Spain, a creative team working at Creature London. They’re recent grads of SCA 2.0 and have pretty much launched themselves into the industry on a rocket fuelled with positive energy. Alex met them while mentoring at SCA and was struck by their charisma, honesty and wonderful work.

We met them in Shoreditch in early May and talked about how they built their team brand, MegaPops, the work they rate and how they pursue truth. They also shared their opinions about the state of “purpose advertising” and the value of doing real things rather than talking about them. It’s a refreshing perspective from smart people whom we hope go far.

Update: Meg & Pops broke up :(
All is fine.

We suggest you also look at Meg’s personal portfolio of illustration, street art and photography. She’s a talent.

Katharina Wittgens uncovers the truth about fluffy towels, eye implants and brand purpose

Katharina is a Business Psychologist and the Managing Director at InnovationBubble. She chatted to Alex about the difference between truth and purpose, the importance of getting your values right from the beginning, how fluffy towels effect your travel plans, and eye implants.

The InnovationBubble are a business consultancy who use behavioural science to understand how organisations and brands really work.

She’s advised companies like Virgin Atlantic, Beauty Pie and Habito on finding the hidden psychological influences that affect their business strategies.

Read more about Katharina and the InnovationBubble.

Jonathan McKay from Girl Effect talks about using brands to create a better world

Jonathan McKay joins Ivan Pols and Alex Mecklenburg to discuss how Girl Effect use brands to improve the lives of girls around the world, and the role of truth and spectacle in reaching them.

Jonathan is the Senior Director of Create at Girl Effect, who were founded by the Nike Foundation in 2004, and today are an independent creative non-profit working from nine global locations and active in over 50 countries.

Apologies for the patchy sound quality. We’re still enthusiastic podcast amateurs. But in the spirit of getting an MVP done, we thought we’d share it.

Visit Girl Effect for more detail about their work.

Designer Silas Amos talks about brands, truth and spectacle

Silas Amos joins Ivan Pols and Alex Mecklenburg to discuss his ideas and experiences about truth and spectacle in design.

Silas is a designer and design strategist who has worked with Budweiser, HP, Eve Sleep, and Unilever. He does some wonderful collaborations with artists like Sir Peter Blake and the Yarza Twins.

Apologies for the patchy sound quality. We’re still enthusiastic podcast amateurs. But in the spirit of getting an MVP done, we thought we’d share it.

See more work at silasamos.com.

Alex and Ivan start a podcast

in December 2018, Alex Mecklenberg and Ivan Pols, Co-Founders of Truth & Spectacle talk about starting a podcast. The audio quality is rubbish and you can hear dogs playing in the background. It's a brilliant.