https://www.apple.com/lae/environment/mother-nature/

Did you see that ? Great innovative way of communicating sustainable initiatives … from a (BIG) company doing far less than what we are currently building at COLART. Food for thoughts for next year ?

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Our London Hub hosts, Huckletree, regularly share events which I often ignore (a nod to the subject of this post, which will become apparent shortly). I decided to break the mould and get involved in some non-finance extra-curricular activities this week and joined a 1 hour brand masterclass webinar. 

Great to get my mind outside of Finance and hear about brand development, focussed primarily on keeping it simple. Thought I’d share some of my key takeaways (thanks to HT for hosting and Harsa Beagley for sharing the events schedule) 

• Advertising in the US is a ~$700bn market. Estimates indicate individuals are exposed to 4000 adverts daily, of which only 100 are noticed. How many are acted/engaged/liked is even fluffier to measure (there’s the nod to the ignorance, in case you missed it)
• You have to keep it simple. Too much consumer noise dilutes potency of product, brands and campaigns. 
• Paralysis of choice is a big problem, to stand out, be simple and streamline your offering (this resonated heavily)
• Being different has little value (USP is a dead-end, if you manage to find one it’s probably because it’s not wanted).
• Being distinctive is greater than being different.
• Most people can’t separate differences in large brand/product ranges.
• Most people can’t tell you the claims brands make, but they can tell you which brands are the best. So once you’ve captured a market – be consistent (Everyone thinks Duracell are the best batteries because of the bunny… not because of the claims they make)
• Invest long term. 10 year visions with a consistent message are more successful than short term ‘what’s hot’ marketing shifts. 

HT were happy for me to share the recording, linked here for anyone that’s interested, password to access is J.NCRC1=

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For those of you who may remember our Murals project with Winsor and Newtons Galeria and the illustration department at the UAL CAmberwell, artist YuanYuan Liu created this beautiful piece working site specifically for the firts time owing to our project and support. Yuanyuan entered the piece for the World illlustration awards and has won! “Our 2023 winners have truly mastered their crafts, skilfully utilising illustration to explore narratives, evoke emotions, and express complex ideas,” Rachel Hill CEO WIA

Exciting to work with such talent in design enabling opportunity whilst seeding our brands in such an excellent context . For more information on this global design award visit theaoi.com/world-illustration-awards

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Ellie and I spent the afternoon connecting with artists at the Spring Break Art Show in NYC.

Spring Break is an internationally recognized Contemporary Art Fair “hosted in underused, atypical, and historic New York City exhibition spaces to activate and challenge the traditional cultural landscape of the art market”…. and it delivered!

The show itself had a very different feel to a standard art show, where you will commonly see spaces being led by galleries, here curators were front and center with the artists. Which made for a really energic and exciting mix of styles and staging of spaces – you really didn’t know what to expect around the next corner.

It was great to see how the curators brought the artists’ work together and adapted the small spaces to deliver a truly experiential event for visitors.

We connected with many very interesting and diverse artists both established and emerging (and fans of our brands 😊) who we may potentially collaborate with in the future.

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One of the most valuable assets we have as Winsor & Newton is our fantastic archive which tells the colourful story of our brand over almost 200 years. We have items located here at the London Hub (in shiny new cabinets in the Sepia Room), at the Crown Brush factory in Lowestoft, as well as at various academic institutions across the UK. We’re always on the look out for new items which ‘fill in the gaps’ so we were delighted to be offered the opportunity to acquire the set pictured below with its iconic ‘retro’ branding – we think it probably dates back to the 1960s but would love to hear from anyone who place a more accurate date on it! We have put it on display in the corner by the Sepia Room in London so please do go and take a look when you get a moment. Thanks to Steph Nebbia for making the introduction allowing us to acquire it, and to Joe Davies for his photography skills!

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