How Strong Brands Stay Memorable in a World of Sameness

Breanna Lawlor: In a world where AI can generate a visual identity in minutes, verbal clarity has become the real differentiator. For CMOs navigating rebrands or trying to maintain consistency across fast-growing teams, this strategic foundation is the thing that either holds or breaks.

Cat How is the founder and executive creative director of How&How, a B Corp branding agency with studios in London and LA. A former design journalist for The Guardian and BBC, Cat brings a storyteller's instinct to brand strategy. In this episode, we get into why brands should develop their voice before their visual identity. Cat walks us through How&How uses verbal identity frameworks to prevent what she calls brand Frankensteining, how AI is changing what agencies are expected to deliver, and what it actually looks like to build a brand that scale-ups can grow into rather than out of.

I'm Breanna Lawlor. This is The CMO Club Podcast. Cat, welcome. Let's dive in.

I'm very grateful for you spending a bit of time with me. I'd love to hear a little bit about who you are- Yes ... the agency you run, and also kind of the space that you work within as a-

Cat How: Well, now, yeah, absolutely. I am so I'm Cat How, a co-founder, a executive creative director.

I run a branding agency with my husband, Rodger. We have studios in, in London and in LA. And yeah, that's essentially it. We run a great team, and we work with lots of companies. A couple of tech companies, but also companies doing good for people and the planet. That's a bit of a soft spot for us.

We're a B Corp, so we do brands that are purpose-led, climate tech, clean tech. But anyone with a good idea- Yeah ... that wants to liberate it into the world through the help of better communication- Sure ... be that verbal or visual- Yeah ... essentially. But yeah, tech is obviously very varied, so we work with femtech, health tech- Yeah

you know, climate tech, proptech, you know, any tech. A lot of startups, I imagine. Well, actually, not necessarily. Okay. No. Startups I love. Yeah. But quite often the product's always changing, they don't really have much money, and they don't know where to spend it, and it's all a bit confused, and they want to iterate more.

And I think we love working with scale-ups that know themselves, they've got a viable product- Yes ... a business, and they, they really know who they are. Or they sort of know, and they just need to reframe who they are because they've lost a bit of that journey along the way, or that narrative along the way. So-

Breanna Lawlor: And that can happen. It's like it's almost- Yes ... you get to act as a sounding board and a guide because when a company- Yeah ... really knows itself well, then it's poised to equip themselves with a really strong brand, and that seems to be your area of expertise.

Cat How: Yes, exactly. So strong narrative-led brands- Yes essentially. And I think we do occasionally, when we do work with startups, they're founded by founders who have exited other businesses- Right ... and already know the value of brand. And so come to us, and they've got a bit more cash.

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah.

Cat How: And they're like, "Right, we know that this intangible value of brand- Yeah that we're always trying to show- yeah ... in our work and show in the metrics that come out of the work after they, and the, the ROIs." But yeah, so it's essentially people that, that know what they need that's ideal. But also sometimes people just need a bit of help and guidance into excavating what it is that's- Sweet

that's always been there- ... about their brand and about their company, and we just help show it- Bring it to life ... once more. Yeah.

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah. Yeah. No, that makes a lot of sense. And I feel like a lot of folks maybe make the mistake of combining brand and marketing as one and the same, and they're not.

Yeah. How would you identify brand and how you show up in the world compared to marketing, which is the more tactical component? Do you wanna venture down that road?

Cat How: Oof. Yeah. Wow, that's a meaty one. A brand is not a logo, it's not a design system, and it's not a color palette. It's a whole which is way more than the sum of its parts, obviously.

It's essentially the most valuable real estate in someone's mind, which is what you want to occupy. Yeah. And it's the thought. And, you know, essentially brands only really exist in the minds of their customers really. You can buy a product, but really if you are remembered, that's an amazing component of brand.

Of course, marketing helps that happen. Marketing activates key truths- ... about a brand. So what we do in our work is through the strategy that we do at the beginning, we excavate that truth, we uncover it, we give it, we tell the story of the brand, because stories are memorized or remembered 22 times more than facts.

So we're like all about stories. Yeah. So what we really want to do is make brands memorable, and marketing helps that, of course.

Breanna Lawlor: Who doesn't want that?

Cat How: Well, exactly. Yeah. And of course, you know, if something's memorable and people talk about it- Yeah ... then that creates fame, and fame creates value, and essentially that's what everyone wants at the end of the day.

A valuable brand. So marketing is an extension of how the brand just shows up in different ways, I'd say, and how it can speak and how it can flex.

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah.

Cat How: It's... You know, they're obviously in the same family. A brand is really just a truth that has to be told- Great ... well and consistently over time, and people have to believe that truth, and I think marketing is then the vehicle to do that.

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah.

Cat How: I work on the marketing of our company, obviously. Great. But I feel like I'm working on our brand- Yeah ... as opposed to on other brands in a sense, essentially. So yeah.

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah. No, thanks, thanks for- ... highlighting that differentiation. I think it's really important because as you said, it's important real estate that you're taking up.

You wanna make sure- Yeah ... it's the right kind of feel, experience is how your brand shows up. For a lot of people right now, there's a dilution of brand happening on account- ... of like the content that comes out if they're leveraging AI- Yes ... to produce that. So what would you say is, run the other direction.

Like, how do you kind of balance the need for putting things out quickly- hmm ... and ideally of high caliber, but also keeping up with your competitors and then retaining that strong brand voice in what you're putting out into the world? Have you directly been using AI to support these initiatives at your own company, or what sort of been your- In our s-

Cat How: Yeah so- Long-winded question. Well, yeah. So within our own company, we have an AI Slack channel, which I think was just really just for people to dump ideas and- Great ... things and worries and concerns, and we call it the good, the bad, and the ugly, where we're like, "Okay, whatever we see. Oh my God, they're doing this weird robot for this," and, "Ugh."

But also just to start to educate. And this, we started this probably about a year ago. We had been approached to do a rebrand for a gen AI company, and so there was a little bit of, hmm, unease in the- Sure. We knew that that would be something that people might feel uneasy about, so we have something called the moral compass in the agency.

So we put it to everyone. We had a meeting. We were like, "Cool. Okay, gen AI. Who uses it?" And everyone's like, "We do." And I was like, "Okay, well, we've just been approached by a gen AI company. Let's do it," right. So then we had a discussion. We ended up doing the brand, 'cause I was like, "Well, in six months' time when the brand gets released," and we're just about to do it in the next few months, right, things will move on so fast, and indeed they have.

So we are very optimistic about how it can help us. And we do use it, so we use gen AI in certain, you know, in case studies or in certain- Sure ... places where it's appropriate. However, we also use real-life illustrators to- Yeah ... illustrate work. We also use real-life copywriters to write all the copy. But we are asked more and more by companies, "Have you got a tone of voice bot? Have you got a brand bot? Can something..." And so- That actually weirdly could help in terms of one thing we always see with brands is a bit of a Frankensteining over time. Absolutely. So if you had everything in a bot, which is programmed by us, and we're like, "Right, we've done the verbal identity, for example."

"So we'll put in all the prompts for you, and, you know, we'll deliver, give this to you as part of your deliverables." So actually, essentially, it's our responsibility as an agency to make sure that what we're delivering to a brand, to another company, is that it's something they can use and something that is lasting and meaningful, that lots of different people in the, in the company can use.

Yeah. So actually that is a great way of maintaining consistency if you have built these things that you can deliver.

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah.

Cat How: We're even trying to do that in our own agency. I've historically have always written all the content for our social media channels. It's me boshing out copy 'cause I'm used to it, being an ex-journalist.

But then, you know, we had our, one of our account managers doing it, the studio manager uploading stuff, then we had a copywriter, then I was doing it, and then suddenly everyone was like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is all getting quite... You know, our tone of voice is being lost." Yeah. "And it feels like tonally we're not coming across as very consistent."

And obviously the minute you break that consistency and that promise to your followers, you're breaking a s- a, a key brand rule.

Breanna Lawlor: Right.

Cat How: So then we were like, "Okay. Well, let's make a tone of voice bot for How and Hal. Let's do it." Yeah, yeah. "Let's chuck it into Claude." We're doing it now, in fact this week, and it means then that anyone in the agency could essentially just whip up a piece of copy.

You know, we're, we're trying it out on a very small scale. But it's how we're using it. And so-

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah ...

Cat How: yeah, we are adopting practices or, or queries that we're seeing in chemistry calls from clients, what they want. They're like, "We want about, we want this to be like this." And we're seeing what we could also do with that because we also have to then start being the ones who can consult that- Okay

and say, "Hey, have you thought about this?" Yeah. You know, "You should write this, but don't use it for that." Yeah. "Use it for this." Yeah. So it's, yeah, it's a bit of back and forth.

Breanna Lawlor: There's this theme that comes up with a lot of marketing leaders that I've spoken to in the last six months, and they, it's easy to get overwhelmed by this, and often people look to others as a guide.

As a guide to help inform when to use, when not to use, what guardrails to put up, how to make sure you're preserving that brand voice so that you have that longevity and you maintain that trust at the center of your relationship with your customer. So as you're navigating working with all of these different types of industries- yeah are you finding that there's kind of a framework that you're following that helps you serve what their need is? Are they often coming in with the same challenge, or do they come at the need for branding and maturing that brand presence at different angles?

Cat How: Well, it depends. I mean, every company is different, and every company comes to us at a different stage.

Yeah. And sometimes you have founder CEOs, and sometimes you have CMOs and who know a lot more about what they're doing. So although people come to us at different stages of that process, and quite often we have people come up and say, "I want a website." Then you look at what they really need, and it's just a rebrand masquerading as a new website.

Sure. And you're like, "Okay, okay, let's just roll back and work through what you do need. Oh, look, you probably do need a rebrand with a website at the end." Yeah. "Oh, yes." So then there's a little bit of that, not education, but, like- No ... that, that problem-solving that you go through with the client as well.

But essentially the framework is We do have a process which we do apply to pretty much everyone. We are really flexible in that process, but again, we've refined and tweaked the process over many years now to make sure that chinks that happen, things ... We, we always do a bit of a post-mortem after an, Smart.

... After we launch a project just to be like, "Oh, great. What worked? What didn't work?" Yeah. What are the learnings from this? And so our process is always the same. We always, always, always really want to do the strategy at the beginning of a job- Good call ... because quite often people say, "Oh, well, we've done all our m- our positioning and all of our- Right stuff internally." Yeah. And we're like, "Great. Can we see the stuff?"

And then sometimes it's very good, and it's all about, and that it's very considered, and there's loads of information. But what often is missing is the perspective to see the story and actually to just to tell the story in a really emotional, emotive way. Because that's what we're trying to do, is we're trying to change how people see a brand, change how people feel about a brand always. Right. So it's like, great, we- this is really good that you've got all this information about your features, and it's- Yeah ... just you know, you wanna be, like, the best in the future, and the fastest this, and that's great.

But what's gonna make you memorable? So-

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah ...

Cat How: that's so key at the beginning is we need to give you your story, and your story is quite difficult to do that internally.

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah. There's a knowledge bias internally, right? Yes. It's almost like you're preaching to the choir, and so everyone says- Yes ... "Yeah, it sounds great," but you already know so much, and your audience often isn't that same level of knowledge about your business- Yes

or how you serve or what you offer them. Yeah. And so it's really important to convey that in layman's terms, to arrive at a point where you're like, "Oh. Oh, okay." That's the light bulb moment.

Cat How: Exactly. And to see, you know, to figure, you know, ask questions about the founders, and then obviously we do lots of workshops and interviews at the beginning, and we just try and pick apart what it is that really is so, is different about that company to any other company.

Just like with a person- Yeah ... we've all got a different story. We've all got a different way of telling it. And so it's just essentially that. So we always, always try and do the strategy. And even if some of that work has been done- ... by the company already, which is great, we do then do, we put this together and then try and do our own creative strategy.

Yeah. And that is the launchpad for then the visuals. So get the brand done in words. What, how does it feel like in words? Because words- Yeah ... are so emotive. Yeah. And I think there's tendency to jump into visuals first. "Okay, just the logo for this." Ah. Is the worst thing to start with. Yeah. So the process, again, the framework is that then we start to write everything out in words.

Words, one word can just bring so many different visual-

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah ...

Cat How: or visuals into your mind. It can communicate so much more So once we craft everything in words, we have a little, we do this all on the page- Yeah ... a little positioning statement, some personality- Yeah ... traits, and a manifesto, like a few lines where we almost tell a script of the brand, and then we go into territories, which is when we release more brushstrokes with some imagery now, some moods, some colors, maybe some notional logos, and then we go through that process with the client.

Yeah. And then everyone's like, "I like this, I like this, I like this, I like," you know, and then we work, co-create with them, and then we refine into more roots, and then we go into the deliverables.

Breanna Lawlor: I feel based on what you've shared, your experience lends itself really well to the work that you're doing now.

Mm. You were a journalist formerly, and a designer, and now have a marketing agency. You also developed some resilience when you kicked off your agency back in 2020. Yes. Do you, do you wanna... I mean, now that we're six years in the future talking about this, I'd love you to just take us back, what it was like starting off an agency, because I feel like for a lot of organizations, a lot of companies that are either trying to rebrand or rebuild or shape-shift now, we're at a time where things are changing so fast, and- Yeah

COVID was a time when things were so slow. It slowed right down. But I wonder if you could just take us back there when you first started out and-

Cat How: Yeah. No, exactly. I mean- Yeah ... they say there's never a good time- Yeah ... to have maybe I've got to, but never a good time, but never a good time to start an agency.

And perhaps it wasn't the best time, to be honest. May 12th- It was just our birthday a couple days ago, 2020, so one of the harshest lockdowns at the time. And we had two kids at home, and we were in Portugal, so my parents obviously were in England at the time as well, so no help. And we, I don't know, we were just stuck in our converted garage trying to do it with kids running around, and they were quite young as well, like two and five.

It was difficult, but in a way you just gotta do it, and I've ... One thing that has been interesting about AI recently, I think- Yeah ... is just the speed. Yeah. And it has made me ... I mean, sometimes I'm like, "Oh my God," that's no speed speed, where people are just like, "Can I have a brand in like a, a month?"

Yeah. And we're like, "

Breanna Lawlor: Oh my God, no. Stop." Yeah.

Cat How: But it has taught me that actually you can just get things done a bit more quickly. And I think starting an agency, just, you know, start it yesterday. Just do it. The worst- Right ... the, the most difficult thing is the procrastinating around it. And- Yeah ... you just have to just get on with it.

I- Right ... would realize. So that was just the time. In a way, it meant that suddenly we had access to a global reach of designers- Mm ... which was great. So, you know, location was not an op- it didn't even matter. Yeah. We just set up the agency. We're like, "Great. Well, it's, you know, so-and-so's from over there, and so-and-so's from over there, and you're over there, and as long as we're in roughly the same time zone, let's make it happen."

Whereas obviously now, then we're like, "Oh, and then we've got the business rates, and we've got the studio lights-" Yeah ... "and we've got the rent to pay, and we've got all these other things." We had, we have had to do that because we do still want the space. Yeah. At the time, it was quite liberating as well- Yeah

because it meant you could just rock up and, and not have to worry about those things, and then those came later. Mm.

Breanna Lawlor: I like that positive spin on it, too, what it created, what it made possible for you. Yes. And there was something you had mentioned in there now that I feel like relates to one of the exciting projects you're working on, where you had access to globally designers And I know there's a project coming up that you've shared about with Canva.

Do you wanna speak to that a little bit? Oh, yeah.

Cat How: Yeah.

Breanna Lawlor: I mean- That sounds really exciting.

Cat How: Yeah, I'm speaking at Cannes this year as part of something that Canva are doing, Spark to Scale. Okay. So it's quite an interesting concept and theme, actually. So yeah, I'll be doing a talk with them. And I think, yeah, activations with larger brands are something that we like doing- Okay

as an agency as well. And I think probably my journalism background, my, my husband used to work at BBC as well. He... Broadcasting for almost 10 years. So we have approached this agency- Yeah ... very differently to, I think, how other branding agent or design agencies are set up. So because we were both business people beforehand- Yeah

we ran two businesses together before we founded this one. I'm always like, "How..." You know, "What's the story? Is there a new story? Is there a new angle?" Yeah. Our brand, this is kind of... That's what we're talking about- Yeah ... with marketing. I'm marketing my agency. So the thing with Canvas can be great, and obviously being here at Web Summit's amazing.

I co-host dinners with Adobe in London. We're having one next week with them, in LA as well. We might be doing one in New York. I also do events with Monotype. They're a type foundry. And so I do talks with them, and then we do little activations and little... We're trying to come up with a way of talking about case studies with them alongside- Yeah

the client, and they've done the font and, you know, those sorts of things. So it's- Very strategic partnerships. Yeah. And it's unconventional, I think, for agencies to do that, whereas we're just trying to look for how we can partner with these bigger tech companies and- You know, talk about work, but not talk about selling.

Just talk about different things- Area ... and what people are up to, and-

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah ...

Cat How: yeah.

Breanna Lawlor: Well, I think it's, it's really neat because then there's overlap with your audience, their audience, shared audience, right? Yeah. You're meeting new groups as a result of this partnership.

Cat How: Exactly.

Breanna Lawlor: It's that- Yeah ... back to that, was it spark to seed?

Was it- Spark to scale. Spark to scale. Yeah. And it's just like ideation to executing on that vision and making it a reality, too.

Cat How: Yeah.

Breanna Lawlor: So- Yeah, yeah ... when you venture into partnership territory, like that's interesting to hear as an agency that you're doing it, but it seems to be serving you well.

Cat How: Yes. I mean, it's great.

I mean, A, I love going out to dinner. Yeah. And I love a, you know, a good glass of wine. And so that's just fun. And I love... Rog and I host a lot of dinners at our house- ... all the time. So every Friday or Saturday, we've always got a big group of people over in some capacity. So that's comes quite naturally to us anyway.

I think it's just thinking about how you can market yourself as an agency outside of just "Oh, a case study," or, "Oh, we did work for this client." Yeah. It's just, again, creating a little bit more memorability for our brand. Yeah.

And a bit more fame, I suppose. Yeah. Fame is an interesting word to use, but we do talk about that a lot with the brands that we try and create.

Yeah. It's like we just wanna make you famous, because if you're famous- Yeah ... we're remembered. Yeah. And if you're remembered-

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah ...

Cat How: people will probably buy your product more. So-

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah ...

Cat How: what's gonna, especially with AI, what's gonna actually differentiate you- Right. Big question ... from someone else? And actually, it's whether you're remembered and what your story is.

And people will remember you more if you have a good story- Well, of course ... or if they paid attention to your story.

Breanna Lawlor: Yes. Yeah.

Cat How: Yeah.

Breanna Lawlor: And you're really clear, is that every single touch point of that story is clear and people- Exactly ... can understand- Yeah ... what they're getting from you, how you're serving it.

They can rally behind it, too. Exactly. People can buy into that experience and maybe see themselves as part of something. They're more likely- Yeah ... to participate.

Cat How: Exactly. With- Yeah, yeah ...

Breanna Lawlor: how much comes at us, we're very selective, right? And- Yeah. They're very- ... it's important for marketing leaders to recognize that.

Mm. That, you know, having a really strong brand isn't an option. You need to keep pouring that energy in. Absolutely. I, as you're doing some of the- Mm ... foundational work with the clients that you have, how are you getting a read on their audience? What is something that has served you well to ensure that whatever messaging you're gonna put out there is actually gonna be well received and land with their intended audience and their existing audience?

Are there any approaches that you've found to serve you well?

Cat How: Yeah, I mean, one thing we do, so when it comes to the verbal identity, which we develop just before we develop the visual identity- Great ... because the brand starts speaking before it starts looking, so. Yeah. Is we work with lots of companies that have lots of different consumer groups, or they're speaking to lots of different people.

Even within the website, they could be talking to... We did a prop tech one recently where they had, they were speaking to estate agents or realtors. Great. And they were also speaking on the same site to people who were selling their home and people that were buying a home. So we had three really different audiences.

Yeah. So we have a very, I was gonna say complicated, but simple messaging matrixes where we make sure that there's enough brand flex to be able to, for the brand to still maintain its own point of view- Right ... and its own tone of voice, but be able to flex and speak to those audiences differently. We have done testing.

We worked with a company called Hotjar. Mm. Oh, yes. We actually had to test each bit of messaging with the team and each- Yeah ... and we actually got scored out of you know. Oh, no. And it was quite interesting doing a whole brand, 'cause normally it's quite an intuitive thing and people- Yeah ... are like, "I feel like I like that.

I feel like..." Yeah. But with these guys, 'cause that's what they do- Yeah ... user testing, they were like, "No, we want to actually test to make sure," and, you know. So we were like, "Okay, cool. Let's do this." Yeah. So it really does depend. But yeah, increasingly people want to know something's gonna land right. And so, yeah, we make revisions for that, for sure. But essentially it's about making sure there's enough flexibility in the brand for it to be able to, to speak- Yeah ... to these different audiences and have... Yeah.

Breanna Lawlor: It's a balancing act. It is. Right? Especially like so many brands who are wanting, they're focused on acquisition, and maybe the retention side of it- Mm

gets lost a little bit. And it's important to have both, because if you're just acquiring your customers and you're losing your old ones by way of whatever messaging you're putting out there- yes. Yeah ... well, you're gonna find yourself in the same spot, and it's just, it's gonna be a dangerous loop.

Cat How: 100%.

Breanna Lawlor: I wonder if you have any sort of missteps that you've experienced, whether it's supporting a brand or in your own agency, that you wanna talk about where you're like, "This is a great learning for us." Yeah. "I would highly recommend not venturing down this path. Here's why."

Cat How: Yeah. That's, yeah. I mean, look, every day is a school day, and every day is learning.

But one thing, so coming back to the process I was talking about earlier, one thing that's really helped us, and you always learn from mistakes. And I think- Yeah ... one project we worked on was a company called Hometree, and they're doing really, really well. They're actually quite a boring company. They're trying to get...

But it, this is part of the challenge and part of- Sure ... what made it a really exciting project. They essentially are trying to get people to get rid of their old boilers in their houses and get heat pumps instead. Yeah. So we're like, "Okay, boilers, okay. Great." A brand about boilers. We have also done a brand about bioconcrete, which was also really boring, but we loved it because we could make it really fun.

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah, and creative.

Cat How: And creative. But we're working with their team, and actually their CMO is now a good friend of ours, and we, we've worked with her on a few other projects since she's left. And she's coming to the, my Adobe dinner next week- Yeah ... funnily enough, in London. But we were going through the strategy, and we had some wild routes.

And we were like, "Okay, you know, let's do... You know, what you're trying to do is hide in plain sight, 'cause you're trying to smuggle in- Yeah ... heat pumps- Yeah ... but you're trying to get rid of boilers. This is really cool. This is really edgy. It's got a bit of tension and stick. This is your story." They were like, "Yeah, yeah.

Okay, great." Sure. And we were like, "Great. If we do this strategic route, we're gonna really lean into it. We're gonna really lean into it." Yeah. And so we did. And it was a few years ago when we were still going through, we were still going away and working on routes for two or three weeks, and the client hadn't seen anything.

Right. And we were like, "Great, this is..." It was three different routes, like loads of team on the project- Mm ... like everyone beavering away, and you're like, "This feels good." But we'd never spoken to them, and we'd never... And they didn't... And so came to a day when we had to do the presentation. Right.

Breanna Lawlor: We were all like, "This is gonna be great."

Cat How: Yeah. And it, it totally bombed. And they were like, "Oh- What have you done? We don't understand." And we were all like, "But this is the strategy that you chose. This is this is what you wanted." And we need ... You know, and they were like, "We didn't think it'd be this extreme." And we were ... Anyway, so it was just one of those moments where you're like, "Oh,

So we as a result were like, "Okay, how are we gonna do this?" And you know, they were great. They're really great clients actually in the end. And they were like, "Just okay, how are we, how are we gonna make this work?" So we just ended up iterating a fourth route. We went back on the strategy. Right. We toned it down.

We did another route, and in fact we did another two routes, and then we got there in the end. But the original strategy, it was just ... Then we were like, "Okay, we don't want this to happen again." No. It's stressful for them, stressful for us.

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah.

Cat How: So that's why we built in now a phase into our process which is about territory.

So it's bring the client in as soon as you can, as early as you can- Smart ... before things get too buttoned up and- Right ... pinned down, for want of a better expression, and bring them in 'cause they- they'll get excited about it too, and they won't be suddenly like we will have this horrible moment where everyone's just ashen-faced in the call-

Yeah and there's just silence and everyone's... that's a really good- So- Yeah. Really a good idea ... it completely transformed our process and now we do it. And I was asked the exact same question on a call with a client last week on a pitch. Yeah. And they were like, "Well, when, you know, is there ever a time when a client doesn't choose a route and it goes really badly?"

Right. And I was like, "Three years ago, yes." Yes. Yes. "But now, no, as a result of that learning from that mistake." So thank you, Tash, if you're listening- ... for that.

Breanna Lawlor: It's kind of, the communication is important obviously. Yeah. Right? Same thing applies for large brands connecting with their audience.

And also inviting them into the process. Yes. People don't like to be talked down to. They like to be involved. They like to be included, part of the experience, so this is a- Yeah ... really good learning now. There's a humbleness that's coming over. Absolutely. It makes a lot of how brands are meant to show up.

Cat How: I think so, and I think also if you're a marketing agency, what it is is you're selling not hope, you're selling the excitement for the future of their brand as well. So whenever we're in chemistry calls, our one remit is just excitement. We are genuinely excited about this. This is so cool, like this is gonna be such a great project.

And they ... The potential that you can unleash with just telling story a bit better and just- Yeah ... you know, communicating, like I said, visually or verbally in just a better way and telling that story. So that's what you're selling is the- Yeah ... the potential for the future essentially. Yeah.

Breanna Lawlor: I'm curious to ask, because I've been asking other marketing leaders this, and I'd love to know if you had to pick one theme to lean into this year between experimentation, speed-

Ooh and quality Which one would you choose for the rest of this year?

Cat How: Always quality, always. Because you're only as good as your last piece of work, and, you know, speed is a bit of a race to the bottom really, as far as I'm concerned. The more you get... I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm always as, obviously, a founder, I'm always like, "Can we have stuff tomorrow?"

And everyone's like, "Oh my God, Cat just..." Oh. So I'm always, I'm quite impatient. My husband can definitely testify to that. But I think quality, people can see that, and that will never go away. And I think you also have to have certain values as well as an agency, and we've always wanted to be a Michelin Star restaurant as opposed to a diner.

I'm not saying a diner is any, you know, good or bad. No. I love diners, but I wanna be a Michelin Star restaurant. Thank you very much. Yeah. So I think quality is always perceived, and people who are value buyers, and you can see that quality, will always see the amount of work and appreciate it as well. And so you have to set your own parameters to that, and you have to stick to those rules.

Because otherwise, if you don't stand for something, then you therefore fall for anything.

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah. Yeah. That's true. We are at a tech conference. Yes. And there's, there's a lot of really exciting pitches happening, and startups. And I know you serve a multitude of different industries. Yes. But has there been any takeaways for you from Web Summit, either previous ones that you've attended or the one that you're attending this year?

Especially 'cause you sat on a panel, you were judging yesterday, I imagine, some of the pitches? Anything that you're taking away, what you're hearing, what's coming up as themes?

Cat How: Oh, obviously AI has been talked about for years. It's actually quite a relief now for it just not to be, for it to have ... The dust has settled a bit more.

Yeah. True. So I've, I've been talking a lot about, I've been hearing a lot about agentic, the use of agents and how these are gonna re- which I'm really fascinated by as well. And so now that, like with any boom, the beginning, I'd say four years ago in Web Summit, it was just like AI,

AI, AI, but no one really knew what it was. True. And everyone like, "Well, d- just AI." Yeah. And whereas now there's so much stuff, you know, differentiation within it, and there needs to be, that now just the conversation's a bit less frenetic. Yeah. And it's like, "Oh, that's interesting. Okay." Yeah. "This can do this, this can do this." Yeah.

Breanna Lawlor: It's the how behind it.

Cat How: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So I found that, and that's interesting because now I can be really selective about-

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah ...

Cat How: what would be appropriate for our agency and even for me as personally or whatever, whereas I think before it was just, like n- no one really knew what was going on, and so it was just quite frenetic, and I didn't really know what any of it was.

And I think, yeah, things have started to distill and so that's, that's great. Yeah.

Breanna Lawlor: It does feel like the brands that are really successful internally know themselves well. They're clear on their values. They know how to serve others and help them arrive at those and make it really clear for their audiences, and then pick and choose where AI can come into their workflows and their process.

Would you argue with that sentiment?

Cat How: No, I, I think I would agree. I mean, obviously lots of companies now are an AI product, so they ... But- Right ... it's interesting. I saw this great cartoon the other day and it was like, "Who are we?" And then there's little things, then CEOs, and it's "What do we want? AI." Yeah.

"When do we want it? Now." "What do you wanna use it for? We don't know." And it's I think at the moment there's still always a need- Yeah ... particularly with companies that aren't, haven't got AI built into the model from the beginning, but companies coming to us and being like, "Okay." Yeah. "Well, we just need AI to AI ourselves."

Yeah. And so I think- That's an interesting conversation to have. But then we're also working with people who have just started a company a couple months ago or six months ago, and it's purely based on the product is purely an AI- Right ... and they're performing an AI function. So those ones, they're just- it's already integrated into the model.

But the larger organizations, we do place branding. We've worked- Yeah ... you know, we've worked for a zoo. We do a conservation park of Aruba, for example. We're still working with them, and so obviously those conversations aren't constantly happening as much. No. But they're aware that they n- they need to.

Breanna Lawlor: But it's- It's experience centric, those ones.

Cat How: Yes, exactly.

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah, so they're leading with the thing that's now becoming you need to make sure you have an experience when people interact with your brand.

Cat How: Yeah.

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah.

Cat How: Yeah. So everyone, everyone is different essentially. Yeah. Everyone needs it, but everyone n- wants to use it, but isn't quite sure yet if they haven't used it or what.

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah, yeah.

Cat How: Yeah.

Breanna Lawlor: The conversation that will probably continue to happen, and as you- Yeah ... have more interactions with different brands, you'll be well poised to be like, "Well, this was a great case study of how you can use it here, and it served them well, and this is how you might wanna try it out." And- Yeah you know, you're like a trusted resource, right?

Cat How: Exactly, and some brands want it more than others. We do just a German green energy brand- Yeah ... called Meteoric, which we renamed. We're launching that in a couple weeks, and all they really wanted was a tone of voice bot. So we built them a bot. Yeah. I think we based it around Tron.

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah.

Cat How: And it had this, and they were, I mean, they were quite wacky. Again, when we got the job, we were like, oh, a German, a green energy brand. They, these guys, they, we were like, "Oh, this might not be the most exciting project." In the end, it was the most hilarious, hilarious project. Yeah. And they were so much fun, and all they needed from, from us, for us to deliver with regards to AI- Yeah

was this bot that they now have, and they, it just writes for them in their- Mm ... in their, in their voice. But some people require more or want more. They want prompts for illustration or yeah, lots of other things besides. So.

Breanna Lawlor: Do you ever have brands where historically they have had a lot of their marketing, their branding done in-house, and then they've switched gears and they said, "We're not quite getting it.

It's not working," or, "We want this new fresh, you know, aesthetic"? Does that ever happen, or are you often working with sort of a different state?

Cat How: Yeah, absolutely. So we're working with a really big company in the UK called Pets at Home. It's equivalent to Petco, I think- Yeah ... here. And yes, they- we've worked with them now for over a year and a half, and we've done sub-brands for them, and I, and, you know, we're doing all sorts of different things.

And that happens often when... And also, I think YouTube rebranded a couple of y- took two years to rebrand, and very similar, where they need an external agency to come in and to amplify the brand that's already there. For months. And I think that's when we can really, really help, particularly enterprise companies-

Yes help their internal teams just say, "Okay, this is when you should break a rule, and this is when you should keep a rule." Yeah. But it requires, I suppose, experience in branding and doing it every single day to know when you should break the rules and when you can just then say, "Yes, this will not break the brand, but it will make it come to life."

Because it's very easy, again, to, especially if you're doing internal rebrands and I spoke to actually someone the other day that's part of Canva, but The Flourish, I think, and she said, "Oh, we're working through an internal rebrand- Yeah ... and we're just finishing it, but it's, it's been a bit tricky, and we're not quite sure."

You know, just because-

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah ... everyone's got an opinion.

Cat How: Of course. Everyone's too close to it, and I was like, "Oh, that's interesting. You do need that perspective." So- You do ... that's when we come in and do some great work, I was gonna say, but that sounds a bit presumptuous, but yeah, we, I believe we do great work, and that's when we can offer, you know, a lot of help as well.

And just coming at it with a fresh perspective, really. Yeah. And, you know, we have motion designers in-house, 3D artists, typographers, and so we can say, "Oh, you know, have you seen, what if we did this?" You know? And so- Yeah ... that's where we can add lots of value.

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah.

Mm. Amazing. Thanks for sharing that, Cat. This was-

Cat How: You're welcome ...

Breanna Lawlor: lovely and enlightening.

Cat How: Thank you.

Breanna Lawlor: And I appreciate you highlighting a lot of what makes brands work.

Cat How: Thank you very much.

Breanna Lawlor: Yeah.

Cat How: Thanks for having me. I'm- Yeah. Thanks.