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- Employee Experience
- Brand-led Business Strategy
- Customer Experience
Richer Experiences Make Richer Brands
There’s no such thing as the perfect brand. However, our decades working with leading brands to help them with their brand experience, have shown us that there are clear winners across every market and in every sector. These are the brands who stand up, stand out and stand firm. And with a full trophy cabinet and a much-studied business model, Richer Sounds is undeniably one of these brands.
- Caffeine·
- 20/06/2022·

- Employee Experience
The Employer Brand
Work culture is a vital ingredient to sustaining success, but how does a brand create and then sustain that culture? The answer is through creating an employee experience that mirrors the customer experience. Ronan Dunne, former CEO of O2 and current Strategic Advisor to the Verizon CEO, sums this up well: ‘If you cannot turn your employees into fans there’s no way that you will turn customers into fans.’
- Caffeine·
- 13/05/2022·

- Employee Experience
Employee Loyalty = Customer Loyalty
It is a common myth across the business community that brands have a lot to do with what happens on the outside of a business and not very much to do with what goes on inside. This is profoundly wrong. Brands are everything to do with what happens on the inside.
- Caffeine·
- 13/05/2022·

- Brand-led Business Strategy
Good PR for your HR won’t compensate for a poor Customer Experience
This month, telecoms giant Virgin Media O2, announced that it would offer staff free gender transition therapy in order to provide “support and allyship to people from marginalised communities”.
Unfortunately for the customers of Virgin Media O2, the spirit of generosity that the brand shows its staff, does nothing to gloss over a dismal customer experience.
Virgin O2 have to be very careful not to drive a gap between their employee experience and their customer experience. Otherwise, this chasm will cast a shadow on the very purpose of the brand itself.
- Caffeine·
- 26/04/2022·

- Brand-led Business Strategy
Four questions to ask your agency in the pitch
Earlier this month the extraordinary case of a fake marketing agency was the feature of a BBC expose.
Mad Bird was created entirely online, the people hired were not salaried, had never worked with each other nor even known the founder. An extreme case of ‘fake it til you make it’ and a timely reminder that when an agency ‘pitches’ to you they’re going to be putting on their best face; So how can you tell what’s fact and what’s fiction?
- Caffeine·
- 25/03/2022·

- Brand-led Business Strategy
What are the Key Components of a Brand?
This year is the 100th anniversary of the first radio commercial. In the succeeding century, business marketing has evolved to almost unrecognizable levels and brands, in particular, have transformed their role and importance.
But though there has been a remarkable transformation in the nature and role of brands, the fundamental things still apply. They’re about differentiation and distinctiveness.
- Caffeine·
- 09/03/2022·

- Brand-led Business Strategy
- Customer Experience
What Matters Most
Our work to help clients to identify and deliver what matters most has led to Caffeine partner Smith+Co being awarded The UK’s Leading Management Consultants 2022 by the FT. This is the 3rd year in a row we have won this award and we are particularly proud of it. This is because, unlike other awards, nominations are taken directly from peers and then clients which shows they value the work we do.
- Caffeine·
- 31/01/2022·

- Brand-led Business Strategy
The purpose of brands
“Brand purpose truly is a bunch of crap, because it’s disingenuous. You’re saying, ‘My purpose is to make the world a better place’. No, your purpose is to make money". So said YUM! brands CMO Ken Muench who oversees global marketing for KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell in a recent interview for Marketing Week.
In this one sentence Muench manages to get it exactly right, and at the same time, exactly wrong.
- Caffeine·
- 21/01/2022·

- Customer Experience
- Employee Experience
‘There are no customers in the office’ – the benefits of talking to strangers.
Fear of rejection stops us from making the first move. It stops us from speaking to people we don’t know. But think about the first time you met your best friend, your life partner, your long-standing client. All the best relationships start with someone being brave enough to make the first move and someone reacting positively to the person who had that courage.
- Caffeine·
- 30/11/2021·

- Brand-led Business Strategy
The time is NOW
Learn how 175 year old law firm William Fry acted like a start up to launch two brand new propositions in ten weeks.
- Caffeine·
- 04/10/2021·
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