Hi and welcome back to Blademore's podcast series Centre Stage.

My name is Anthony Coombs and I'm the creator director at Bladermore.

This is the second episode in a two-part series about brand, so if you haven't listened to the first part,

do that now before listening to this

episode. Once again, I'll be joined by Carl Smith, strategy director at Bladmore, who has lots

of experience creating and managing brands. Hi, and welcome back to centre stage, Carl.

Hey, Ant, thanks for having me back again. Lovely to be talking to you again. This is our

second session talking about brand, but I really feel we've only started.

There's a lot more to come.

Yeah, we've barely scratched the surface.

So let's dig in.

If you remember in the first episode, we talked about the role of branding in managing change and the importance of brand narrative.

One thing I've noticed in my role as creator-director is there seems to be a tension with a lot of clients with fitting in and standing out in terms of their brand.

How do you gauge what's right for them?

Is it about being seen as competitive within that top set?

Or is it about doing something different and finding something new?

I think certainly it's common in the corporate communication world,

this idea of leading from the middle,

doing something that's good, decent, solid,

but not too avant-garde,

nothing that will get you the wrong kind of attention, I suppose.

And I think there's a long history in certain media teams. The whole idea

...