Category: Uncategorized

Getting there isn’t a mystical process. It’s a discipline.

What I’m looking for.

A core idea isn’t a tagline. It isn’t a tone of voice or a visual direction. It’s the single thought that makes everything else make sense. The test I use is simple: can I write it in one sentence? Not a sentence that *explains* the idea. A sentence that *is* the idea.

Guinness didn’t say “we should do something around the pour time.” The found an insight that they transformed into a brilliant core idea. Waiting is proof of worth. “Good things come to those who wait”. This ownable thought can transfer downstream to all collateral.

When I’m working through a brief, I’m looking for the tension. What does the audience believe that the brand can usefully challenge, confirm, or reframe? That tension is usually where the idea lives. The gap between what people think and what the brand can genuinely say.

The other thing I’m looking for is ownability. If any competitor could say it, it isn’t the idea. It’s a direction. Directions are useful starting points, but they’re not what you build a campaign on.

The one-sentence test

Once I think I’ve found something, I say it out loud to someone outside the room. This is non-negotiable. If they get it immediately, without context, without me explaining what I mean, then I probably have an idea. If they need the backstory, I don’t.

The one-sentence test is brutal, which is exactly why it works. Most briefs produce directions, not ideas.

“We want to feel more premium.”

“We want to be seen as the human choice in a category full of corporate brands.”

These are starting points.

They become ideas when you find the specific, surprising, ownable expression of them.

Building territories from a single idea

Once the core idea is in place, the real creative work starts: how does this idea express itself across different contexts, audiences, and ambitions?

This is where I use territories. Not to have three different ideas, but to explore three different ways into the same idea. The distinction matters. If your territories feel like separate campaigns, you haven’t found the idea yet. You’ve found three briefs.

I think about territories along a few different axes depending on what the brief is asking.

If the question is about creative ambition, I’ll work through evolution, mid-ground, and revolution. Evolution refines what exists. Mid-ground keeps the equity but changes the expression. Revolution starts from the brief, not from what already exists. All three are built on the same idea; they just ask for different levels of change.

If the question is about audience, I’ll use territories to explore how the same idea lands differently for different people. The same thought expressed for a Gen Z audience looks completely different from the same thought expressed for someone in their forties with a family and a mortgage. The idea doesn’t change. The execution does.

If the question is about tone, the territories let me show a client what their brand could sound like if it went premium, or playful, or educational. Same idea, three different personalities.

Why this matters

The brief never ends at the idea. But nothing good starts without one.

When the core idea is clear, every subsequent decision gets easier. Creative teams know what they’re building towards. Account teams can hold the idea in client conversations. The work stays coherent across formats, channels, and time because it’s all pulling from the same source.

When the idea is absent, or vague, the opposite happens. Teams pull in different directions. Clients sense the incoherence even when they can’t name it. The work gets good at the edges but hollow in the middle.

Getting to a core idea takes longer than most people expect and less time than most people fear. It takes one good question, asked honestly, about what only this brand can say to this audience at this moment.

Everything else is execution.

Independent, integrated communications agency BIG Partnership has appointed a new leadership team in Aberdeen as it pursues its next phase of growth. 

Shona Hendry, Richard Crighton and Pam Wilson have each been promoted to Associate Director and bring more than four decades of combined experience at BIG to head up the Aberdeen office.  

Allan Barr, CEO of BIG Partnership, said: “Shona, Richard and Pam have each played a significant part in building what BIG is today. These appointments recognise that contribution and give us the senior depth to take on more ambitious work for our clients.  

“Aberdeen is important to our growth story and having experienced leadership in the north east of Scotland puts us in a strong position as we target clients in the energy and wider business sectors as the region diversifies.” 

The appointments reflect BIG’s focus on keeping senior people involved throughout client relationships, with experienced leaders available to provide strategic counsel from day one and throughout a project’s life. 

The agency works with clients across the energy, public affairs, consumer and corporate communications sectors, helping organisations address commercial and reputational challenges and delivering work judged on outcomes rather than activity. 

When I tell people I work in emergency response and crisis communications, their first question is almost always, “What does that mean?”.

At its heart, emergency response is about preparation. It’s about having a crisis response plan tailored to your organisation for what could be the worst day in your company’s history. It’s about putting your people first and foremost and it’s about identifying risks before they become a crisis.

While emergency response is often associated with the oil and gas industry, it can apply to almost every organisation. Any business with employees, customers, stakeholders or assets has the potential to face an incident that can result in reputational damage should it not be handled appropriately.

BIG Partnership’s Emergency Response team offers a comprehensive process-driven crisis management and emergency response service 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

With the bulk of the oil and gas industry based in the north east of Scotland, many of our clients are energy companies, but we also work with a range of other sectors, including aviation and maritime, construction, manufacturing and the public sector. Regardless of the industry, the aim is to help organisations respond quickly, communicate effectively and make informed decisions while under pressure.

Central to all emergency response is communication. In today’s world, news travels faster than ever thanks to mobile technology, social media and 24-hour news channels, all of which allow information (both factual and inaccurate) to spread rapidly around the globe. How we respond to emergencies, and the speed of that response, has had to adapt accordingly.

Being prepared has never been more important and having robust emergency response procedures and crisis management structures in place is key. Companies which communicate quickly, accurately and consistently have more chance of reducing the risk of misinformation and speculation.

Our role is to work alongside our clients and their wider emergency response teams to ensure the efficient and effective flow of information. We prepare holding statements and press releases, manage media relations, develop key messages and respond to enquiries.

The way an organisation prepares for and responds during an incident says a lot about its culture, its leadership and how it values its people. The industry-recognised PEAR model – People, Environment, Assets and finally Reputation – reflects this by putting people at the heart of every incident. Considering the wellbeing of those affected by an incident should always be the priority in any response, shaping all decisions and subsequent communications.

Beyond the immediate incident, we also support the Business Support Team/Corporate Management Team, helping them to ‘see round corners,’ offering advice and support where it is most needed, helping senior teams address the wider business implications of an ongoing event, such as reputation management, forecasting emerging issues and ensuring communications align with business priorities.

Any incident or crisis requires organisations to deal with a range of stakeholders; as well as the media, there are employees, families, emergency services, government, investors, regulators, shareholders, customers and suppliers to consider. Each requires accurate and appropriate information delivered in a timely fashion, often under intense public scrutiny.

Working in emergency response requires the ability to remain calm under pressure, think strategically, make decisions quickly and work collaboratively. In the most serious incidents where there may be injuries or loss of life, professionalism, empathy and excellent communication skills are key.

At BIG, we pride ourselves on providing the highest quality of service combining practical incident experience with rigorous training which allows us to provide our clients with a safe pair of hands. Emergency response is not just about managing a crisis once it has happened. It’s about preparing for it before it does happen because when it does, every minute counts.

Developers are scaling renewable projects faster than governments can set the targets that justify them. Communities, meanwhile, are increasingly alert to the opportunities and impacts that major infrastructure brings. But amid this acceleration, one challenge continues to grow in complexity: stakeholder engagement.

From offshore wind and grid infrastructure to hydrogen and carbon capture projects, successful delivery no longer depends solely on engineering or finance. It depends on trust.

As someone working in stakeholder engagement within the energy sector, I’ve seen first-hand how expectations have changed. Communities, local authorities, supply chain partners, environmental groups and political stakeholders all want to be involved earlier, informed more clearly and listened to more meaningfully. Simply issuing project updates or holding a consultation event is no longer enough.

One of the biggest challenges is balancing urgency with transparency. Renewable projects are under pressure to move quickly to meet climate targets, energy demands and funding timelines, yet communities feel projects are happening to them rather than with them. If engagement is rushed or overly technical, trust can quickly erode, and rebuilding it is far more difficult than establishing it from the start.

While it may seem developers should engage communities as soon as a project receives internal approval, this is not always practical. In the early stages, key details such as project design, environmental assessments, grid connections and construction timelines may still be evolving. Engaging too soon can leave developers unable to answer important questions or make firm commitments. That creates uncertainty and risks setting expectations they can’t meet.

The challenge is finding the right balance: engaging early enough to build trust while ensuring sufficient information is available to support meaningful conversations. A phased engagement strategy, where developers are transparent about what is known, what is still being assessed and when further information will be available, can help manage expectations and maintain credibility.

Another challenge is countering misinformation and competing narratives. Social media has transformed how projects are discussed publicly, allowing concerns about visual impact, environmental issues or economic benefits to spread rapidly.

In many cases, silence from developers creates a vacuum that others are happy to fill. Proactive communication is therefore more important than ever. Working with local authorities, community groups and trusted organisations can help ensure information reaches residents through channels they already trust.

Identifying community ambassadors who understand the project’s benefits, monitoring social media discussions and developing tailored FAQs can help address concerns before they escalate. Presentations, project websites and local partnerships also help correct misinformation.

Even when there is little new information to share, regular communication reassures communities that they are being kept informed and helps prevent speculation.

There is also the challenge of translating complexity into clarity. Renewable energy projects involve technical language, policy frameworks and lengthy development timelines that can be difficult for non-specialist audiences to engage with. Stakeholders want information they can understand, relate to and respond to confidently.

Developers should work closely with communications teams to create clear, concise messaging, particularly for consultation materials. Sufficient time should be allocated to developing materials including visuals that explain complex details, such as cable routes, building heights and local impacts, in a way that is easy to understand.

At the same time, developers are managing multiple audiences with different priorities. Investors focus on delivery and risk, communities on local impacts and benefits, political stakeholders on jobs and economic growth, and environmental groups on biodiversity and sustainability. Effective engagement requires a strategy that speaks credibly to each audience while maintaining a consistent message.

This is where strategic PR and communications support becomes essential. Agencies with experience engaging different stakeholder groups can help tailor communications effectively. A one-size-fits-all approach rarely works.

Stakeholder engagement is not simply a box-ticking exercise. It means building relationships, creating understanding and maintaining confidence throughout a project’s lifecycle. A strong communications strategy helps developers engage earlier, communicate more clearly and respond proactively to emerging issues.

As a PR and communications agency working across the energy and infrastructure sectors, we support clients by developing engagement strategies that are proactive, transparent and audience led. From community consultation programmes and media relations to digital engagement, messaging development and crisis communications, we help organisations communicate with clarity and credibility.

The energy transition will only succeed if people feel part of it. Renewable energy projects succeed when developers maintain clear and transparent communication with stakeholders. Stakeholder engagement must sit at the heart of project delivery, not on the sidelines.

Britain has its seventh Prime Minister in ten years, and this one is arriving without a general election or a leadership contest. Nominations opened on 9 July for the race to succeed Keir Starmer as Labour leader. Andy Burnham was the only declared candidate.

He was confirmed as Labour leader on 17 July, unopposed, and takes office as Prime Minister today following his audience with the King.

Westminster is calling this a coronation. For anyone with a stake in government policy or funding decisions, it’s better understood as a change of management with almost no notice period.

How we got here

Starmer announced his resignation on 22 June, four days after Burnham won his seat as MP for Makerfield, having won a by-election engineered specifically to get him there. Sitting MP Josh Simons stood down in May so the then-Mayor of Greater Manchester could re-enter Parliament and mount a challenge. Wes Streeting, the one MP with the profile to make this a genuine contest, endorsed Burnham within hours and stood aside. That single decision shaped the timetable more than anything in the party’s rulebook.

Starmer stayed on until the process concluded. His net approval rating had fallen to around -46% by November 2025, and Labour’s losses in the May 2026 local elections triggered a run of resignations, including Streeting on 14 May and Defence Secretary John Healey on 11 June. Burnham, positioned to Starmer’s left and backed by a decade running Greater Manchester, absorbed that discontent faster than anyone else could organise against it.

What a coronation actually changes

A contested leadership race ordinarily forces a candidate to defend their positions in public, under pressure, for weeks. The coronation skips all of that. Burnham walks into Downing Street without ever having had to defend a manifesto, a fiscal plan or a foreign policy position against a Labour rival. That matters for anyone trying to plan around him, because a contest is usually where you find out what a Prime Minister actually believes once the questions get hard. This time, there was no dress rehearsal. The positions on record are the ones Burnham developed as a regional mayor, without a departmental Cabinet to run, a Treasury to negotiate with or a backbench to manage. All three land on day one.

What this means in practice

A reshuffle is coming, and it reaches further than the top job. New leaders bring new advisers and, usually, a reshaped Cabinet. Relationships built around a specific minister or department should be treated as provisional until appointments are confirmed.

The runway before recess is short. Anything meant to land on a new minister’s desk in their first fortnight, congratulations, requests for meetings, briefing material, is worth having ready now.

Burnham has pledged to stay within the current spending and borrowing plans, which should reassure anyone braced for a sharp fiscal shift. But his “Manchesterism”, a devolution-and-private-investment approach to growth, changes the tone even where the numbers don’t move. Expect a different pitch on regional investment, planning and business engagement from a government running the same fiscal rules.

Greater Manchester relationships carry new weight. A decade running that combined authority means Burnham arrives fluent in regional investment and transport policy and already known to the people who deliver it. Organisations with a footprint in the North West now have a more direct line into Downing Street than they had a month ago.

Scotland is not a bystander. A new UK government reshapes the Barnett conversation and the tone of UK-Scottish Government relations, whatever the devolution settlement says on paper. Holyrood-facing work should treat this as part of the same story, not a separate one.

What you should do next

Review which of your government contacts are reshuffle risks and have any correspondence for a new minister ready to send the moment appointments are confirmed.

If you’d like to talk through what this means for your organisation specifically and how we can assist, BIG Partnership’s public affairs team is happy to help.

Energy sits between infrastructure, politics and public anxiety in a way few sectors can match. Yet the people with the most power to shape a project’s fate – local communities, elected representatives and planning committees – are often the furthest removed from the technical detail. That gap is not a communications inconvenience. It is the central challenge of working in energy, and closing it is what determines whether a project moves forward or stalls.

Geopolitical tension, price volatility and net zero policy have pushed energy to the top of the public and investor agenda simultaneously. The detail, from grid infrastructure to hydrogen repurposing to planning policy, remains technical and difficult for non-specialists to grasp. Translating that complexity is not about diluting the facts. It is about making them meaningful to the person reading them.

Whether the goal is to secure planning consent, attract investment or build public trust, understanding is essential. It also requires the ability to adapt between highly technical, informed audiences and the wider public ensuring messaging is crafted specifically to the people it speaks to.

Start with what matters, not how it works

The most important question in energy communications is the ‘why’. Whether you’re connecting with engineers who want detailed case studies or local communities near a proposed battery storage facility, audiences want to know why it matters to them.

Technical audiences expect accuracy, depth and specificity. If you oversimplify, you lose credibility. Whether that’s methodology, compliance, or project outcomes the detail is the message. For wider audiences, the challenge is different. The same level of detail quickly becomes alienating. Relatability is key for audiences to understand the impact. This is where strategic communications is critical. Being able to adapt messaging while telling the same story is essential. 

Take a new offshore wind project. Industry stakeholders will look for installed capacity plans, turbine specifications, and grid integration. The local community, by contrast, will want to know about noise levels, the visual impact on the landscape and local job opportunities. The same project, two entirely different conversations.

The same principle applies across the sector. In a gas-to-hydrogen repurposing project, investors need commercial viability data and a clear regulatory pathway, while workers and local communities need reassurance about jobs and safety. Tailoring communication to each audience’s priorities is what keeps everyone informed and on side.

When we worked with Onyx – a global provider of services to wind asset owners – the challenge was exactly this. The same story needed to land with two very different audiences. We led with an accessible press release for a broad readership, before following up with in-depth thought leadership articles for industry specialists who needed the technical detail. Same message, two very different registers.

Read the full case study here.

Make the invisible visible

Most energy infrastructure is invisible to the public. Oil and gas platforms sit offshore, onshore wind turbines occupy remote hillsides and the mechanisms that balance supply and demand on the grid happen entirely out of sight. Storytelling brings those assets and processes to life through analogy, comparison, imagery and videography. For audiences who want to go deeper, data points and schematics provide the supporting layer.

Data builds credibility, but people create connections. One of the most effective ways to translate complexity is through human storytelling: putting the engineers, planners, and technicians behind a project front and centre. It doesn’t replace the technical detail. It makes it worth reading.

When communication fails, projects pay for it

The consequences of poor energy communications are rarely abstract. A planning inquiry derailed by local opposition, a judicial review triggered by communities who felt excluded from consultation, a political intervention prompted by media coverage that went unanswered. These are project risks, measured in months and in money.

The energy sector has no shortage of examples where technically sound projects ran into sustained, organised resistance, not because the project was wrong, but because the communication was too little, too late, or aimed at the wrong level. Getting ahead of that requires treating communications as part of project development, not something added on before a public exhibition.

The media is not just another audience

Journalists occupy a specific position in energy communications that differs from any other audience. They translate your messaging and transmit it further. A technically accurate briefing can become a misleading headline within a news cycle. That is not always bad faith, it is often the result of tight deadlines, sub-editors left to do the finishing touches, and limited specialist knowledge.

Managing that chain of interpretation, being available, plain-spoken and proactive with the media, is a distinct skill from briefing engineers or addressing a community meeting. It also means that what you do not say publicly is as consequential as what you do. Silence in a fast-moving story is rarely neutral.

A strategic advantage, not just a communications task

As the UK’s energy transition accelerates, the ability to communicate complex infrastructure effectively separates projects that build broad support from those that stall. Projects that are well understood, by both expert and non-expert audiences, are more likely to gain approval, overcome opposition and maintain momentum.

For communications professionals working across the energy sector, this requires collaboration, adaptability and the confidence to hold a complex story together across very different audiences. The question is never whether to simplify. It’s knowing how far to go, and when to stop.

Trust is one of those words brands love to use. 

“Trusted since 1987.” 

“The trusted choice.” 

“A name you can trust.” 

The problem is, saying it does not make it true. 

Trust is not something a business can simply claim – it’s something people build up over time, based on what they have seen, heard and experienced. 

And it has never been easier for brands to lose people. There are more channels, more content, more messages and more information fighting for attention, but less patience and less time to care. Confusion is costly. 

If your brand is unclear, inconsistent or unfocused, people will not spend long trying to work you out. They will move on to something easier to understand – and easier to trust. 

Why trust matters 

Trust makes choosing easier for consumers. That, in turn, makes it commercially valuable for businesses. 

People do not have the time or inclination to evaluate every available option in forensic detail, so they rely on trust-based shortcuts. They choose brands they recognise, understand, have heard good things about or have already had a positive experience with. 

A trusted brand is easier to choose, easier to recommend and easier to return to. People are also more likely to stick with it and forgive it when something goes wrong.  

Where trust starts to break 

Many brands are harder to trust than they realise. They are too vague about what they do, too internally focused in how they talk about it, too inconsistent from one channel to another or too similar to everyone else in the category. Some keep changing direction before people have had a chance to understand them in the first place. 

And trust does not usually disappear in one dramatic moment. It is built or eroded in the small stuff. Through the clear, consistent experiences people have across every touchpoint, from the website and sales call to the invoice, delivery and response when something goes wrong. 

A brand can say it is helpful while its website makes life harder. It can call itself human while its service feels robotic. It can talk endlessly about innovation while the experience feels ten years out of date. 

When the gap between what a brand says and what people experience becomes too wide, trust starts to break. 

Put your brand to the test 

So, how do you know whether your brand is genuinely easy to trust? 

At BIG, we use a simple trust test when we start working with a brand. It looks beyond what an organisation claims and asks whether the business is making its promise clear, believable and consistent across the whole experience. 

It comes down to five questions: 

1. Clarity: Do people know what you stand for? 

Ask three people in your business what the organisation stands for and you will often get three different answers. That is a problem, because people cannot trust something they do not properly understand. 

Your audience should be able to grasp what you do, why you matter and what makes you worth choosing without decoding a wall of corporate language.  

Clarity is not about dumbing things down, it’s about making the important parts easy to understand. If a potential customer could not explain your business after visiting your website once, the brand is making them work too hard. 

2. Alignment: Would your people say the same thing? 

Trust slips when the leadership team tells one story, the sales team tells another and the customer experience delivers something else entirely. Alignment starts inside the organisation. 

Your people need a shared understanding of what the business stands for, how it creates value and what kind of experience it wants to provide.  

That does not mean giving everyone a script, but having a clear North Star gives the business one organising idea, so different teams can express the same brand naturally through what they say, do and prioritise. 

3. Consistency: Are you recognisable across every touchpoint? 

Great brands are surprisingly repetitive. It might not sound glamorous, but repetition is how they become familiar, understood and trusted. 

Consistency does not mean repeating the same thing everywhere or making everything look identical. It means every interaction feels as though it came from the same place.  

Your website, advertising, emails, sales materials and customer service can all do different jobs, but they should still feel connected. When every channel behaves like a different business, people must keep reassessing who you are. 

4. Proof: Are you demonstrating it through experience? 

Brands spend a lot of time deciding which words they want to use about themselves. Helpful. Expert. Friendly. Innovative. Reliable. But people are far more interested in whether the experience proves them true. 

If you say you are easy to deal with, how simple is it to contact you? If you say you care about customers, what happens when one has a problem? If you say quality matters, where can people see and feel it? Trust grows when the promise and the experience reinforce one another.  

Brand can make the truth easier to see. It cannot manufacture it. 

5. Recognition: Are you distinctive enough to be remembered? 

Being clear and consistent is important, but it will only get you so far if the brand is impossible to pick out from the category. 

If you look, sound and behave like every competitor, people will struggle to remember who said what. Distinctiveness gives them something to hold on to, whether that comes from your visual identity, tone of voice, attitude, point of view or customer experience.  

The aim is not to be different for the sake of it. It is to be easier to recognise, easier to recall and easier to choose. 

Trust is a pattern, not a message 

That is what the trust test is really measuring. Not what you claim in one campaign, but the pattern created by every interaction. 

Clear. Aligned. Consistent. Proven. Recognisable. 

So, the question is not whether you tell people your brand can be trusted. It’s whether you are making it easy for them to believe you. 

To put your brand to the test, get in touch: [email protected] 

In modern digital marketing, measuring performance accurately is fundamental to driving sustainable, profitable growth. While platforms such as Google Ads provide sophisticated attribution and reporting tools, these systems primarily measure correlation – the attribution and touch points between ads in the platform – not causation – which is whether the ad actually drove conversion. Incrementality testing addresses this gap by identifying the true business impact of advertising investment. 

What is incrementality testing? 

Incrementality testing evaluates whether marketing activity generates additional outcomes that would not have occurred without advertising exposure. As marketers, what we really want to know is whether these conversions would have happened anyway, without seeing the ad in the first place. For example, it’s a hot sunny day and a customer has bought an ice cream. Have they bought that ice cream because it’s a hot sunny day, or because they’ve seen an ad for it? 

It is a critical distinction as platform-reported conversions often include users who were already likely to purchase, inflating perceived performance and leading to inefficient budget allocation.  

Incrementality testing isolates advertising’s causal impact through controlled experimentation, typically through techniques such as geo holdouts, audience splits, conversion lift studies or budget pause tests. 

Why traditional attribution falls short 

Digital platforms optimise toward the signals available within their ecosystems. Both Google and Meta rely heavily on modelled attribution due to privacy restrictions, signal loss, and cross-device behaviour.  

This has consequences and could mean that: 

Retargeting campaigns often appear highly efficient but may capture existing demand rather than create new demand; 

Branded search frequently receives disproportionate credit for conversions that are already driven by upper-funnel channels;  

Automated bidding algorithms optimise driving conversions, not profit.  attributed conversions, not incremental profit.  

Without incrementality testing, marketers risk scaling spend that redistributes demand instead of generating growth. 

Incrementality in Google Ads 

Within Google Ads, incrementality testing is particularly important because search advertising sits close to purchase intent. 

Key challenges include: 

Brand search cannibalisation — users already intending to convert may click paid ads instead of organic listings; 

Performance max and automation opacity — machine learning blends channels and audiences, making causal impact harder to evaluate; 

Demand capture vs. demand creation — search excels at capturing intent but does not always generate new demand.  

Incrementality testing helps to determine: 

Whether branded search spend is truly additive;  

The marginal return of increased budget levels  

The real contribution of upper-funnel YouTube or Display investment to search demand.  

This enables advertisers to optimise for profitability, not just reported ROAS (return on ad spend). 

Incrementality across Meta 

On Meta platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, incrementality testing is arguably even more critical. 

Meta’s strength lies in demand generation, but its attribution models can often reward campaigns that efficiently reach existing customers or high-intent users. 

Common risks include: 

Over-investment in retargeting audiences;  

Algorithmic bias toward users already likely to convert;  

Inflated attribution windows exaggerating performance.  

However, incrementality testing — through conversion lift experiments, audience holdouts, or geo testing — reveals: 

The true value of prospecting campaigns;  

The incremental contribution of creative and messaging;  

Optimal frequency and budget thresholds. 

All of this allows marketers to shift investment toward campaigns that grow the market, not simply harvest existing demand. 

The strategic value: From efficiency to growth 

Incrementality testing transforms marketing decision-making in three fundamental ways. First, it drives smarter budget allocation away from low-incremental channels towards high-impact demand creators that generate genuine growth.  

Second, it enables more accurate ROI measurement, allowing businesses to optimise toward incremental revenue and profit rather than the flattering but often misleading metrics reported by platforms themselves.  

And third, it fosters better collaboration between finance and marketing by anchoring performance to causal business outcomes. 

Beyond operational improvements, incrementality testing has become a source of durable competitive advantage. As privacy regulations erode tracking precision and platforms lean more heavily on modelling, it stands out as the most reliable measurement framework available.  

Organisations that embed experimentation into their operating model reap compounding benefits: faster learning cycles, less wasted spend, more confident scaling decisions, and stronger long-term profitability. To unlock profitable digital growth across Google Ads, Meta, and the broader marketing ecosystem, incrementality testing is now essential. 

Over the last decade, I’ve built websites in Dreamweaver, created GIFs that generated billions of views, learned Meta’s AR software and now use AI tools to help shape wireframes and content structures. 

Some of those skills are still useful, while others have all but disappeared. 

It’s taught me an important lesson: the most valuable skill in design isn’t mastering a particular tool, it’s being willing to adapt when the industry inevitably changes around you.

The tools never stop changing 

When I started my career, Dreamweaver was still a legitimate part of many designers’ workflows – it was considered cutting edge. 

Back then, building a website often meant designing and developing it yourself. Responsive design was still finding its feet; social media looked very different and nobody was talking about AI as a creative tool. 

Fast forward a decade and my workflow has changed completely. Most projects now start in Figma, collaboration happens in real time and tools like Claude and Relume are helping speed up everything from content structures to early-stage wireframing. 

The fundamentals of design haven’t changed much but the tools we use to get there certainly have. 

One of the biggest challenges for any designer is deciding what deserves your time. 

Throughout my working life, I’ve invested hours learning platforms and technologies that felt like the future. 

At one point, GIF creation became a major part of my work. Brands were embracing the format, audiences were sharing them everywhere and the opportunities felt endless. It was an exciting time, creating content that generated billions of views across social platforms. 

Fast forward a few years and GIFs feel increasingly tied to a specific era of internet culture. 

The same thing happened with Meta Spark Studio. I spent time learning how to create augmented reality experiences because it genuinely looked like a pivotal direction for social media. Then the platform was retired and much of that ecosystem disappeared. 

Looking purely at the software, that time might seem wasted but I don’t see it that way. 

The value wasn’t really in the tools themselves. Every new platform forced me to learn new ways of thinking, solve unfamiliar problems and become comfortable operating outside my comfort zone. Those skills transfer. 

The software may disappear, but the ability to pick up something new, understand it quickly and find creative ways to use it remains incredibly valuable. 

In many ways, learning how to learn has become one of the most important skills in modern design. 

AI is just the latest chapter 

Right now, AI dominates almost every conversation in the creative industry. Some people see it as a threat while others see it as the solution to everything. The reality is probably somewhere in the middle. 

I use AI tools regularly, not because they replace design thinking, but because they help remove friction, speed up certain tasks and make it easier to move ideas forward. 

Five years from now, the tools we’re all talking about today might be gone. That’s not a criticism, it’s just the nature of technology. 

The challenge isn’t trying to learn everything, it’s figuring out what’s worth exploring, what’s worth ignoring and what genuinely makes you better at your job. 

Why this matters for brands 

The same principle applies beyond design. Businesses are navigating many of the same challenges. New platforms emerge, customer behaviours shift and technologies evolve at an increasingly rapid pace. Knowing which opportunities are worth pursuing and which are simply distractions has become more important than ever. 

That’s where experience matters. At BIG, we’re constantly exploring new tools, technologies and ways of working. Not because every trend deserves attention, but because understanding what’s changing helps us identify what will genuinely create value for our clients. 

The goal isn’t to chase every new platform or shiny new technology. It’s to combine proven creative thinking with an understanding of what’s next, helping brands adapt confidently without losing sight of what makes them effective in the first place. 

The tools will continue to change, they always do. For designers and brands alike, the challenge is knowing how to evolve with them. 

The Scotland men’s national football team are at their first World Cup in 28 years. To cheer the team on and celebrate their qualification, more than 30,000 party ready Scots have descended on Boston, watching John McGinn help secure a 1-0 win over Haiti with his goal in the country’s opening match of the tournament.  

While that victory may have been Scotland’s first in the tournament since 1990, another resounding success has unfolded elsewhere in the city. Ahead of the tournament, Travis Pollio, the Red Sox director of ticket strategy and promotions, noticed that Scotland’s opening match fell the day before a home game at Fenway Park, the baseball side’s historic stadium. He could have ignored it; instead, ‘Scotland Day’ was born.

Following Scotland’s win – with spirits still high – the Tartan Army marched from the city’s Evans Way Park to Fenway, led by a band of pipers. Fans were gifted special edition blue tartan Red Sox jerseys, and the mascots ‘Tessie and Wally’ appeared in traditional Scottish dress. During the match itself, a crowd that had, mostly, never watched a baseball game in their lives, created a huge atmosphere by belting their way through the classic tunes with ‘Flower of Scotland’, ‘I’m Gonna Be’ and ‘Yes Sir, I Can Boogie’ echoing through the stands.

Of the 32,000 people inside Fenway that night, BBC Sport’s reporter on the ground, Scott Mullen, estimated you could treble Pollio’s initial forecast of 4,000 Scottish fans and not be overstating it. The Red Sox lost 6-4 to the Texas Rangers, although almost nobody seemed to mind.

What made this work wasn’t a slick campaign concept with all the bells and whistles. Pollio spotted a simple opportunity: thousands of Scotland supporters were already in his city and looking for something to do between football matches, with Scotland set to play Morocco this coming Friday. Before the gates even opened, pipe bands were playing outside on Jersey Street, fans in kilts were spilling across the concourses and the kind of atmosphere that you can’t artificially manufacture was already building in the stands.

Scots who had never watched a baseball game in their lives were singing their hearts out by the end of the first inning. The audience overlap was almost perfect – Bostonians are renowned for their sporting spirit – and, because the activation was built around people who were already there, the cost relative to what it returned was negligible.

The magic of this activation lies in its raw, unfiltered delivery. The Red Sox created the occasion and then allowed the fans to create the atmosphere. Every one of those supporters likely had a phone in their pocket. Every photo posted, every story shared, every TikTok uploaded put the Red Sox brand in front of audiences the club would never have reached through paid media. The best user generated content usually isn’t manufactured through hashtag competitions or giveaways – it happens organically when you give people something genuinely worth sharing.

In another world, this is an activation where someone has added three approval layers, a brand safety review and a six-week lead time that would cause it to become a sanitised co-branding exercise that ultimately generates nothing. The version that happened was confident and trusting enough to let the crowd take it somewhere.

A lesson that every comms and marketing team should take from this event is, instead of asking ‘how can we attach ourselves to this event?’, rather, ‘how do we create a moment and a memory for fans?’

According to CreativeX, an analytics platform for marketers, the ultimate driver of buying decision is memory. Now, whenever one of those Scotland fans think of baseball, they will instantly think of the Red Sox and that incredible night they experienced at Fenway, ultimately making them more likely to visit again or purchase merchandise. You must also consider the millions of views that the atmosphere has generated on social media by people stunned that a regular season Major League Baseball match has been commandeered by rowdy Scots.

During a World Cup, every host city has a full schedule. Every match creates a temporary captive audience of supporters, journalists and curious locals who don’t vanish at the final whistle. The teams and brands earning attention right now aren’t always the official partners, it is the brands sensing an opportunity, spotted something the others missed and moved before the window closed.