HUMANISING BRANDS
Michelle Blake & Associates
A Strategic Purpose Consultancy
Enabling the impact you’re here to make.
Finding, honing, renewing purpose.
Activating purpose & inventing new opportunities.
Finding opportunity in every challenge.
People first, human-centred, with empathy & imagination
Purpose-driven, values-led
Pacey and thoughtful bespoke approach
For real, lasting impact
PHILOSOPHY
One day I realised that the brands I buy are those that, yes, do a job (and do it well!), but where I have a choice - and mostly I do - I actively choose brands whose values align with mine.
And I started to think about what this meant… because although I’m just one person - apparently there are more and more people out there who are thinking this way. And I realised that what it’s about is wanting companies and brands to behave like the good people we know and value. We want them to have a point of view on the world, to be a net contributor, and we want to rely on the fact that they’re trying to do the right thing - even if they don’t always get it right. (Who among us does?)
MB&a is about helping humanise brands, starting from purpose, what’s at the heart of the brand. Helping brands engage with people and the world in a truly meaningful way. To turbocharge the success of companies and brands that deserve to be better noticed and more loved.
WHAT CLIENTS SAY
MB&a understood our brand immediately and excelled at stakeholder management throughout the project. They developed a fantastic long-term innovation strategy, driven on consumer, brand and commercial insight, going above and beyond the brief.
Rebecca Cottee, Yeo Valley Organic
A real joy working with MB&a. Loved our fantastic, perfectly-assembled team, who’ve helped us get to a ground-breaking behaviour change strategy that we’re confident will have a real impact on our water saving targets! Would hugely recommend!
Melissa Painter, Affinity Water
I’ve worked with Michelle over a number of projects now, and it’s always a pleasure. But it’s the real thought partnership she offers that I particularly value. Really good at listening and getting to grips with the issues, and flexible in her thinking, Michelle can see through the clutter to deliver that little bit of magic that’s needed to get to a really good outcome.
Michelle's also very skilled at managing multiple points of view sensitively, which is invaluable on challenging projects with lots of stakeholders!
Sarah McDonald, Unilever
Michelle co-led the team that supported our relaunch of the Murad brand post the Unilever acquisition, helping us knit together a brand story that encompassed the richness of our history and product truths, and got the buy in of the founder, Dr. Murad.
Have loved Michelle’s ongoing commitment - even post project delivery, Michelle’s continued to be a great support!
Charlotte Settle, Murad
Michelle provided strong thought leadership to our strategic brand development project, driving for results at high speed, but never neglecting precision, pushing her team to run the extra mile for Mars, which was valued internally and resulted in further engagements.
It's always a pleasure to work with Michelle as she partners up with you in real 24/7 team work and coaches the collective brains to spark to their very best!
Robert Haller, Mars Petcare Europe
Michelle led a team of consultants in scanning the market and developing a portfolio of new business venture and growth opportunities for us. She rapidly understood our specific business situation and focused on the right opportunities for us, bringing innovative fresh thinking and challenging our preconceptions.
Michelle worked very effectively with my team to ensure ownership and buy-in to the results.
Matt Friend, Carbon Trust
Michelle looked for us at how companies and charities around the world were using community based digital / financial inclusion schemes and innovations as a key component of their brands.
As well as being incredibly personable, Michelle produced a very thorough, well organised report, helping us explore opportunities we could progress, and evaluating ease of implementation. I really valued Michelle's contribution!
Richard Mason, Lloyds Banking Group
INSPIRING CLIENTS
.jpeg)
SERVICES
Experienced. Imaginative. Future-forward.
See the bigger picture, imagine something new, and recognise what it takes practically to get there. Fusing rigorous analysis – a real desire to get under the skin of things – with insightful market understanding to rethink purpose, develop strategic options, invent new brands and imagine innovation pipelines. Want to find out more?
Get in touch
HUMANISE BRANDS
Find the story that's worth telling, what meaning can and should your company or brand have for people. Identify purpose, and position your brand for success - in a world where people are increasingly hard to reach, and where there's more and more noise. Humanising your brand for a digital world. Want to find out more? Get in touch
FOCUS PORTFOLIOS
You know where you're headed, but is your brand portfolio fit for purpose? Do you have the right line-up, are brands positioned where you need them to be, are there new opportunities you've not got covered... Get set up to succeed. Want to find out more? Get in touch
INVENT OPPORTUNITY
People don't buy strategy - they buy experiences and stuff…
Imagine the right innovation platforms, create innovation pipelines, and invent new propositions that truly deliver against your purpose and strategy. Accelerate growth for the future. Want to find out more? Get in touch
INTERPRET THE LANDSCAPE
It's easy to end up head down getting through the day to day of a job, and lose sight of what's going on in terms of trends and your competition (new and emerging!), where are the commercial possibilities. Be prepared to spot what's coming next, and identify new opportunities / upcoming threats. Want to find out more? Get in touch
MICHELLE & TEAM
My Story
I'm an experienced and strategically-minded Brand and Marketing expert with more than 20 years of management and brand consultancy plus industry experience.
I founded MB&a to do more of the work I loved doing with people I loved doing it with!
Previously Founding Partner at Core Purpose, Strategy Director at Big Green Door, and Planning Partner at Ogilvy & Mather London, I've uncovered purpose, developed strategic options, invented new brands and imagined innovation pipelines.
My ‘client-side’ experience, together with an MBA from London Business School, means also that I totally get the commercial imperatives and implementation issues. With experience across industries (B2B/B2C, start-ups to blue-chips)... and geographies, from Europe to the Nordics, and from Shanghai to Moscow, I come with a broad, international perspective, backed up with a good smattering of French, German and Swedish.
I live between London, Malta and a small fishing village in southern Sweden with my husband and daughter, who's mostly now off at uni and on to her own adventures. Plus a cat, Pepper. I'd love to chat, so do...
STRONGER TOGETHER
Meaningful collaborations. Blended skills.
A beautifully balanced and blended core of senior practitioners fusing agency, consultancy and client-side experience and perspectives. Our ‘film crew’ model results in just the right team for you and the challenge at hand…
Purposeful, strategic
Expert, practised
Insightful, always curious about the world
Joyful collaborators
MITRA POWELL
Insight | Psychology
Mitra has over 20 years experience as an insight specialist, with a passion for brand strategy and innovation. An accomplished quali with a Masters in psychodynamic psychotherapy, Mitra is dedicated to getting to the underlying motivations that drive people's choices, helping brands to make deeper and more meaningful connections with their customers.
"Getting answers to tricky problems depends on the questions you ask and the openness with which you listen to what's being said. Listen for the meaning behind the words, and often, you're halfway to a solution."
DENNIS PANNOZZO
Innovation
Dennis is an innovation and proposition specialist with over twenty years of experience in industry - at GE Capital and Lloyds Banking Group - and with innovation consultancy Edengene. He now runs his own innovation practice.
Dennis has helped clients create and take to market sustainable new propositions, business models, growth strategies and disruptive new ventures. His approach combines creativity and commercial know-how to ensure optimal value for both clients, and their customers and stakeholders.
Dennis left London a while back to be by the seaside in Whitstable, where he lives with his partner and their growing menagerie of pets.
DAVINA GLEN
Innovation | Insights & Analysis
With over 10 years of industry experience spanning consultancy and in-house roles, Davina is a very capable strategic analyst able to extract findings from complex information to quickly develop a detailed understanding of a market, and make practical recommendations applicable to real-world client situations. Plus a real pleasure to work with, smart, professional and fun.
"I lucked out! I get paid to do something I love, to indulge my curiosity and imagination: unearthing insights, articulating foresights, and creating solutions and strategies that enable businesses and brands to serve people better."
CATHY HENG
Creativity
Cathy & Tracy (next up) are a dynamic creative duo who've worked together for many years. Cathy's pictures; Tracy, words...
Cathy is an award-winning art director, and appears in Campaign’s ‘Top 100’ Hall of Fame for her work on BMW. She's worked at leading advertising agencies, including CDP, AMV, WCRS, and DMB&B, where she was Head of Art, and most recently as Creative Director at Big Green Door.
“What I feel about life and our industry is best summed up by advertising icon, Bill Bernbach: 'Our proper area of study is simple, timeless, human truths.'”
TRACY MITCHELL BROWN
Creativity
Tracy is a copywriter and strategic storyteller. With over 100 projects under her belt, she's worked across diverse brands and categories, for major FMCG and retail companies such as PepsiCo, Mars, Johnson & Johnson and John Lewis & Partners.
Tracy brings oodles of experience helping brands tell their stories and make real connections with their audiences.
"When a brand speaks from its heart, knows why it exists and is offering something relevant and useful, we’ll happily listen."
