Updating a brand is about more than just a lick of paint or some fancy new words. It takes a moment of clarity, a strong vision, great leadership and a well defined ‘why’ to get the right result.

Setting a course for your organisation or business is always a good idea. It’s even more critical when what you do is complex and touches a broad base of stakeholders like WAI Wanaka does. Finding the right direction pointed WAI Wanaka in the direction of their very own North Star.

Even when times are good, it’s hard to stay the course, or “stick to your knitting”. So how on earth do you respond when there's both a pandemic and looming recession at hand? First step, examine your core.

When most people think marketing services, consultancies or agencies, they think one (or all) of the following: expensive, graphic design, website design or social media services. Not us.

Selling anything is difficult. There's heaps of noise out there: other brands with bigger wallets shouting for audience attention, influencers with deep followings being paid to share their experiences 'authentically'.

Branding is hard huh. And there are so many people out there with an opinion on it. Including us. So read this as it is – it’s just another opinion, but obviously we think maybe this opinion will help clear up some things.

Wait what? Marketing goes beyond promotion? Yep, there’s a whole raft of P’s that some clever fellows devised, way back when, and since then, additional clever fellows keep adding to each year. We’ve got price, place, people, processes, product, physical environment, performance…what was once 4 P’s is now up to 9P's  in some places.

Our site is mobile ready. You can look at it on a mobile and it looks ok. Most websites are like that. Ready to look good on a mobile or tablet. But not all mobile ready websites are equal. Before you can even consider the readiness of your website for mobile, it’s probably a good idea to consider how, when and where people use your website.

When a market is hot, it’s easy to think you don’t need to invest in customer service. Perhaps there’s an underlying feeling that all you need to do is complete the job. Ironically this is the time to invest most in building positive perceptions about your brand, driving brand trust forward and ensuring you have a good reputation for service as well as product. Here's why.

Why do we work on a lot of websites for clients? Are we really website developers in disguise? Erm… [emphatically] no.