Articles

Collected Truth

When it comes to defining what a brand is, Ivan explained it as ‘a collection of bits of information’–everything people are hearing, seeing and experiencing, most likely things that don’t originate from your organisation, that become your brand. It's alive!

Your brand is also part of your creative culture that helps you innovate and adapt as you through the variety of problem solving exercises that you’re going to have to go through as an early stage business.

The story about our brand name

Where the name for Truth & Spectacle originated back in 2016.

In-house Essays: Up and to the Right

The most important chart in the company shows usage and revenue plotted over time as a line. It's a very simple graph that shows how all the work we do accumulates value, and the CEO needs the line to go up and to the right. The in-house team must contribute to that line moving in the right direction using creativity.

In-house Essays: The Ego Adjustment

When creative professionals change industry environment, we need to adapt how we work, not what we make. When that change doesn’t happen the in-house creative team can be sidelined, or in some cases I know of, retrenched.

In-house Essays: Creativity Will Emerge

By quietly building out a Create Function (which is just like a Finance or Sales Function) by applying good processes and practices, and by inviting everyone in, we seem to have positively influenced the business culture of what3words.

In-house Essays: Watch Your Language

We needed to work in ways that were fit for purpose, not just comfortable or familiar. We took inspiration from our colleagues across what3words and reused language and concepts that were working for them rather than forcing them to adjust to us.

In-House Essays: Creative C-Suite

I felt it was important that a company, or any organisation, should have a Chief Creative Officer who sits next to the Chief Marketing Officer, the Chief Product Officer, or the Chief Technology Officer. If brand experience is valuable to the company, it only makes sense.

Brand Story Coaching

Brand coaches help organisations understand the stories that already exist within, make them visible to everybody, and get alignment and agreement on what their core story is.

How to practise gentle creativity

We assumed that being ‘creative’ was something that teams and organisations wanted to be, but we quickly learned that it wasn’t that straightforward. Here are some thoughts about how people can experience creativity as an inclusive, more gentle force.

Digital Leadership in Uncertain Times

Just as conferences moved online, Alex talked with Glenn Wallis at his Success ID Club. She quickly changed her presentation and discusses how leaders can adapt themselves, and help their teams adjust, to the “new normal”.

Turn strategy into action

There’s a basic truth about new strategies: people require space and permission to understand them and their relevance, while they’re under pressure to maintain the day to day business.

How to ask better questions

Great teams know how to ask the right questions at the right time. So how can we help teams ask better questions?

BBC Analysis - Maintenance

BBC Radio 4’s Analysis show spends some time looking at Maintenance and interviewed Truth & Spectacle’s, Alex Mecklenburg.

How to add Spectacle: Where's the battle scene?

It doesn’t matter whether you design vacuum cleaners or brief in sales videos, every now and then you should ask yourself the question, “Where is the battle scene?”.

How to add Spectacle: The power of a lobster

🦞Salvador Dali understood the power of a lobster to make a dull telephone absolutely memorable.

Katharina Wittgens uncovers the truth about fluffy towels, eye implants and brand purpose

Katharina is a Business Psychologist and chatted to Alex about the difference between truth and purpose, the importance of getting your values right from the beginning, the facts about fluffy towels in travel plans, and eye implants.

Creative Business Consultancy Truth & Spectacle Launches

News clippings for Truth & Spectacle launch

Jonathan McKay from Girl Effect talks about using brands to create a better world

Jonathan McKay joins Ivan Pols and Alex Mecklenburg to discuss how Girl Effect use brands to improve the lives of girls around the world, and the role of truth and spectacle in reaching them.

Silas Amos talks about cheering the world up with ink, remixing design, brand truths and lies

Silas Amos joins Ivan Pols and Alex Mecklenburg to discuss truth and spectacle in design.

Truth & Spectacle Press Release - March 2019

Founded against a belief that creativity and innovation have to be rooted in an organisational truth to be effective, Truth & Spectacle’s mission is to help businesses drive their own creativity, because creativity drives business.

Creativity is dead! Long live create!

I believe we could do with less narrow minded rhetoric about who owns creativity and concentrate more on how we’re going to create.

Creating a User Experience for Everyone

Ivan was invited to talk at the Interact UX Conference which was held at The British Museum in October 2018. As the Creative Director of what3words he talked about the design journey, what they’ve learned and how they create a system for everyone to use with voice. You can watch the talk here.

City Hall Digital Leadership

Alex has been hard at work with DotEveryone and London City Hall on their digital leadership programme. She's having a fantastic time working with people who really care about leading with digital understanding and responsibility.

Female Founders Program at PwC

Alex was recently a coach and speaker at PwC's first Female Founders Programme. Partnering with Blooming Founders its designed to help startups scale in the B2B space.