We specialise in taking deep dives with brands to solve their challenges, one by one, using creative thinking. Joining the dots to create the bigger picture. It starts with a conversation. It could end with a brand identity; a new product launch; or a service that creates value in society; or a deeper understanding of who you are and what you stand for. Whatever the challenge, we’ll be on the journey with you and find the way forward together to achieve your goals.
That’s what we do – get under the skin of exciting organisations looking to do good and help them to overcome their challenges in creative ways.
We’re agile (because we work with a network of brilliant independent creatives); we’re energetic (because we only work on projects that get us excited); and we’re committed (because if we’re working with you, we believe in your goals and creating sustainable value in the world).
That’s all well and good, but the missing link in many consultancies doesn’t crop up in a lot of business processes: empathy. Because strong solutions don’t come from us swooping down and telling you what to do – they come from deep conversation, understanding and true collaboration.
What’s your next challenge? helen@helenhartleyconsulting.com and let’s talk.
lIVIng LiFE
jUnk FRee
Case Study: Jnck Bakery
Dejunking the fresh bakery category, helping people eat healthy treats, that taste delicious and look after themselves and the planet. Win win.
whaT We dO
BRAND STRATEGY
Why do people need strategy in their lives?
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BRAND REFRESH
How do you know if you brand or organisation needs a refresh? What are you goals and are you able to leverage your brand to achieve them. Goal posts move, with day to day challenges, sustainability targets and the creating a better world and the demands and needs of your people internally and externally. Refreshing a brand is complex and ‘a brand’ isnt just a logo! By having a conversation about what you want to achieve and why in a business context session will always tease out what is needed and also what the brief needs to be. There is a lot of pressure for people to know what needs changing and most briefs come from looking at where you need to get to and forming a project plan. With analysis, data, research fed into the upfront thinking, we work to form briefs maybe for us maybe for others whose skill set is needed. So to be clear a brand refresh is not always a new logo, it could be a better consumer journey, better signposting and brand awareness, or a new brand identity (which is a new logo)!
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BRAND IDENTITY
What makes a good brand identity?
You can analyse identities and have research things until an inch of their life. A brand identity needs to have meaning and is if you think as a brand, as I do like a person. Everyone is unique, has a personality, decides how to project themselves, has behaviours unique to them, sounds differently. A brand identity is all those things, its the total sum of several elements that sets you apart and tells a story that engages certain people but not others. That’s fine we can’t all be friends with everyone nor would we have enough time to show up. Humanising a brand, an organisation, a non profit, a charity to appeal to other human beings is what we are good at. But like people everyone has a different vibe, different tribes they feel connected to and its getting to the heart of that, in order to really resonate with all your audiences.
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BRAND ACTIVATION
How do you live engage others with the brand?
How do you bring ideas to life that are on brand, on mission and ensure you align with your purpose can often be harder than you think. Once your brand is developed, you as a business then have to live your brand. Having a strategic creative in the room that can interpret the brand beforehand and bring new ideas and thoughts to the party can often unlock or allow others in your own organisation to be brave and bold, empowering them to release their creative thoughts in a safe space.
Brand activation will always begin with who the audience in with that you have no idea what will resonate.
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All Services
CREATIVE SPRINTS TO SOLVE BUSINESS CHALLENGES
How do you unlock a challenge using creativity?
How do you enable teams to think differently than their day to day thought processes. I design and create workshops, with my collaborators around individual business challenges. They can be virtual (we started in Covid and work globally) or in the same venue, choosing a creative space or bring the creativity to you. I draw on lots of agile methods and tested fun exercises to unlock everyone’s creative thoughts. But a sprint session is all well and good if you don’t outline a success criteria and scope out actions afterwards! Any creative sprint will be preloaded and involve a business context session (2 hr sprint) to understand what we need to unlock, who our stakeholders are and what we need to achieve. Using this way of working you can sprint ideas with you and your team.
From Owners and founders to marketing you can look at NPD pipeline ideation, all manner of brand challenges from Brand purpose, Brand activation, Brand vision and values, NPD pipeline ideation, to Brand activation. For HR people key challenges – recruitment and retention, reward and recognition. Any challenge can also benefit from a creative in the room to bring a different perspective.
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WEBSITE DEVELOPMENT
As part of the digital journey we collaborate and bring in a specialist developer that will add value to the build of the project. Every project is very different so in the scoping we would look at the digital build requirements and what we can help with, or if you have some internal resource work with your team. Its as flexible as you need it to be.
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EDUCATION – Lecturing, mentoring & talks
How do we pay our knowledge forward?
As a key part of my own journey being inspired by industry professionals, I aim to use some of my time to help fellow creatives, children in education, universities to enrich or bring a new perspective into the room. Please contact me if there’s an opportunity to help in an education, or workplace setting to add value. In the past 2 years I have had guest speaker roles at Strathcylde Business School, Leeds Arts Uni (mentoring on a creative brief), mentored female creatives on ‘Kerning the Gap’ and created a vision workshop with Year 1 children to help with their values and career paths.
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People we’ve worked with
Coca Cola
Carlsberg
Nestle
IBM
Unilever
M&S
Tesco
Sainsburys
Museum of London
Tetley’s
Cawston Press
Unika
Jnck Bakery
Kirstall Brewery
Ocean Spray
Kestrel Foods
Countrystyle Foods
Sportable
United by Design
Sail Creative
Kirkstall Valley Development Trust
66 Reasons
Make Impact
All Clients
B Corps are companies verified by B Lab to meet high standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability. HH Consults is working on becoming certified and we hope to get there in 2024.
We have a virtual forest, and every project commissioned by you means a donation of the profits goes towards supporting climate projects in the UK and across the globe.
By supporting the Better Business Act, HH Consults aims to ensure that all companies are legally responsible for benefiting workers, customers, communities and the environment while delivering profit.
As a member of the DBA, we champion the transformative power of design and creative thinking. As a creative brand consultancy, results and impact are key to showing the strategic and economic value that creativity can bring to business.
#Access your impact on net zero https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/programs-and-tools/b-impact-assessment/ https://www.bcorpmonth.com/
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