In B2B organisations, "one brand voice" often sounds straightforward. In practice, it is far more complex - especially in firms where reputation is carried by people, expertise and relationships.

This week, Benedict speaks to Paola Garbini, Head of Marketing Europe at Oliver Wyman, about the realities of building brand coherence inside a global consulting business. As Oliver Wyman strengthens its alignment within the wider Marsh ecosystem, Paola explains how the firm is navigating the balance between consistency and independence.

Rather than enforcing rigid brand rules, the discussion explores a more pragmatic idea - convergence instead of consensus. The episode looks at how organisations can create shared direction without suppressing the individuality that makes professional services valuable to clients.

Along the way, Paola reflects on the role of personal brands in consulting firms, why marketing needs to move upstream in business conversations, and how teams can measure the commercial impact of brand work more effectively.

This is a grounded conversation about brand as an organisational capability - not just a communications exercise.

• Why "one brand voice" is harder in professional services
• The logic behind Oliver Wyman’s expanded brand model
• Why independence still matters inside a larger brand ecosystem
• Convergence vs consensus in brand transformation
• Balancing consistency with individuality in consulting firms
• The role of personal brands in professional services
• Measuring marketing impact and return on marketing investment
• Why marketing needs to be involved earlier in business strategy

B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth is a podcast by alan. agency. MD Benedict Buckland speaks to CMOs and marketing leaders to uncover the most uncomfortable truths in the world of B2B.

Subscribe here and be the first to know when new episodes drop.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the first episode of the Special Edition: Law Firms podcast, where we speak with CMOs and senior marketers at leading law firms about how brand actually drives growth in legal services. Law firm marketers speak about differentiation, but most still communicate trust, expertise and experience in near identical ways.

The underlying buying behaviour has not dramatically changed. Legal services remain a repertoire market – clients default to firms they already know, then ask for recommendations. That reality makes memory, awareness and perception commercially decisive. Yet many firms still behave as if reputation alone will do the work.

In this conversation, Benedict speaks with Lee Grunnell, CMO at Womble Bond Dickinson, about what actually moves the dial. Drawing on brand tracking data and two decades inside professional services, Lee explains why homogeneity persists, why culture is both the truth and the trap, and why research – not internal consensus – is the only credible route to a defensible position.

They also explore why law may have more permission to be bold than it assumes, and how firms such as Hill Dickinson and Mishcon de Reya are resetting expectations for the category.

This is a conversation about brand as commercial infrastructure in a high trust, low frequency market where standing still is not neutral.

• The inherited risk aversion of legal marketing
• How legal buying actually works in practice
• Why awareness matters in a repertoire market
• Trust is table stakes – what sits on top?
• The culture paradox – true but impossible to define
• Using research to force clarity
• Womble Bond Dickinson’s “point of view”
• Are law firms finally prepared to be braver?

B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth is a podcast by alan. agency. MD Benedict Buckland speaks to CMOs and marketing leaders to uncover the most uncomfortable truths in the world of B2B.

Subscribe here and be the first to know when new episodes drop.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brand architecture is often treated as a structural or design choice. In reality, it is a leadership decision with emotional, political and commercial consequences.

Benedict Buckland hosts Ify Jibunoh, Group CMO of Cassava Technologies, to discuss house of brands versus branded house through a human and change-management lens. Jibunoh explains that Cassava’s brand architecture decision was a leadership stewardship choice, balancing future ambition with decades of equity in established brands across 30+ African markets.

Although internal sentiment leaned toward a branded house to signal modernity, research on awareness, trust and customer relationships supported maintaining a house of brands, with Cassava as the ‘endorser brand’ to share portfolio equity.

She describes mixed board reactions, underestimated emotional resistance and lessons on earlier stakeholder engagement. Post-decision challenges included governance, brand roles, internal storytelling, go-to-market redesign, training and behaviour change, emphasising that brand architecture is business transformation, not just marketing.

00:00 Welcome

00:37 Why brand architecture matters

02:24 Cassava context

05:45 Why ‘branded house’ was a temptation

08:03 Choosing a ‘house of brands’

12:28 Boardroom resistance

14:49 Managing emotions and buy-in

16:40 The change management playbook

24:28 Breaking silos across teams

alan. MD Benedict Buckland speaks to CMOs and marketing leaders to uncover the most uncomfortable truths in the world of B2B. Listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Subscribe here and be the first to know when new episodes drop.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.