Simon Hill Of FutureBrand On Five Things You Need To Build A Trusted And Beloved Brand

Through a global quantitative survey, the index determines the brand strength of each company on the list and re-ranks them based on 18 attributes across Purpose and Experience, such as Consistency (delivers a consistent experience to customers), Resource Management (acts ethically to maintain a sustainable environment), Indispensability (people depend on the brand), Innovation (creates products and services that are genuinely useful), Trust (is a trusted brand), and Well-being (contributes to people’s well-being.)

As a part of our series about how to create a trusted, believable, and beloved brand, I had the pleasure to interview Simon Hill.

Simon brings a wealth of marketing insight, knowledge, and experience to his role as North American President at FutureBrand — a global agency of brand, experience and design experts who use unique methods to deliver positive brand-led business transformation. Whether it’s running the branding for the Olympic & Paralympic Games or launching new direct to consumer brands, Simon believes FutureBrand is at its best when it lives up to its name — delivering solutions to clients that are true to their brand and yet aspirational enough to meet their needs for future growth.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Thanks for having me.

I was fortunate enough to live all over the world as a kid (Australia, Africa and Latin America before settling in the UK) and studied languages at university. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was always drawn to communications and while originally the plan was to work in LatAm I found myself quickly in the agency world in Sydney and then London. Initially I started in sports marketing, then moved into advertising with a small agency called Alphabet and then a couple of years after that, McCann Erickson. After working on a number of clients across the agency portfolio, I moved into new business and ran that department for two years. We had a great team and topped Campaign’s league tables [the advertising trade publication’s ranking of account-win performance by agencies] so it was a great learning experience and a good run.

That success culminated in 2008 when we won the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics pitch. The Financial Times called it the biggest pitch in the history of UK marketing, so it was a great one to win and the team at McCann gave me the opportunity to run the integrated account on behalf of McCann Worldgroup. It was a four-year adventure leading up to 2012 and I got to work with some fantastic people both internally within McCann Worldgroup but also on the client and sponsor side. A lot of those people have gone on to do fascinating things and many of us are still in touch today.

FutureBrand was part of our team for London 2012, so I got the chance to work closely with that group and loved the way they thought about brand and its role in the marketing mix. Post Games, Nick Sykes (then Head of Europe and my boss on London 2012) offered me the GM role at FutureBrand in London and it’s been a great journey since then working across London, Europe and for the last seven years here in the U.S.

Can you share a story about the funniest marketing mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but I’ll share one that has stuck in the memory.

It wasn’t hugely funny at the time, but the nature of the London 2012 account meant that a lot of our work was pretty high profile. Given taxpayers’ money was funding a lot of the work we, and our client in particular, were often under scrutiny.

For one campaign in particular we were using imagery of iconic locations across the UK and weaving a pink ribbon –to symbolize the Cultural Olympiad — above, below and around various well-known locations. One such location was London and a shot of the Thames from above. One late night before sending out the artwork to publications, we (the royal “we” …) made the call to retouch what looked like a small boat from the river to ensure our pink ribbon would have maximum standout in the ad.

Two days later, when one of the leading newspapers in the UK ran the headline “London 2012 erases proud British war history” it was pointed out by our client that the small boat was in fact the historic war ship and museum HMS Belfast.

I can laugh about it now, but it was not my finest hour….

I should have been the one that took the fall for it but in a good lesson in leadership it was Nick Brien [McCann Worldgroup’s chief executive] who stood up on behalf of the team and bore the brunt of the heat from the client and government alike!

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

I think there are a number of things that make FutureBrand stand out and not necessarily linked to one story. For me it’s our people, our approach to thinking about brands across purpose and experience and then the work that we’ve been fortunate enough to do across every category and culture in the world.

But it all starts with our people, so I’ll focus on that here. We work hard at nurturing our culture and I’m really proud of the people I get to work with. We have a young, passionate team that really believe we can create a more positive future through the brands that we work with. We’ve got the best name in the business and when we live up to it, we can really transform businesses, brands, and culture.

One thing that we’ve recently done to continue to drive the best work for ourselves and our clients is launch some new behaviors in support of our values.

Bring your point of view.

Be curious. Be at home with the future.

Push limits, dare to fail.

Expect and inspire brilliance.

Importantly, they’re very simple, clear, and actionable. The team has really embraced them and we’re really starting to see the impact of them in our work.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Lots of exciting projects but unfortunately, as is often the case, we can’t talk about a lot of the work we do due to client confidentiality.

Ok let’s now jump to the core part of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define the difference between brand marketing (branding) and product marketing (advertising)? Can you explain?

I think it’s important to note that branding and advertising need to work together in support of a brand’s goal and business ambitions. But when it comes to branding specifically, we’re usually involved earlier in the process than some of the other marketing disciplines such as advertising.

Through a series of drivers, be they category, culture, business, or a host of others, we will work with clients (from CEO, founder, to boards, PE, CHROs, CTOs etc.) to define why their brand(s) exists, what role they play in their people’s lives and what experience they need to deliver.

That early business and brand strategy should define each and every expression of the brand from how it looks, sounds, feels, tastes, performs you name it. The advertising of that brand is then the outreach and communication of that role that the brand plays in people’s lives.

With FutureBrand being part of McCann Worldgroup, we’re fortunate that we get to play that role across the entire creative journey with our sister agencies.

Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to the general marketing and advertising efforts?

Without a clearly defined brand, reason for existence and meaningful role you play in people’s lives, no amount of marketing spend will help you reach the right audiences and inspire the kind of behavior you want your brand to create.

Can you share 5 strategies that a company should be doing to build a trusted and believable brand? Please tell us a story or example for each.

For the last ten years, we have been collecting data and analyzing the attributes that define successful brands. Called The FutureBrand Index, it is a global perception study based on PwC’s Global Top 100 Companies by Market Capitalization list, also released annually.

Through a global quantitative survey, the index determines the brand strength of each company on the list and re-ranks them based on 18 attributes across Purpose and Experience, such as Consistency (delivers a consistent experience to customers), Resource Management (acts ethically to maintain a sustainable environment), Indispensability (people depend on the brand), Innovation (creates products and services that are genuinely useful), Trust (is a trusted brand), and Well-being (contributes to people’s well-being.)

Based on The 2023 FutureBrand Index, we’ve found that in a world where safety and security are scarce, brands must become beacons of progressive responsibility and purpose-based action. They need to act as ‘trust lighthouses’ that can ease people’s concerns and shine a light on a better future. We’ve observed that brands who marry corporate purpose with real, positive impact, climbed up the index ranking. Those very brands ranked highly in areas such as having strong principles, acting ethically, having a clear sense of the future, and inspiring change for the better.

In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job building a believable and beloved brand. What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

It’s a well told story but I think Patagonia is the gold standard. Everything they do comes back to their core essence and none more so now than in their 50th year. I’m inspired by their goal of ‘looking forward to life on earth’ and ‘prioritizing purpose over profit.’ It informs every decision they make from people and product to how they manage their business.

In advertising, one generally measures success by the number of sales. How does one measure the success of a brand building campaign? Is it similar, is it different?

It depends on the project and the brief. FutureBrand has a tool called the brand transformation ladder that we use at the beginning of a project to define the business goals and what role the brand/produce plays in delivering that.

When we’re working in culture transformation across global organizations, the definitions of success will be more adoption, awareness, understanding, and organic compared to a new product launching in CPG space where sales will be a key determinant of success.

What role does social media play in your branding efforts?

Again, it depends on the brand and the category. For example, when we’re working with DTC brands [direct to consumer], social can play a huge role and this is where we’ll define the visual and verbal identity of the brand and then work closely with our McCann Worldgroup partners in delivering that across social channels.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

You give me too much credit, I’m not sure how much influence I have!

BUT, given the opportunity I’d have to focus on an environmental challenge and in particular cleaner water in our oceans, rivers and lakes. I’m a passionate swimmer, surfer and all things water based and so while fortunate to live near the ocean I spend as much time as I can in it mostly swimming. If we can clean, preserve and protect our waters and everything that lives in them we’ll go a long way in helping to combat so many of the environmental issues we’re facing.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“The world owes you nothing, it was here first.” Mark Twain said this in context to making a living, but I think it’s applicable to all things in life, the way we treat each other and our environment.

We are blessed that very prominent leaders in business and entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world with whom you would like to have a lunch or breakfast with? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

Too many people to list but I’ll pick two people I’d like to go for a surf and a swim with.

I loved Yvon Chouinard’s book, “Let My People Go Surfing,” and what he’s done and seen through his life and with his brand is pretty special — so a surf with him would be fascinating.

And then I’d like to learn more about protecting our oceans, rivers, and lakes so I’d love to go for a swim with Lewis Pugh the UN Patron of the Oceans, the best job title in the world!

How can our readers follow you on social media?

I’m not that active on social media (as my tens of followers can attest) so I’ll recommend FutureBrand on LinkedIn as a good follow. If swimming content and seeing what my feral children get up to, then people are welcome to look at @hillsjuk on Instagram!

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.