Blog

Thoughts on everything that matters right now in marketing, communications, and insights.

Category: Brand

Stop blending in: Master the art of positioning (As seen on Greenbook) Posted on November 18, 2025 by Vanessa Chirayus

Do your clients really understand what sets you apart? If your message is muddled or blending into the noise, it’s time to rethink how you communicate. It’s not enough to just say what your insights company does and how it helps clients, your content and strategy must clearly communicate this. That’s where positioning comes in. In the fourth and final instalment of the Marketing Applied series on Greenbook’s Grow Your Insights Businessexpert channel, Iosetta Santini cuts through the fluff to

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Why great marketing starts with strategy, not tactics (As seen on Greenbook) Posted on October 28, 2025 by Vanessa Chirayus

Without a clear strategy, marketing efforts can become scattered and ineffective, so how can you fight this? In this third instalment of Marketing Applied series on Greenbook’s Grow your insights business expert channel, Iosetta Santini emphasises the importance of diagnosing challenges, setting objectives, understanding the market, and targeting the right audience before jumping into the implementation phase. Strategic marketing requires intentional choices: deciding what to do and not do, anchored by a well-thought-out objective. By kicking off with diagnosing your

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Brand awareness gets you seen. Mental availability gets you chosen. (As seen on Greenbook) Posted on September 11, 2025 by Vanessa Chirayus

Do your prospects know who you are, but forget you when it matters most? In the insights industry, awareness alone isn’t enough. What really counts is being remembered at the right time: when buying decisions are made. In part two of her Marketing Applied series on Greenbook’s Grow your insights business channel, Iosetta Santini unpacks the concept of mental availability: why pairing it with brand awareness is like the ketchup to your mustard, and how you can build it into

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Quirk’s through fresh eyes: tech booms, but people still win Posted on May 14, 2025 by Vanessa Chirayus

The insights industry in London was buzzing last week as Quirk’s London took over the city on the 7th and 8th of May – right after the bank holiday Monday. As the newest member of Team Mustard, I had the chance to dive headfirst into the event on the first day, surrounded by some of the brightest minds in the world of insights. Now that we’ve all had a moment to catch up on emails and come back down to

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Is Your Brand Built to Be Remembered—or Just Found? (As Seen on Greenbook) Posted on April 7, 2025 by Vanessa Chirayus

Are you struggling to make your brand stand out in a crowded market? Are you focusing too much on hyped up consumer marketing mantras and not enough on getting long-term impact? If your feeling lost on the way to the top of your buyers’ shortlists, then you need to rethink your approach to brand awareness. On Greenbook’s Grow your insights business expert channel, Iosetta Santini breaks down why the journey to being remembered is just as important as being found

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Old battles and double-edged swords Posted on October 10, 2023 by Iosetta Santini

Notes from the audience of the Festival of Marketing Picture this: a warmer than average October day, a room filled with marketers from all walks of life, each armed with a notebook, a pen, and a cup of coffee. It’s Festival of Marketing Day, and, as I’ve run out of pages, I’m ready to read out my notebook to who wants to listen. Kill complexity First out to talk to the troops is the fearless marketing maestro Mark Ritson. I’m

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How design principles could have saved the Oscars Posted on May 10, 2023 by Simon Dunn

Here at Mustard Towers, we talk a lot about fame. Maybe we are blinded by stardust, but we think there are important lessons to learn from Hollywood about how we go about communicating effectively. And we apply those lessons – good and bad - when it comes to communicating insights. When we think about bad communication, surely nothing gets worse than the cringe-inducing 2017 Oscars disaster when LaLa Land was inadvertently announced as the Best Picture winner, instead of Moonlight.

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Someone spilt Mustard on the red carpet! Posted on February 23, 2023 by Iosetta Santini

Back in December, we challenged you to find out your communication style with our Hollywood-themed quiz. Well, the results are in of the world’s first and only survey of insights professionals about communication. 260 of you completed our quiz and now we  are opening the envelope to reveal what we learnt about the insights profession. First of all, although the quiz was a bit of fun the issue is no joke: 63% of you stated that communicating data and insights

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What can insights learn from Hollywood? Posted on June 9, 2022 by Iosetta Santini

When it comes to communicating insights, most people still rely on that dull event, the debrief. All our efforts are squeezed into one hour of bar chart hell. When we should be scintillating and exciting, we are studious and exhaustive. What can we do to change this? Where better to look for inspiration than Hollywood?! The glitz, the glamour, the lights, the camera, the action. The FAME. Here are my thoughts on what we can learn from Hollywood to ensure

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GRIT Report: How to be famous Posted on March 31, 2022 by Lucy Davison

The challenge to stand out is as important in MRX as it is for washing powder or breakfast cereal. But yet again, in this GRIT Report, we see that researchers don’t make good marketers. The point of positioning is knowing what you do – and what you don’t do. In past reports, we have seen inconsistency from respondents within supply-side companies as to what their company does. And in this report again, “the employees of many supplier companies aren’t really

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