Brand New Year

Bethan Lewis • December 31, 2018

Young or old, everyone loves a good story. So whether you’re reading a young child’s favourite book before bed or communicating the vision of a business to millions of people, making it interesting to its intended audience is the fun part. The stories that make the biggest impact are the ones told well by the people at the heart of them.

Brandrocker is striving to - quite simply - tell people’s stories.

My ambition by the end of 2019 is to have told as many stories as possible. Communicating those stories will come in many different forms, from press releases, social media posts, informative imagery and videos, infographics, data-driven articles, owned content and much much more. As news consumption continues to evolve, this will be on digital platforms as well as traditional radio, TV and print.

My 2018 story

As the person behind the Brandrocker brand, here’s my 2018 story in 30 seconds.

2018 started as I expected it to. I raised my decaf latte to maternity leave and left my place of work nervous and excited for what was ahead. Fast forward a month and I was cradling a newborn baby in my arms, battling with the challenges of sleepless nights, breastfeeding and the Beast from the East which kept us cooped up in the house for a good week.

Then I had a very different challenge to deal with; redundancy. Whilst on maternity leave. I didn’t foresee having to think about my work options five months into my maternity leave when I wasn’t due to go back until January.

I went into overdrive, with Harri at my side throughout. I can’t thank enough the people Harri and I met for coffees during those few months talking about work opportunities – not one person batted an eyelid when I mentioned I’d be bringing my baby with me to the meeting. The boy did well though; he giggled and fluttered those eyelashes brilliantly.

I was so flattered and happy to have some amazing opportunities on offer…then I chose to politely turn them down to set up on my own. At times I found it daunting; other times I found it exhilarating.

Ready to rock

Today I sit here as the founder of Brandrocker (I’ll do another blog post on the rationale behind the name). I have a website, a logo, social media channels, business cards and I am ready to rock 2019.

With some work already under my belt and some lovely people to meet in January, I couldn’t be more excited to get things started.

So what’s important in all of this? Embrace the challenges life throws at you and do so with a smile. I can’t wait to help businesses of all sizes share their stories with employees and audiences.

If you have untold stories or stories that need bringing to life, drop me an email – the coffee is on me and I may well bring the baby.

Bethan



By Bethan Lewis October 30, 2020
I was so nervous to launch the free consultancy sessions last month. Brandrocker was turning two, and we were in the middle of a pandemic so it wasn't really the time to send out cupcakes and pop the fizz. Instead I wanted to help others in a small way if I could. Budgets were tightening across the board, people were losing jobs and so I wanted to help out those who perhaps didn't have marketing budgets or had got stuck in a rut with it all. Would anyone apply? Would I be able to build successful relationships and rapport on Zoom with new contacts as I am very much a face-to-face person? I overthought all of these types of questions until I just thought, sod it, it's worth a go. If no-one applies then I'll just have more time to work on my own stuff around client deadlines. Thankfully I had some really good emails and I ended up running three sessions instead of two as I loved how different each business' objectives were. Ranging from brand new businesses (one week into the business!) to established brands who just needed a fresh pair of eyes on their strategy and tactics, I really enjoyed the challenges. I asked each person to bring their wider business objectives to the call and we then looked at how we could achieve those in a number of creative ways, while being mindful of how crazy the world is currently. To end October with a testimonial like the above has made it all worthwhile, and the simple message from me is to always give something a go, however apprehensive you might be, you'll only regret not trying! If you're keen to review and refresh your marketing/PR activity in a measurable way, drop me an email bethan@brandrocker.co.uk or take a look at the training workshops I offer to see about up-skilling your team to take on new challenges. Bethan
By Bethan Lewis September 29, 2020
To celebrate Brandrocker turning two, director Bethan wants to give something back and help others with their marketing/PR efforts