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Month: July 2020

A story about a story-telling brand

A story about a story-telling brand

They say that branding is about differentiation but if you think about luxury watches and you’re thinking of Rolex, Breitling, IWC, Zenith, Tag Heuer or Longines, you are thinking about a brand based in Switzerland and which was established over 100 years ago. Not so very different from one another then.

There is however a smaller but highly respected brand. It is based in England but named after a French Farmer. It was founded less than 20 years ago, in 2002.

What differentiates it, is not that their watches are more accurate and reliable, though they are both accurate and reliable. No, what differentiates them, is their story and the stories behind their watches.

In homage to that, this is my take of the story of the birth of the brand and the roles two former pilots played in its creation…

Euan English

Euan English was an ex-RAF pilot with a PhD in Aeronautical Engineering. He had a passion for restoring and flying old aircraft and a love of mechanical timepieces. He would often buy old clocks at auctions and try and get them going again.

He had two sons, Nick and Giles, and as they grew up, they spent much of their childhood helping him make and restore things in his workshop.

The three of them even built an aircraft that the Nick and Giles still fly.

english brothers

Then, in March 1995 tragedy struck. Nick and Euan were practicing for an air display in a 1942 WWII Harvard aircraft. it was involved in a dreadful accident; Euan was killed, and Nick was seriously injured. He had broken over 30 bones and the doctors were worried that he might die too.

Giles had been waiting to take off for the next sortie when was told about the accident and the death of his father.

Six months later, things looking were looking a bit better. Nick was recovering and back in the air, being flown by Giles.

Together they agreed that life was too short to waste and they should find something they could do together and which they both loved. They decided they wanted a life dedicated to crafting beautifully engineered mechanical devices.

A few years later Nick & Giles were flying again, this time across France in their 1930’s biplane. However, on this day, another fateful series of events was conspiring to come together; with the weather closing in and a rough-running engine, they decided they would have to make an emergency landing.

They landed in a field and were met by a friendly farmer. It turned out that the farmer, like their father, had also flown aircraft during the war and was a gifted engineer. The brothers stayed in his home and their aircraft was wheeled into a barn.

The boys soon noticed another similarity with their father, as, along with numerous engine parts there were half-restored clocks on the walls and tables all around the farm. The farmer wore his father’s old wristwatch.

The brothers couldn’t believe their luck and enjoyed his warm hospitality. When they left, they promised him that he wouldn’t be forgotten.

His name? Antoine Bremont

True to their word, when the brothers launched their own brand of luxury pilot’s watches, there was never any doubt that the brand would be called Bremont.

bremont watches

The brand has carved a successful niche amongst those much older and mostly Swiss brands by making what their website describes as “beautifully crafted pilot’s watches of exceptional quality”… that are all “tested beyond the normal call of duty”.

All their watches are hand built in limited numbers only and of course they come complete with a story.

Stealth pilot

There is a range inspired by a B-2 Stealth bomber pilot who wanted a completely black watch to match his completely black aircraft.

They tell a story about how they are the only company to test their watches for supersonic ejector seat deployment from a fighter plane. They will also fit your watch with a special red bezel if you are a pilot who has successfully ejected from a plane, though they hope they don’t have to fit too many of those!

And the moral is we all love a good story and telling one can help lift and differentiate your brand. What’s your story?

Making healthcare better

Making healthcare better

 The tale behind the NHS and how storytelling played a role (along with many other things)

Anenurin_Bevan,_Minister_of_Health,_on_the_first_day_of_the_National_Health_Service,_5_July_1948_at_Park_Hospital,_Davyhulme,_near_Manchester_(14465908720)

I have long thought that the NHS is an amazing brand and, as someone who is fascinated by the stories behind brands, I’ve been doing a little digging and was fascinated to see how storytelling, a hot marketing topic, played a part in the brand’s birth.

Like so many innovations much of the credit is given to one founding father and the rest of the ‘family’ are forgotten. While Aneurin or ‘Nye’ Bevan does deserve much praise for the birth of the UK’s National Health Service (the NHS) it is worth telling the full story and celebrating some of the other characters along the way.

The story begins nearly 40 years before that momentous day, the 5th July 1948; the day when The National Health Service, was launched by the then Minister of Health in Attlee’s post-war government, Aneurin Bevan, at the Park Hospital in Manchester.

In those days at the turn of the century, if someone found themselves needing a doctor or to use medical facilities, they were generally expected to pay for those treatments themselves. In some cases, local authorities ran hospitals for the local ratepayers especially the less well off, an approach originating with the Poor Law.

The specific ‘germ’ of the idea for the NHS is generally traced back to 1909 and the publication of the Minority Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law. The committee was headed by the socialist Beatrice Webb.  She and her fellow committee members argued that a new system was needed to replace the ideas of the Poor Law as those ideas were now antiquated as they had been around since the times of the workhouses of the Victorian era. The report said that it was narrow-minded and unfair to expect those in poverty to be entirely accountable for themselves and their health. The ideas were however ignored by the then new Liberal government.

However, beyond parliament, the report did prompt others to start advocating changes. These included Dr Benjamin Moore, a Liverpool physician who wrote about the need for “The Dawn of the Health Age”. Moore was probably the first to use the phrase ‘National health service’. He went on to set up State Medical Service Association which held its first meeting in 1912.

The next landmark came in 1929 when the Local Government Act of that year pushed local authorities to run services which provided medical treatment for ‘everyone’. On 1st April 1930, the London County Council took over responsibility for around 140 hospitals, medical schools, and other institutions. Adoption elsewhere was piecemeal.

Citadel

The next character to join the fray was Dr. A.J Cronin and his contribution was a work of fiction. He wrote a novel “The Citadel” which was published in 1937. It was both controversial and provocative. It strongly criticised the inadequacies and failures of the prevailing healthcare system. The book told the story of a doctor from a small Welsh mining village who climbed the ranks to become a leading doctor in London. Seduced by the thought of easy money from wealthy clients rather than the principles he started out with, the doctor becomes involved with pampered private patients and fashionable surgeons. But when a patient dies because of a surgeon’s ineptitude, the doctor sees the error of his ways returns to his principles.

Cronin said of his book “I have written in The Citadel all I feel about the medical profession, its injustices, its hide-bound unscientific stubbornness, its humbug … The horrors and inequities detailed in the story I have personally witnessed. This is not an attack against individuals, but against a system.”

The novel was made into a 1938 film which features some of the biggest stars of the day including Robert Donat, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Richardson and Rex Harrison. (In later years it inspired a number of re-makes, and a television series)

All the interest helped provoke more discussion and debate about the notion of a national health service and it was increasingly apparent that there was a growing consensus that the current system of health insurance should be extended to include dependents of wage-earners and that voluntary hospitals should be integrated into a broader service.

However, discussions were to a degree put on hold by the outbreak of the Second World War but, with the importance of health, they were picked up again.

By 1941, the Ministry of Health started to draw up a post-war health policy reflecting a vision that services would be available to the entire general public. A year later the Beveridge Report put forward a recommendation for “comprehensive health and rehabilitation services”, a proposal that was supported right across the House of Commons by all parties.

In 1944 the Minister of Health, Henry Willink, put forward a White Paper, which set out the guidelines for the NHS. The principles included how it would be funded from general taxation and not national insurance, that everyone would be entitled to treatment including visitors to the country and that it would be provided free at the point of delivery.

It was endorsed by the cabinet.

In 1945 Clement Attlee was elected Prime Minister and Aneurin Bevan became Health Minister. He was charged with taking the ideas from Willink’s white paper and turning them into a reality.

Aneurin_Bevan_(1943)

Making it happen was a mammoth task. It took three years but ultimately brings the story back to 5th July 1948 and the hospital in Manchester.

So while Bevan took, and still takes most of the headlines, he wouldn’t be remembered if it wasn’t for Beatrice Webb, Dr Benjamin Moore, Dr. A.J Cronin, Henry Willink and many others.

371px-NHS-Logo.svg

 

MORAL:  Storytelling is a powerful tool for persuading people. Can you use storytelling more in your organization?