15/12/2025
When I started WebHero, I thought I needed to be everything to everyone.
Video? Sure. PPC? Why not. Social media? Stick it on the website.
I was building a business based on what I thought businesses should look like. Not what I was actually good at.
I'd spent years at companies with marketing budgets in the millions. Most of them didn't really believe in brand. They'd tick boxes but never truly invest in what made them them.
Anyone looking at my historical work would assume I didn't value brand either.
Colleagues in other departments would ask "why can't you just do this?" without knowing I was pleading the same thing with leadership - but I couldn't upset the apple cart too much or I wouldn't have had a job.
Ironic that those businesses now have a heavy focus on brand and it's working well for them. Nothing to do with the people that came before though, obviously.
Anyway. Branding matters. Here's the best way I can explain it.
Walk through any UK city centre. You'll see a nail bar called "Nails 4 U" with a sign made in Microsoft Word. A chicken shop called YFC. They're mimicking. Taking 10% of what big brands spent millions to create.
There's that scene in Devil Wears Prada where Anne Hathaway laughs and says "both those belts look exactly the same" - and Meryl Streep dismantles her. Explaining that everything in department stores filtered down from fashion houses and editorial rooms. Millions spent, countless jobs, all to inject feeling and worth through visual design.
(I'm the son of a single mother, yes I've seen Devil Wears Prada)
Branding works the same way. When it's borrowed or half-arsed, something gets lost. That's when businesses start looking trashy.
So I had an epiphany. People weren't coming to me for video or PPC. They were coming for websites - and everything that makes them work. The design, the messaging, the copy, the brand.
Then came the scary bit. Investing in my own brand. Doing what I tell others to do.
It was costly. But costly isn't the same as expensive. Expensive is when you pay and feel robbed. Costly is when you pay a lot but get everything you wanted.
I found Grid Design Agency through their work with Air Landline - subversive, funny, doesn't take itself too seriously. That's the energy I wanted.
First draft. One revision. Done. Speechless.
Sometimes you've got to trust someone else, even for the thing you do for others. After all, who hasn't said "I'm great at giving advice, just not taking it myself"?
