Journal - brand naming

A reflection on our latest South Coast EO Networking Event, co-hosted with Coda

This month, Salad marks five years as an Employee Owned Trust (EOT). Five years. It's a number that feels significant - not just as a milestone on paper, but because of what it represents. We are no longer a business that recently became employee-owned. We are an established employee-owned business. And that feels rather wonderful.

As teams grow, channels multiply, and work speeds up, identity stops being something people refer to occasionally and starts becoming something they rely on every day. It moves from expression to infrastructure.

Much digital work is judged at the wrong moment. We tend to assess websites and platforms when they first appear; at launch, in presentations and often in screenshots. But that is rarely when digital work succeeds or fails.

We’ve started running an exercise we call “Five in Fifteen”. It’s a staggeringly simple idea: you just ask five carefully chosen questions, with fifteen minutes to answer them. No preparation, no polishing, just a little instinct and honesty.

TL;DR: The planning stage isn't just paperwork - it's the strategic foundation that prevents scope creep, guides every creative decision, and ensures your digital project actually meets its goals. Skip it, and you risk joining the growing list of expensive digital failures.

The hype around AI feels all-consuming. Every conference, every LinkedIn post, all promising transformation at varying degrees. But beneath the noise, there's a quieter, more important conversation happening about what AI actually means for brand work.

March 2020. The phone call that changed everything.

"I'm sorry, but we're going to have to pause all projects indefinitely."

And then another. And another. Within 48 hours, we'd lost 60% of our business overnight. Covid had arrived with a brutal efficiency that left no room for the gradual adaptation most businesses pray for during challenging times.

Whether it’s crafting a memorable, distinctive brand, designing and implementing a resonant identity, or designing an intuitive digital experience, it’s strategy that provides the essential framework that aligns every decision and detail.