Ideas & Inspiration
Thoughts to challenge. Insights to apply – Opinion pieces exploring shifts in creativity, branding, and consumer culture – offering fresh perspectives and practical takeaways for those shaping luxury and lifestyle brands.
What London Wine Fair 2026 Revealed About Wine’s Identity Crisis
Wine has become highly skilled at building mechanisms and far less skilled at building emotional meaning. From labour standards and English wine to the no-and-low boom, an industry full of frameworks, categories and technical solutions still struggles to articulate why any of it should matter to the consumer.
Beyond the Aesthetic: What Actually Makes Wellness Brands Work
The wellness category has learned to look authentic without being so. Here's what actually separates brands that earn loyalty from those that just photograph well.
How Champagne Turned Artist Collaborations Into Cultural Strategy
Progressive champagne houses are turning artist collaborations into cultural strategy. From Ruinart’s contemporary installations to Krug’s engagement with sound and music, art is increasingly how champagne can tell its story.
The Most Wasted Asset in Wine: Why Label Design Is a Billion-Pound Missed Opportunity
The wine label is the industry's most powerful commercial asset, and its most wasted. While premium producers follow century-old codes that make them indistinguishable, brands like 19 Crimes have built hundreds of millions by breaking every rule. The problem isn't design quality. It's five words: “We would never do that”.
The Weight of the Door Handle: Why brand strategy and investment compounds, and how to measure what matters
Most brand measurement tracks the wrong things entirely. Brand ROI is real. The question is whether you're willing to invest on the timescales that allow it to compound.
Champagne’s Occasion Trap: Has Champagne Boxed Itself Into Celebration
The most successful positioning in beverage history has become a ceiling. Champagne's own customers are leading the rebellion.
Finding and Defining Brand DNA That Builds Lasting Value
How the world’s most successful luxury and lifestyle brands uncover, articulate and embed their DNA – the origin, values, personality and codes that keep them distinctive and desirable over decades.
Why Charging for Bread is a Missed Opportunity
Charge for bread and you may balance the books, but you bankrupt the brand. Bread is never just bread; it is hospitality’s opening act, the cue that says you belong. Strip it away and you turn generosity into accountancy, loyalty into indifference.
From White Cube to World Stage, How Luxury Spaces Are Transforming Culture
Art is moving beyond the white cube into luxurious, unconventional spaces that blend culture, hospitality and lifestyle. From Menorca to west London, these galleries offer immersive experiences where art, design, and fine dining meet — inviting audiences to connect with culture in richer, more memorable ways.
How Brands Can Succeed in Cultural Collaborations
When done well, cultural collaborations can bring real depth and meaning to a brand. But they’re just as easy to misjudge. We unpack the essential dos and don’ts of working with artists and designers — from building genuine trust to allowing creative freedom — and explore why getting the balance right is more important than ever.
Milan Design Week 2025: Stories, Spaces and Brands That Shaped the Conversation
Conceptual depth, cultural resonance, and brand storytelling done well — Milan Design Week 2025, from Salone del Mobile to Fuorisalone, proved that design still holds the power to ask the bigger questions. These are the stories and ideas that moved the conversation forward.
A Comprehensive Guide to Creating a Successful and Enduring Brand Book
An inside look at the art of creating meaningful brand books that resonate and endure — where storytelling meets strategy, and design brings identity to life. Featuring The Life Negroni and La Vita Campari, two richly crafted titles by Spinach Branding that exemplify how narrative and aesthetics can elevate a brand’s cultural relevance.
BIG’s Vision for the Future City Is Bold, Sustainable, and Built for People
Telosa is an ambitious new city designed by architect BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) and led by entrepreneur Marc Lore. Planned to rise in the American desert by 2050, it proposes a fresh model for urban life rooted in sustainability, social equity and innovation. With human-centred design and a bold for-profit approach, could Telosa become a blueprint for future cities? BIG’s Alana Goldweit shares insights into the project’s evolving vision.
Enduring Brands Aren’t Built by Accident
What gives a brand its lasting power? In this reflection on the art and craft of identity, Spinach Branding’s creative partner Leigh Banks considers how brands can remain culturally relevant without losing their core. From clarity of purpose to the quiet power of good design, he offers a nuanced take on what it means to build a brand that endures.
The Case for Digital Brand Hubs in a Connected World
In a fast-moving digital world, printed brand guidelines no longer cut it. Digital brand hubs keep teams aligned and assets current — offering a smarter, more agile way to manage brand identity across platforms.
Why Branding Starts With Compelling Storytelling
A lasting brand isn’t built on trends or clever slogans. It takes a clear point of view, a sense of purpose, and the discipline to stay consistent — even as the world shifts. Spinach Branding shares what it really takes to create an identity with depth and longevity, and why it all starts with asking the right questions.
Five Rules for Advertising That Actually Work
In a world saturated with ads, standing out requires more than just clever copy or flashy visuals. Drawing from decades of experience and insights from advertising legends like David Ogilvy, Spinach Branding distills five essential principles that ensure your advertising not only captures attention but also builds lasting brand value.
How Annual Reports Shape a Brand’s Story
Annual reports are often overlooked — but done right, they can reveal a lot about a company’s values, voice, and ambition. Creative director Adam Thomas shares how Spinach Branding approaches these projects with equal parts editorial thinking and visual craft to turn a functional document into a compelling expression of brand identity.
Campari’s Artistic Heritage Reimagines East London with Spinach Branding
Spinach helped Campari translate its rich artistic heritage into a contemporary brand experience by transforming East London into an open-air gallery. In partnership with the Affordable Art Fair, the Art Without Walls campaign replaced billboards with 500 works by independent artists, each available via QR code — reinforcing Campari’s identity as a patron of creativity while reimagining public space as a platform for culture.
