Unlocked in London
Potential is rarely found in the centre of a discipline. It lives at the edges, where specialisms, cultures and technologies collide. We call these Unconventional Connections. It was the theme of our inaugural Unlocked dinner in Covent Garden, where we invited a group of clients to step out of the “marketing bubble” and into a space of positive friction. That idea sits at the heart of Partners in Possibility - our new proposition built on a simple belief: every brand has potential waiting to be released. And increasingly, unlocking it means bringing together different kinds of expertise, perspective and thinking in ways that create something new.
What the room heard
We weren’t interested in polished corporate keynotes. Instead, we heard from two people whose journeys have been anything but linear.
Cheryl Calverley (Founder of Moot) challenged the room on how we’ve systematically digitised serendipity out of our lives. Her point was sharp: creativity isn’t something you can putin a calendar. You can only create the conditions where it might happen. Andthose conditions are social, human and, crucially, physical. It was a timelyr eminder that as we move towards machine precision, we risk losing the humanmessiness that often sparks the best ideas.
Stu Macdonald (Founder of ManiLife) shared the chaotic, honest reality of building a brand that started with a sack of Argentinian peanuts and a blender. Strategy matters, but Stu’s story proved that luck, persistence and openness matter too. His mantra, that serendipity favours those who “keep buggering on”, is essentially the antithesis of an AI prompt. It’s about being out in the world, making human connections, and choosing people over product.
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Beyond the prompt
AI is already changing how we work at Brand Potential. It’s making us faster and sharper. But as the evening in London proved, it isn’t a replacement for the “unconventional” bit.
The strongest brands aren’t built by automation alone. They are built by people who can connect dots others don’t see, across data and intuition, machine precision and human warmth, strategy and execution.
That’s the thinking behind Partners in Possibility. Our model brings together specialists across insight and innovation, strategy and design, PR and activation, content and advertising, digital and technology, combining different perspectives to help unlock new possibilities for brands.
The Unlocked series is one way we make that thinking real: creating space for the kinds of conversations that don’tusually happen in a standard meeting room but often lead somewhere more interesting.
To everyone who joined us: thank you for the candour and the energy. To everyone else: we’d love to see you at the next one.
We are Brand Potential. Partners in Possibility.