Journal – Ben Brears

12th April 2025

Parenting: bike riding and surprises

Lincoln’s not always the biggest fan of new things. We know this, so when we got him a bike as part of his birthday gifts last year, we bought cheap and second hand. ‘If he refuses to use it, it’s not the end of the world’, we thought.

Sure enough, he was a bit suspicious of it. He agreed to come out and try and learn with me within a few days though, and did pretty good. Not fully cycling on his own, certainly not confident on it, but pretty good as first attempts go. ‘Maybe he’ll like it after all then?’, we thought. That was 4 months ago. He’s not been on it since, and not through a lack of offering and trying to convince him.

So today, when our daughter Lyra asked him if he wanted to play out on the bikes my inner monologue said, ‘no chance kiddo, sorry’. But then Link surprised us. Not only did he okay the idea, but he got his trainers and helmet on, and rolled out the bike without complaint.

I waited inside, fully expecting them to be back within 30 seconds. Sure enough, within the time it took to turn on the coffee machine, my wife — about to drive to the supermarket — calls from outside. My eyes roll. But before I can muster a, ‘what’s gone wrong?’, she said, “you might want to come and see this”. Through force of will, personality, or some unknown black magic, Lyra’s not only got Lincoln to get on the bike and accept her instruction. BUT HE’S CYCLING UP AND DOWN THE ROAD UNAIDED. On his second time ever on a bike without stabilisers. Within literally minutes. I don’t know how she did it. I don’t know how he did it. I do know kids are full of surprises, and you should never, ever, write them off at anything.

9th April 2025

Watched: The Studio

Apple TV+; hit after hit after hit. Snappy, well written, well shot and very very funny. It might be my new favourite thing on TV, and I’m only 2 episodes in. Can it sustain the momentum? I guess we’ll have to wait and see eh? But it’s the rare sort of show that would’ve had young me scrambling to download the episode as soon as it aired back in the HBO Golden Era. Now I’m old and can afford TV subscriptions. But still, S01E03 - gimme.

9th April 2025

Watched: Last One Laughing

I know, I know. It looks like another cheap Channel 4 comedy — It's even got the man with the world's most annoying laugh, Jimmy Carr, hosting. But trust me, any show with Richard Ayoade and Bob Mortimer is a must watch. Basic premise, 10 comedians are locked in a room with each other and have to try to make each other laugh — the catch? They're not allowed to laugh. 1 laugh is a yellow card, 2 and you're out. Turns out, watching genuinely funny people trying not to laugh at other genuinely funny people is, well, genuinely funny.

It's on Amazon Prime. Have at.

9th April 2025

Speaking: Process Leeds 002

Last week, I was a speaker at Process Events at The Attic, right here in Leeds, on behalf of Robot Food.. Thanks to Frazer Sparham for having me ramble on about who we are and why we do what we do, The Robot Food gang for coming out in force to support, and everyone for their friendly faces, time, and questions.

Covid was devastating for community events like these in Leeds, so it's great to see them coming back and better then ever.

I said at the start of my talk; but we've (Robot Food) been notoriously crap at speaking about ourselves in public over the last 10 years or so. We've let the work do the talking, and we've never really lifted the curtain much on the people, and our way of working. We'd like to change that going forward – as a community our shared knowledge and experiences lifts us all up and makes us all better, if we can be a small part of that then we're up for the challenge. If you do want to hear more from me, or any of the much more eloquent gang at Robot Food, feel free to slide into the DMs or drop me an email.

31st January 2025

Watched: Dark Matter

Another really good show on Apple TV+ that I'd heard and seen little to no promo for ahead of time. Another compelling premise that's well acted, well produced, and well told. Apple just really doesn't want to market how good their shows are do they?

Amy did nope out half-way through this one. She liked the idea but says it all got a ‘bit too sci-fi’ — which is probably a fair comment, I did feel like I needed a science refresher more than once — but, as the nerd of the house I kept the faith and enjoyed it.

The big question is, what's next? ‘Severance’, or ‘For All Mankind’?

27th January 2025

Listening: Kendrick Lamar

Like most of the planet, I can't stop listening to GNX. Kendrick is absolutely on top of the game right now. The Super Bowl half-time show is really going to be something. I'm absolutely betting on K-dot being petty enough to (at the very least) get the crowd singing 'Not like us', rounding off his victory lap from the Drake beef in serious style.

24th January 2025

Writing: The incredible success of Badger Brewery

A piece written initially for the Robot Food journal, here. You can view the full case study for Badger Brewery, here.

A few years ago, we were approached by a brewery. There’s nothing new there, we get approached by breweries quite a lot. But what stood out at the time was their ask — a redesign of just one of their best known ales.

Now, at Robot Food, our ethos is ‘Challenge by design’. And for us, that’s not just some hollow agency tag-line or statement, it’s something we take seriously and try to live by. And on this occasion, quite simply, we thought the brief was wrong and the opportunity for the client was bigger than they realised.

Their portfolio was hugely fragmented. Consumers knew their beers, but the brand awareness was low — putting a clear ceiling on their ambitions. And focusing on marketing their beers as individual brands was stopping them from leveraging all the great stuff about the brand and brewery that wasn’t tied directly to the beer. This was not an agency opinion, spouted to increase the scope of the job — these were cold hard facts, born from extensive research. So we laid out the challenges — and the opportunity.

‘You shouldn’t redesign this one beer. You should look at your whole portfolio and how it works together. There’s an opportunity to build that brand recognition, tell your story better, and get consumers buying more of your beers on more occasions’.

‘No thanks’, they said. ‘That’s not the way we work. We just want this one beer looked at, so we’ll work with someone else’.

‘Fair enough’, we thought.

So what’s the point in this story?

Well, just because a client doesn’t go for it, doesn’t mean you’re wrong.

Not long after, Badger Brewery came to us with a very similar problem. Their market share was declining, alongside bottled ales as a whole. Consumers recognised beers (like the wonderful Golden Champion or Fursty Ferret), but not the Badger brand. They were struggling to tell their story, and give new consumers a reason to buy into Badger in a market with so much choice. Only this time, nothing was off the table.

We unified the brand under a bigger, bolder masthead. We gave them the space and opportunity to tell their stories. Not just of the beers, but of the brewery itself. We made it way easier for consumers to recognize a Badger beer, and shop across Badger’s portfolio of beers — without sacrificing any of the individuality of the beers themselves. We gave consumers a reason to buy in.

The results?

Well, they speak for themselves. A 50% sales increase year-on-year, since the relaunch. More frequent purchasers, larger purchasers, and new drinkers choosing the brand.

The lesson?

Your brand is everything. And just because that’s not the way things have been done before, that doesn’t mean it can’t be the way things are done in the future. Brands need to challenge to survive. That means challenging their competitors, challenging the category, and ultimately, challenging themselves.

23rd January 2025

Watched: Silo

The amount of quality content on Apple TV+ that Apple seemingly can't be bothered to market is incredible. I've binged through both seasons of Silo to start the year and, though it's a slow burn, it's tense, and gripping, and utterly compelling. To the point that I'm probably going to have to read the books to find out what happens next, as I'm not entirely sure I have the patience to wait and find out.

Complaints, if I have any:
1. Would it have killed them to light the scenes a little brighter? Yes, it's set in a silo, and by its nature it's underground. But still, I can't help but feel if a TV program has you turning the house lights off and the TV brightness up just to see what's going on, then there's room for improvement here.
2. Common. Incredible rapper. Genre defining albums. Not sold on him as an actor.

6th January 2025

Listening: Linkin Park

It’s great to have Linkin Park back making music after Chester’s tragic passing. It’s even better that they sound like they’re having fun doing it. They occasionally come across a bit too self referential and tip into fan-service, sounding somewhat like a cover band of themselves. But by-and-large, ‘From Zero’ is a pretty solid offering.