Nick Hough to help Goosebumps expand

Former Lambie-Nairn chief executive Nick Hough is joining forces with ex-Interbrand strategist Simon Cotterrell to oversee the expansion of a newly beefed-up brand development consultancy.

Formerly called Goosebumps, the original consultancy had been Cotterrell’s personal project for 18 months working on projects including The Carbon Trust, Boxfresh and Wealth management service The Route.

The new-look joint venture, which is self-funded, will be known as Goosebumps Brand Consultancy and will officially open its doors on Thursday 1 May.

New projects are already underway, including design-led work for HSBC around current account banking and a project with one of the Pentland Group’s portfolio of brands, which include Ted Baker, Ellesse and Red or Dead.

‘Simon and I have a combination of extensive careers in advertising as well as brand strategy and we want to design brands that work from the outset,’ says Hough.

‘So often a branding group with no experience of advertising will create an identity the ad agency then can’t communicate effectively and ignores, or worse, branding groups try to stray into the realm of advertising.’

On launching at a time of financial uncertainty, Hough says, ‘The market’s always very tough – but clients are not going to stop wanting to refresh and recreate their brands.’

He says the group’s ethos will partly be based on undertaking small jobs which bigger businesses would refuse to do unless an entire rebrand was commissioned.