The Manchego Memo - 03.04
Weekly musings on brand, content, social and beyond.
The Slice
What’s your point?
Most brands don’t have a content problem, they have a point of view problem.
There’s no shortage of output, posts, videos, newsletters. But strip away the format and ask: what’s actually being said?
Too often, it’s safe, recycled and interchangeable with every other brand in your space. In my opinion, the brands that stand out right now aren’t louder, they’re clearer. They’ve decided what they believe, and they repeat it, consistently, confidently and across everything.
My clients are sick to the back teeth of hearing me talk about message discipline, but it’s even more important than ever in an era of so much content. The importance of message discipline is scientifically validated, research published in the European Management Journal demonstrates that communication consistency has a direct and significant impact on brand trust and brand loyalty.
What I’m Seeing
Founders as influencers
We’re used to creators becoming founders and influencer backed brands, but now we are seeing a rise the other way around.
Examples I’m loving;
Sophie Whitelaw of Sophie Whitelaw Bespoke Jewellery signing with CGC Collective
Bryony Deery of Pilates by Bryony influencing for Groes London
Sedge Beswick of NXT LVL taking on ads with platforms such as Loveable.
Our Take
Most brands don’t need a new strategy.
They need to stop diluting the one they already have.Every time you try to appeal to “more people,” you weaken the signal for the right ones.
Worth Your Attention
A few things that stood out this week:
Brands leaning into brand worlds instead of trends. (Mr and Mrs Smith, Late Check Out, Ffern perfume)
Creators building repeatable content formats (Daily Rituals, Sheerluxe, Lohause)
Companies investing in end to end campaigns, not just relying on social to do the heavy lifting. (KFC pickle mania, Starling Bank Good Money Starts Here, 170 years of Burberry news agents)
From MC HQ
Learnings from real client work
The clarity I’m always banging on about also helps from another POV, AI search.
A super hot topic lately, that seems to be rendering traditional SEO completely useless. I'll be honest and say for a while, I filed AI search optimisation under "things I will never understand."
But then I started running some experiments with clients. Nothing dramatic, just small, intentional changes to how we were structuring content. And the traffic started moving. (p.s. here’s how to track it)
Even with small changes we’ve seen steady, consistent, organic traffic from AI-driven queries. People finding my clients through ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google's AI overviews, arriving already warmed up, already informed, already closer to a decision.
Here's my take on what’s worked - AI search doesn't reward the same things traditional SEO did. It doesn't care as much about keyword density or backlink volume. It rewards clarity, authority and specificity. It surfaces brands that have a clear point of view and have expressed it consistently, in plain language, across multiple places online.
Another point, don’t be too quick to give up on LinkedIn. It’s now one of the most cited sources by ChatGPT, and it prefers educational, long form content. The new SemRush study also confirms what marketers have known to be true for a while now, that you need company Page content AND individual thought leadership.
Oh, and Happy Easter!
More next week.
— Rebekah @ Manchego Creative
