Retail Insider Breakfast – John Murphy, founder of Interbrand + Kresse Wesling, co-founder of Elvis & Kresse

Kresse Wesling and John Murphy

Retail Insider held its latest Breakfast Event of 2018 with John Murphy, founder of Interbrand, and Kresse Wesling, co-founder of Elvis & Kresse who talked around how branding was originally created and how it is developing.

An audience of senior executives gathered at The Delaunay in central London to hear how Murphy formed Interbrand at a time when the concept of brands did not exist and how he helped get their values recognised on company balance sheets.

Wesling provided some current context by highlighting how her business and its brand is very much values-driven in the same way that large luxury brands used to be originally but that they have lost a lot of this over time.

“They have an enormous desire to change but they have legacy businesses. We set up [purely] as a business based on sustainability and ethics. The future of any business has to be this way. Being unsustainable is indefensible,” she suggests.

Wesling described how a brand today in a digital world – selling online and using social media – cannot be directly controlled by the business itself. However, the benefit of operating a company like Elvis & Kresse – that contributes 50% of its profits to charity – is that it typically generates positive media stories, which feed directly into the brand perception.

This scenario is very different scenario to when Murphy was creating brands like Mondeo and Hob Nobs, but his current business interests – St Peter’s Brewery and male grooming brand Ruffians – very much deal with digital and the greater complexity involved with owning brands today.

Retail Insider would very much like to thank John Murphy and Kresse Wesling for taking part in the breakfast and also to Red Hot Penny, PCMS Group, Webloyalty and ORESA for their much valued involvement. Without their support this event would not have been possible. 

Glynn Davis, editor, Retail Insider