Brand, marketing + communications, strategically directed.
McQueenie Mulholland is a senior-led consultancy for leadership teams who need clarity, structure and a defensible point of view.
With over 15 years’ experience, we help brands and organisations define their position, shape their narrative and achieve tangible outcomes through delivery.
Three things, done well.
We work in three disciplines, in sequence or in concert. Most engagements begin with a question about strategy; from there the rest is making the answer travel.
We are deliberately small. Every project is led by Sue or Rob personally, with selected specialists drawn in where the brief calls for it. There is no account team between you and the thinking.
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Positioning, narrative and identity for organisations that need a defensible articulation of who they are — not a refresh of how they look.
Typically includes:
Positioning and narrative architecture
Naming, verbal identity and tone
Visual identity and brand systems
Internal launch and rollout
For:
Organisations that need anything between two-week diagnostic sprints through to twelve-month senior advisory input.
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Audience, channel and plan-level work; frequently the bridge between a board-level brief and an in-house team that needs a clear structure to execute against.
Typically includes:
Audience definition and segmentation
Channel strategy and investment cases
Annual marketing and campaign plans
Measurement frameworks
For:
Marketing leaders who need a thinking partner, not another agency.
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PR, content, internal and external comms. The work that determines what gets said, how and where – grounded in journalistic expertise.
Typically includes:
Press and media relations
Editorial and digital content
Internal communications change
Crisis and issues management
For:
Communications managers, in-house comms and marketing teams, senior leadership and boards — wherever the decision about what to say and to whom, needs to be made carefully.
A working method, not off -the-peg processes.
Our approach to projects.
Each engagement is shaped to the brief, but most pass through four broad movements. They are not phases on a Gantt chart; they are different ways of paying attention to the detail.
We resist anything that looks like a preset workshop you've already been through. The shape we follow is descriptive, not prescriptive.
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A small, structured set of conversations with the people who actually hold the problem and not only the people who wrote the brief.
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We name the problem the work is actually solving. Sometimes this is the moment the brief changes shape, which is usually the point of this exercise.
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Strategy, narrative, identity, plan – whatever the brief calls for but always made by senior practitioners, with the fewest necessary hands on it.
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The work has to live in your team's hands, not ours. The documents, the rollout, the people to brief – we design the handover deliberately for this purpose.
Where we work.
For brands of all sizes, operating against global and “glocal” competition, clarity is now the scarce asset.
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Channels have multiplied. Content has accelerated. The distinction between marketing and communications has blurred — particularly in digital environments where message, medium and audience are closely intertwined.
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Large agencies continue to operate at scale, whereas smaller agencies have become increasingly specialised. The space in between (broad, generalist delivery) is under pressure to deliver genuine value and, therefore, become harder to sustain.
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Seeking a generalist agency is unlikely to provide the clarity or direction now required. Execution is widely available, but what’s less available (and more valuable) is the thinking that sits behind it – strategy.
Two ways of working.
Client Consultancy and Venture Partners – in both cases, the work is the same; clear thinking, strong positioning and practical direction. It’s only the terms of engagement that differ.
Client Consulting.
In nearly all cases this is the traditional fee-based, structured way of working that’s applied to mature and established organisations.
Venture Partnering.
In a small number of cases we partner with start-ups on ideas with real potential; where our input is exchanged for a share in the outcome.
Consultancy Clients.
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Exeter City Football Club
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The Deaf Academy
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Exeter Science Park
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Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival
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Ubi Communication
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Totus Neurorehab
Venture Partners.
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OpenLivestock
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Ollo
Agentic OS for mid-market companies.
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Refs on Tour
Working with.
You'll work with the two people whose names are on the door, as well as a wider team of expert associates.
Sue McQueenie
Communications strategist
Former journalist; twenty years inside the room when senior teams have had to make a decision about what to say, when, and where. Leads the firm's communications and PR practice.
Rob Mulholland
Brand + marketing strategist
Brand and marketing strategist with over twenty years experience. Works with leadership teams on positioning, narrative and the long-form decisions that the rest of the marketing function depends on.
Genuine perspective.
Short pieces on brand, marketing, communications and the agency landscape; written when we have something we genuinely want to say.
No newsletter, no thought-leadership calendar. The writing is for the same audience as the work: marketing comms managers, in-house teams, senior leadership and boards.
If you have a brief, or even just the beginnings of one, contact us.
Clear thinking, strong positioning and practical direction need?
If you’re working through a complex brand, marketing or communications challenge, and need clear thinking and senior input, we can help.