Our Story
Bluebabel was originally founded in 2008 as GreenBabel, about translating sustainability into opportunity. This was based on Liz’s duality of sustainability and marketing skills, now with 25 years of strategic marketing plus a Masters in Sustainability. While this still remains at our heart, 10 years of client work has taught us that what clients most value is the way in which that’s done – providing clarity from all the complexity of insights, issues, agendas, and challenges within modern business.
So we realised that this ‘feeling of blue’ was more important, and we rebranded to bluebabel in January 2017. We’re here to provide a moment of absolute clarity. To lift the weight from your shoulders, energise you with the way forward, and help you to soar as a bolder leader.
But under this, we still believe in the importance and opportunity for brands to address issues affecting people and the planet, from gender equality, to fair trade, to biodiversity and species protection.
And our positive action is to remain actively involved in helping conservation charities, invest temporary tax funds in regeneration projects, and always appreciate the world around us….
Liz Tinlin
“After a career in clientside marketing at Diageo, SC Johnson and Colgate Palmolive, I went to Added Value and became a strategy Director, working with awesome and talented people solving clients’ marketing issues with cultural insight, segmentation, and strategy. But in 2002 I decided marketing skills weren’t enough, and went back to Uni part time alongside this work, to get a diploma in Geosciences (specialising in resource extraction, climate change, evolution – and planetary science just for fun). This inspired me to leave Added Value in 2007 to stew on how to unite marketing and sustainability in a way that was useful for businesses. As part of this I continued the study with a Masters degree in Sustainability, specialising in impacts and opportunities for brands and businesses from environmental degradation, low carbon economy, and international development. All the while practicising and learning with clients as to what makes the best solutions, the most cutting edge answers that can create the win-win-win for brands, consumers and society.
This has particurlarly taken me towards purpose, building on brand positioning skills to help businesses work out what they’re about, and rally the whole organisation around a common mission. There’s no greater joy in work than leaving people inspired, excited and (often) relieved!
And once they have a (good) purpose, they naturally turn not just to customer experience, but to positive action to walk the talk. So they can end up influencing the issues I care most about. A more positive future for the next generation. Where they still have energy sources. Where emotional and physical wellbeing are commonplace. Where the pace of technology change has helped increase fairness and opportunity for all. And where we still see wild animals and rich biodiversity when we can step away from our desks. For my part, I am now a Board Trustee at the Born Free Foundation, giving me a chance to volunteer my business skills to the people on the ground doing great conservation work. I’ve also just completed my final modules in geosciences to convert the diploma into a full degree, and I volunteer in primary schools talking to kids about space, particularly planetary geology, hopefully to inspire them to think scientifically about the world we live in.
We still have so much to learn from natural processes and behaviour, from evolution to ecology, to symbiosis and recycling. Amazing answers are possible, to make stronger better businesses with people who love their jobs as they are doing good not just making profit. So if all of this helps me add one drop of inspiration to the hard-working folks running brands and business, then it’s been a good day.”
The Team
We believe that clients shouldn’t have to pay for office space, overheads, and junior people learning the ropes. For strategic questions this hard, you just want talented and experienced directors, who work together exceptionally well, and are 100% focussed on helping you solve your challenge. Sometimes this just needs Liz, but more often it means putting together a crack team, in the ‘Hollywood’ model, a team of diverse specialists brought together to deliver on one project, one challenge.
Liz’s network of trusted talent includes qualitative researchers, senior ex-client marketers, sustainability experts, quantitative researchers, semioticians, event managers, and designers – whatever we need to put together the best team for each project, in the UK and selected locations internationally. We also work with your existing agencies whenever needed.
