Ulster Museum
A brand platform across film, out of home and the museum itself.
Make your marque.
Marque is brand intelligence software, built by Big+Bold for each client. It checks your team’s work against your brand strategy and finds any file you describe. In the pilot it also writes briefs and posts, plans content and makes simple brand pieces.
- Ask Marque: see it at work. Big+Bold’s three questions in white on near-black, “Is it strategic? Is it impactful? Is it effective?”, the question marks in red. Marque’s note, Voice Consistency: Sounds like the brand. “The opening question leads without preamble and sets the parallel structure…” Marked: the three questions. A mock-up of Big+Bold’s own three questions poster, set by Marque’s team.
Ask MarqueLive from day one
- Asset bank: see it at work. A red Big+Bold poster: “Good enough, isn’t good enough.” in white, the big+bold logo under it and the marque pattern at its foot. Found in the asset bank by describing it: “our red proposition poster”. A mock-up of Big+Bold’s own file, set by Marque’s team.
Asset bankLive from day one
- Simple brand jobs: see it at work. Mock-up: Big+Bold’s photograph of its studio is cut to a 9:16 story, Big+Bold’s line set over the wall, the B Corp and Living Wage plaques under it and its logo on the sideboard. Ask Marque’s note on the story: No Red Lines crossed. “The post is substantially on-brand and needs only a typographic reflow of the headline line-break…” Then it is signed off.
Simple brand jobsIn the pilot
- Content plans: see it at work. Mock-up: Big+Bold’s own content plan, eight posts in November by day and channel. The first opens to a LinkedIn draft, with Ask Marque’s note on it.
Content plansIn the pilot
Ask Marque’s poster and the asset bank show mock-ups of Big+Bold’s own files, set by Marque’s team from Big+Bold’s approved words. The simple job and the content plan are mock-ups by Marque’s team, on Big+Bold’s own brand. Ask Marque’s notes on the poster, the simple job and the content plan were made against Big+Bold’s own brand profile, written by Marque’s team from the studio’s approved narrative.
What Marque does
One brand. Always on.
Check
Ask Marque
Live from day one
Send any work. It comes back marked against your brand.
In the pilot: Fix it, the media plan check, visual checks, sign-off and comments.
Marque finds two Red Lines crossed
Note 1, Voice Consistency:
“The ‘LAST CHANCE’ badge uses a phrase the brand explicitly prohibits…”
Read the full note
“The ‘LAST CHANCE’ badge uses a phrase the brand explicitly prohibits and visually dominates the top-right of the creative with urgency that contradicts the warm, steady tone of every other element.”
Note 2, Messaging Alignment:
“…promotes a mortgage product without including the required repossession warning…”
Read the full note
“The creative promotes a mortgage product without including the required repossession warning, which the brand’s Red Lines treat as mandatory for any mortgage promotion.”
Marque’s changes A test post we made to break the brand
Take out
LAST CHANCEEnds Friday
AddYour home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.
Fix itIn the pilotRead again, every change made
Ask MarqueNo Red Lines crossed
“…substantially on-brand… but the gold full stop… edges toward the heightened energy…”
Read the full note
“This post is substantially on-brand and clears every Red Line, but the gold full stop on ‘here.’ at display scale carries a visual emphasis that edges toward the heightened energy the Tone Codex avoids, and removing or recolouring it would bring the piece fully into line.”
Test post by Marque’s team for Northlight Mutual. Northlight Mutual is a fictional building society, made up to test Marque. It is not a real organisation. Fix it comes in the pilot, so Marque’s team made the changes by hand. Ask Marque’s notes, its changes and its second reading are real. Find
Asset bank
Live from day one
Every file in one place. Describe it and Marque finds it, even inside documents.
In the pilot: the brand kit and DAM connectors.
credentials that say we are a B Corp1 match
Credentials page
Found by the words inside it: B CORP
The rest of the library
Mock-ups of Big+Bold’s own files, set by Marque’s team from Big+Bold’s approved words. Make
Simple brand jobs
In the pilot
Resizes approved work, makes new versions of approved templates and simple pieces from locked ones. Marque checks each one, then a person signs it off.
In the pilot: briefs, social posts, posting to your accounts, your templates, editing together, smart fields and data merge, and PDF and PNG files.
Approved photograph
Approved line
Resized for each format
9:16 Story
Ask MarqueNo Red Lines crossed
“The post is substantially on-brand and needs only a typographic reflow of the headline line-break…”
Read the full note
“The post is substantially on-brand and needs only a typographic reflow of the headline line-break to land the closing phrase with its full weight.”
1:1 Post
Ask MarqueNo Red Lines crossed
“…on-brand in every material respect… the comma in the headline… should be removed…”
Read the full note
“The post is on-brand in every material respect and needs only one change: the comma in the headline ‘Good enough, isn’t good enough.’ splits subject from verb and should be removed.”
4:1 Web banner
Ask MarqueNo Red Lines crossed
“The banner is confidently on-brand and needs only one consideration…”
Read the full note
“The banner is confidently on-brand and needs only one consideration: if the B Corp certification is load-bearing in this context, a correctly formatted Certified B Corp™ mark should be added as a typeset element rather than relying on the plaque in the photograph.”
A person signs off
Mock-up by Marque’s team, from Big+Bold’s own photograph of its studio, its line and its logo. The three formats are ours. Ask Marque’s notes on them are real, read against Big+Bold’s own brand profile, written by Marque’s team from the studio’s approved narrative. Plan
Content plans
In the pilot
Which message goes to which audience, where and when. Each slot opens a brief. Every draft arrives with Ask Marque’s notes.
In the pilot: measurement, consistency reports, usage and marketing plans.
The LinkedIn post on Tue 3 opens its brief
- Brief
- LinkedIn, Tuesday 3 November
- Audience
- Marketing and brand leaders
- Objective
- Brand leaders see strategy-first creative as work they can defend to the board.
- Believes now
- Most creative work is decoration that is hard to justify to the board.
- Needs to believe
- Creative work grounded in strategy earns attention and delivers results.
- Message
- Strategy first.
- Proof
- Every piece is held to three questions before it ships. Is it strategic? Is it impactful? Is it effective?
- Tone Codex
- Short declarative sentences. Lead with the claim, then the evidence. Confident, never hyped or hedged.
- Red Lines
- No unverifiable superlatives, rankings or guaranteed results. Never name a client that is not publicly approved.
- Formats
- LinkedIn post, 1:1 and 4:5. Three versions.
Ask MarqueNo Red Lines crossed
“…a well-oriented internal brief… but it needs direction on how three versions should differ…”
Read the full note
“This is a well-oriented internal brief with accurate Red Line guidance and correct message framing, but it needs direction on how three versions should differ and a prompt to include at least one credential or proof point beyond the three questions.”
Three drafts, each read by Ask Marque first
1 LinkedIn
Creative that isn’t grounded in strategy is just decoration. We start every piece with three questions. Is it strategic? Is it impactful? Is it effective? If not, it doesn’t ship.
Ask MarqueNo Red Lines crossed
“A clean, on-brand piece… but leans so closely on positioning language…”
Read the full note
“A clean, on-brand piece that states the studio’s standard with confidence, but leans so closely on positioning language that it would benefit from a more situational entry point to earn the framework rather than simply restating it.”
2 LinkedIn
Your board doesn’t want more advertising. It wants work it can defend. So our work starts with strategy, and every piece answers three questions before it ships.
Ask MarqueNo Red Lines crossed
“Substantially on-brand copy that names the right audience tension… with one minor phrasing refinement…”
Read the full note
“Substantially on-brand copy that names the right audience tension and reflects the positioning accurately, with one minor phrasing refinement to bring the active voice fully into line with the Tone Codex.”
3 LinkedIn
Attention is earned, not bought. Work grounded in strategy earns it. That’s the order we work in, on every brief: strategy first, then the idea.
Ask MarqueNo Red Lines crossed
“This is a clean, on-brand piece… but stops short of connecting process to outcome…”
Read the full note
“This is a clean, on-brand piece that leads correctly with strategy and uses the right voice throughout, but stops short of connecting process to outcome and would be stronger with a light gesture toward effectiveness.”
Mock-up by Marque’s team. Ask Marque’s notes on the brief and the drafts are real, read against Big+Bold’s own brand profile, written by Marque’s team from the studio’s approved narrative.
Where your team works
In the pilot
Ask Marque in Slack and Microsoft Teams. Sign in with your Microsoft or Google work account.
You
Can this go out on LinkedIn today?
LinkedIn draft
Attention is earned, not bought. Work grounded in strategy earns it. That’s the order we work in, on every brief: strategy first, then the idea.
Ask MarqueNo Red Lines crossed
“This is a clean, on-brand piece… but stops short of connecting process to outcome…”
Read the full note
“This is a clean, on-brand piece that leads correctly with strategy and uses the right voice throughout, but stops short of connecting process to outcome and would be stronger with a light gesture toward effectiveness.”
The work
Big+Bold made this.
The brand and creative agency that built Marque.
Xapo Bank
Bitcoin banking, from Villa Park to the London Underground.
Big+Bold for Xapo Bank. Case studies:
Gilford Castle Estate
A brand identity and digital presence for a luxury castle retreat.
Insurance Office of America
A new website for one of the largest private US insurance agencies.
Game of Thrones Studio Tour
Activations, house passes and a summer campaign for the Studio Tour.
Big+Bold
Is it strategic? Is it impactful? Is it effective?
If the answer to any of those is no, it’s not finished.
Big+Bold is a strategy-led creative studio with offices in Belfast and Dublin. Northern Ireland’s first Certified B Corp™ creative agency.
How we set it up
Your brand, written down by strategists.
Dearbhla BoyleStrategy Director
David NurseManaging Director
In the pilot, Big+Bold’s designers also build your brand kit and templates. They are never shared with another client.
Your brand profile, in six parts.
We call it the Intelligence Architecture. Marque reads every piece of work against it.
- What you stand forPositioning Core
- Who you talk toAudience Matrix
- What you say firstMessaging Hierarchy
- How you soundTone Codex
- What you never sayRed Lines
- What good looks likeEvaluation Criteria
How we build it with you, in five phases
The Marque Calibration Framework
- We audit what you know.Brand Archaeology
- We write your brand down in its six parts.Strategic Distillation
- We tune what matters most.Platform Calibration
- We test it on your own work.Validation
- We review it every quarter.Living Calibration
Questions
What is Marque?
Brand intelligence software your teams sign in to. They use it every day to check work before it ships and to find the files they need. Big+Bold’s strategists set it up with you, then keep it calibrated every quarter.
How is this different from pasting our guidelines into a chat tool?
A chat tool gives generic advice. Marque judges against your own brand profile, built and tested by Big+Bold’s strategists.
Does Marque decide what goes out?
No. Marque advises and people decide. Nothing Marque makes is shown without its reading, and Marque never approves anything. In the pilot, Sign-off lets a named person approve each piece.
Who can see our content?
Only your organisation’s users and Big+Bold. Files are stored privately. Your templates and brand kit are never shared with another client.
How do we get started?
Get in touch. Someone from Big+Bold will talk it through with you.
The pilot
- Who it’s for
- A small group of organisations, working closely with Big+Bold.
- How it starts
- A conversation. Then Big+Bold’s strategists build your brand profile with you and test Marque on your own work.
- What you get
- Ask Marque and the asset bank from day one. Everything marked ‘In the pilot’ is added during the pilot, as it is ready.