Lorraine Carter - Persona Design

11/04/2026

Brand Leadership versus Leadership Friction—Two Connected Lens.
For more than two decades, work in Brand Leadership has repeatedly shown me the same pattern.

Brand performance often reflects leadership decisions before leadership teams fully recognise their effects.

Brand is Leadership Made Visible.

That is what led me to develop the Leadership Friction Framework.

Work now bridges Brand Leadership and Leadership Friction—helping organisations strengthen market meaning externally and reduce the internal friction that weakens strategy from the inside.

Today, I work with CEOs, boards and leadership teams at high-stakes inflection points where growth, complexity, repositioning or AI speed have begun to weaken clarity inside the system:
• decisions slow
• ownership blurs
• teams stay busy
but coherence thins.

Because when output is abundant, leadership must still decide what matters.

Judgement becomes the strategy.

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The Leadership Friction Framework is designed as a practical diagnostic model to help leaders identify where friction is building and how it affects strategic movement.

If you’re working through similar challenges, this framework can be applied directly within your leadership teams.

To identify where friction may be building in your organisation, explore the maps and tools, or read the insights series to understand how leadership decisions shape strategic outcomes.

If the patterns described in the framework reflect what you’re seeing in your organisation, the next step is usually a focused diagnostic conversation.

https://www.personadesign.ie/leadership-friction/

13/05/2021

What a pleasure to be sharing my latest talk 'Unstoppable in Uncertainty - Differentiating & Identify Opportunities for Growth' to 300 plus AMCIS members today at their annual conference.

Tory, Mel, and the rest of the AMCIS team have been an absolute pleasure to work with.

You can discover more about what's planned for the last day of the event here https://www.facebook.com/AMCISEducationManagement/

10/03/2019

New peer-group mastermind for like-minded business leaders, owners and entrepreneurs focussed on 7-figure accelerated growth.

Want to fast-track your profitability in the year ahead?
Send me a private message and I'll share the details with you.

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Email: [email protected]

08/03/2019

Delighted to celebrate and share with you today

On You & Your Business we have Lorraine Carter - Persona Design founder of Persona Branding and Design talking about five of the biggest brand challenges, top 4 branding mistakes to avoid and how to increase visibility, credibility, trust and likability in your brand.

07/03/2019

Did you know that drive 70-80% of all purchases including over 50% of the traditional ‘male’ products and services?

Female influencer buying power dominates by 83.9% so the question is, what’s your doing to leverage this highly lucrative and very discerning purchaser?

Women account for 65% of new car purchase decisions and make 90% of household healthcare decisions.

Beyond the domain of their personal lives, women are becoming far more influential in a business context around the globe as decision-makers and leaders.

However, it’s not unusual to see many companies get it entirely wrong when it comes to building their brand strategy, , advertising and product for women.

Let’s be absolutely clear, adding the colour ‘pink’ to your offering does NOT a brand strategy, product design or marketing campaign make.

If anything you’ll probably alienate a potentially very lucrative customer.

Women will spend upwards of 18 trillion dollars in the next year alone so what are you doing with your brand strategy, B2B or B2C, service or product, to tap into this highly informed and very profitable customer base?

In the spirit of the week that's in it, I'm celebrating International Women’s Day by sharing with you key insights and growing trends relevant to female buying power so you can re-evaluate your .

Our experience to date across a broad range of sectors B2B and B2C indicates that on average there’s always significant room for improvement in most company to drive growth.

Smart Branding for Women is core to your business success because female buying power, decision making and influence outspends mens by 70-80 percent

21/02/2019

Are you launching a new to market, or revitalising your brand but you're not yet clear how to ensure return on your investment and increased sales?

Are you losing deals in pitches — to your competitors — even though you have a far superior service or product?

Have you got a well-established brand but you're struggling with competitor threats because your brand is not delivering high enough perceived value and you're not sure why?

Because we've received a lot of client requests we're launching a New Persona Brand Building Peer-Group Mastermind for business leaders, owners and entrepreneurs.

It may be exactly what you need right now but membership is by invitation because we need to ensure its:

1. A good fit for you and your business growth plans

2. A good peer-group match for you personally and the other like-minded members

3. There are no conflicts of interest between the brands and businesses participating

This is live streaming online worldwide for members so you can participate live from your location.

If you'd like to discover more about the New Persona Brand Building Peer-Group Mastermind then get in touch.

Send us an email expressing your interest to [email protected]

Wishing you growing success!

20/02/2019

Have you got a well-established brand but you're struggling with competitor threats because your brand is not delivering high enough perceived value and you're not sure why?

Are you losing deals in pitches — to your competitors — even though you have a far superior service or product?

Are you launching a new to market, or revitalising your brand but you're not yet clear how to ensure return on your investment and increased sales?

There's a lot more to successful branding then marketing campaigns or design because branding is NOT marketing or design.

Branding strategy is the bedrock underpinning your whole business.

It provides the direction for marketing and design so if you don't have a robust brand strategy foundation underlying everything you do as a business then it makes it far more difficult to reap the rewards all your hard work so richly deserves.

There are in fact 10 core areas that make up a strong effective so do you think maybe you're missing some of them?

Because we've received a lot of client requests we're launching a New Persona Brand Building Peer-Group Mastermind for business leaders, owners and entrepreneurs.

It may be what you need right now but membership is by invitation because we need to ensure its:

1. A good fit for you and your business growth plans

2. A good peer-group match for you personally and the other like-minded members

3. There are no conflicts of interest between the brands and businesses participating

This is live streaming online worldwide for members so you can participate live from your location.

If you'd like to discover more about the New Persona Brand Building Peer-Group Mastermind then get in touch.

Send us an email expressing your interest to [email protected]

https://www.personadesign.ie/brand-building-peer-group-mastermind-online/

31/12/2018

A Year in Review, Top 10 Success Stories 2018.

10 of the biggest brand success stories of 2018, including disruptors, influencers, email marketing and video campaigns with practical advice on how to integrate comparable ideas into your for the year ahead.

Wishing you all the best in 2019

The 10 biggest brand success stories of 2018 with practical advice on how to integrate comparable ideas into your brand strategies for the year ahead.

18/12/2018

Amidst the hustle and bustle of getting ready for Christmas, the parties and the present buying, it can be easy to get caught up in the commercial opportunities which the festive season presents to your at the longer-term expense of your .

That would be a mistake.

Without a doubt, Christmas is an important marketing and revenue-generating season. For some brands, it is the crucial part of their year in terms of sales so getting brand cut-through at Christmas, or any other big occasion event, is critical for business success.

But that can be challenging because the holiday season marketplace is so crowded and noisy with so many different brands competing for attention.

To be successful it’s essential to find a way to stand out and be heard in such a busy environment while also staying true to who you are and what you stand for because your brand is for life, not just for Christmas!

Unfortunately, lots of businesses fall into the trap of doing things in ways which are not consistent with their longer-term around seasonal events so they undermine themselves and consequently reduce the long tail effectiveness of their marketing activity and their .

With careful planning and implementation, it is possible, in most cases, to use communication or other big events in ways which are fully congruent with your brand so you build your brand long-term and achieve those much sought-after uplifts in .

In this article, we’re sharing some proven strategies and techniques to help you ensure that the marketing campaigns you’re planning in the year head or in the lead up to, or around other seasonal occasions and beyond, have the right impact for your brand in the long term.

Wishing you a wonderful Christmas & happy New Year.

Maximising peak trading periods in the holiday season and Christmas without undermining your core brand strategy or what you stand for.