Mr B & Friends has welcomed Charlotte Hoare to the team as an Account Director to bring her client services expertise to some of its newest accounts.
Having spent over a decade in London consultancies, from BBH to VMLY&R to Isobel, Charlotte brings a wealth of experience to the agency. She’s led campaigns across a range of sectors for clients such as Virgin Media, Silent Pool Gin, MS Society and Petplan, and has honed her skills in seamlessly bringing client’s visions to life. Among the notable projects Charlotte’s worked on is RSPB’s ‘Give nature a home’ five-year strategic campaign to shift the charity from solely focused on birds to a wider approach to whole nature preservation. She was part of the team for the Savills ‘With us it’s personal’ advertising campaign, designed to reposition the estate agency with a warmer approach increasing appeal to a wider audience and BrewDog’s ‘Rate Beer’ OOH activity across central and wider London.
Mr B & Friends stood out to Charlotte because of its no jargon, no bluff, no added nonsense approach. She says that she got a sense that while an efficient outfit, there was a great sense of culture at the agency and the focus on relationships appealed to her.
Charlotte says, “I came across Mr B & Friends and felt the values reflected mine, and the agency just seemed to be a great fit generally. I’m really enjoying getting stuck in.”
Based in Totnes and working predominantly remotely, Charlotte enjoys throwing ceramics and spending lots of time outdoors when she’s not at her desk. On top of effortlessly juggling multiple projects at work, Charlotte is also organising her spring wedding and daughter’s first birthday celebrations.
Simon Barbato, CEO of Mr B & Friends, says “We’re delighted to welcome Charlotte to our growing team. We’ve had a really positive start to the new year, and I have no doubt that Charlotte will help to contribute to that momentum.”
Last month was B Corp month — a time to appreciate what it means to be a B Corp. The B Corporation is a global movement of businesses rethinking what it means to be successful, focusing on regenerative, inclusive, and equitable practices that benefit everybody, not just the people at the top.
B Corp businesses not only listen to the demands of the climate crisis — they’re often leading the way. It’s a huge psychological shift taking place in the business sphere, happening across continents. There’s now over 4,600 B Corps in 78 countries around the world, covering 155 industries. We’re chuffed by how far this movement has grown. Tusko is also growing, and we’d like purpose driven creatives to join us.
We built our agency on the idea that private enterprises have a vital role to play when it comes to climate change, social injustice, and every unbalanced axis that tilts our world away from what’s good for all.
We’ve always wanted to be a part of the wave making a positive difference in the world. Because with the pressures of climate change just getting more intense by the year, we can’t just carry on with business as usual.
Our entire economic world is built on a model that has directly resulted in the catastrophic environmental effects we’re beginning to witness all around us, and will have to adapt to over the coming years. So for businesses to become a part of the change we need to see, they need to be solidly accountable for doing things in a better way.
Luckily, it is completely possible to balance profit, and purpose. And as Mark Carney warns, can businesses afford not to adapt, and create those urgently needed solutions?
The journey to B Corp certification has given us an incredible framework to grow with, and we’ve had to ask occasionally awkward questions of our suppliers and our customers.
Our practices as an agency now include…
asking if our associates have a ‘Code of Ethics’ in their business.
enquiring if they have relationships with ‘Sin industries’): Tobacco, Alcohol, Gambiling, Weapons, Pornography, Unfair Trade Practices, Fossil Fuels, Diamonds and precious gems, fast fashion, Pharmaceuticals, and businesses with their workforce in 3rd world countries.
asking if they would be happy to fill in our ‘Sustainability Survey’, to assess performance in this area.
But while we’ve had to make some hard decisions as a result of shifting our business to align with our ethics, we’ve also attracted some exceptional clients along the way too.
We’ve been working closely with a Bristol-based law firm NRG to create their new digital identity, and support an exciting rebrand project. They’re also on the journey to B Corp certification, and as we understand it one of the main reasons NRG wanted to work with us was because we are B Corp certified.
It’s highly rewarding to be able to work together with businesses from other sectors towards a common, essential goal.
We’ve been motivated to begin our B Corp journey by businesses who are already transforming our economy by transforming themselves.
We look to brands like Patagonia, a north star for sustainability in big business for many. They make the coolest outdoor gear, and they’re also a beacon for major corporation ethics, and contributions to sustainability.
Tony’s Chocolate have been making waves too — you might have seen their colourful campaigns against slavery in chocolate production.
At Varn we have had so many questions and queries related to the importance of using video as a marketing tool from our clients, we thought it would be useful to share some of the latest thinking on why video is so vital in 2022 and the powerful role video can play to optimise your SEO efforts.
We have brought in the experts from Bristol-based video agency Life Media UK to explain why video is such a key player in your marketing mix (and not just for SEO either!)…
At Life Media UK, we understand that with a strong video strategy and a high level of execution, video can achieve incredible results. The potential for video to connect you with your ideal client becomes even more powerful when you optimise it with the SEO tactics that Varn will explain to you shortly… but first…
Here’s why video is your best bet when it comes to marketing in 2022.
Fortunately for us and our clients, video shows no sign of slowing down; the average consumer now watches 19 hours of online video per week, with YouTube reaching more viewers than any TV channel on the planet. All of these video-hungry eyeballs gives you, as a business, the perfect opportunity to reach people exactly where their focus is.
While we’d all love to give each of our potential customers a face-to-face sales pitch, it’s not always possible; but video can be the next best thing. Communicating with every single one of your prospective buyers on-demand, answering their questions, delivering compelling social proof and engaging product demos can only be done through the power of a great video.
88% of people would like to see more videos from brands in 2022. Simply put, you should be marketing with video because that’s exactly how your customers want (and expect) to be marketed to.
The real value of video comes from its ability to drive sales like nothing else. We’ll let Varn explain the SEO value in a second, but in addition to turbo-charging your organic traffic, video can also boost sales from your paid campaigns by as much as 100%!
Once you’ve got users to your site, embedded video content can also increase sales by up to 144%, making conversions easier and campaigns more impactful.
Social media was built for video, and it’s now the most popular form of content by a country mile. Engagement with videos on Facebook is almost double that of text or image-based posts, and 1 in 4 Instagram users have made a purchase after seeing an Instagram story.
It’s not just your website and social media that feel the benefit of video marketing – 71% of sales professionals confirm that video emails outperforms text-based emails, as video gets your message across in a quick, succinct and engaging way.
We know how important return on investment is. With 87% of marketers who use video seeing a positive ROI, video is becoming one of the most reliable forms of marketing around, as well as the most impactful.
We know that 75% of searchers don’t scroll past page 1 of a SERP (Search Engine Results Page) so making sure you are up there in the rankings, on page 1 is really important. Without a doubt, creating video for your website can dramatically improve your ranking results on Google and positively affect your SEO efforts. We know that the search engines love video and that’s because people searching love video and are increasingly consuming more and more video.
Creating video is a fantastic tool to target keywords in the search engines. With an engaging video it is likely that people will spend more time on your website and this can increase something we call ‘dwell time’. According to Search Engine Journal dwell time is defined as
We know that increased dwell time will mean the Google bots will identify your video as valuable content and this means better rankings for your website.
There is some interesting data on the value of video from Wordstream and here are a few stand out stats for us:
Everybody has an opinion on remote working nowadays. Since Covid lockdowns began, every agency has had to wrestle with it. What’s been learnt, for and against?
One thing’s for sure: this topic has developed nuances far beyond the initial kneejerk reactions of whether remote working is simply good or bad. Here are some hot factors to now bear in mind.
Personality types
You can’t come up with an effective policy affecting people without an attempt at understanding how those people think. One key indicator that’s very relevant is the matter of whether an individual is an extrovert or an introvert. Here’s a quick summary of these two personality types:
Extroverts recharge by socialising. They make quick decisions, talk more, and are outgoing. They seek external stimulation and are action-oriented.
Introverts, on the other hand, recharge by being alone. They listen more, are more observant, prefer conversations to be one-on-one, and are more self-aware and reflective.
The topic is relevant, not least because these two types are affected by workplace noise differently. Noise distractions in the workplace are more of a problem for introverts than for extraverts. Open plan offices and constant loud interactions are therefore a problem for them. Of course, the battle for office open plan layouts versus individual offices was settled long ago: open plan won hands down, partly because of the enormous space savings. But the problem for introverts hasn’t gone away. So, imagine their amazement when lockdown was announced and they were told to stop coming to the office and work from home. It was a positive game changer for them. For extroverts, sadly, it was the opposite.
But note that remote working only benefits introverts if their home has a quiet space in which to work. As a general rule, the higher the salary the larger the home and the more likelihood of access to a quiet space.
Are there more extroverts than introverts in the world? Research by Myers-Briggs showed introverts make up 51% of the population and extroverts 49%. Another study suggested introverts are 57% of the world population. But it’s not as simple as that. Few people, perhaps around 10%, are at the extremities — like most things, it’s all a spectrum. Many people come somewhere in the middle but with a leaning to one side or the other.
Uninterrupted productive work
A lot of agency roles need deep focus time. People in creative roles working against tight deadlines need time to think and concentrate. So do people having to make difficult decisions or steer complex projects. In a global 2021 survey, 25% of remote workers said their opportunity for deep focus time increased hugely when working from home. They typically achieved 6 hours without interruption, whereas only 9% of in-office workers were able to achieve that. Big difference.
Interestingly, remote workers reported that they worked more hours from home than when in the office. Even so, they felt less burnt out.
In another study, 65% of remote workers said that they are more productive working remotely.
Autonomy
Flexible working arrangements have autonomy at their core, which needs a culture of mutual trust to work properly. The opposite to that is what is now known as ‘presenteeism’, which is the belief that people work harder when they are continuously seen by management. It can be argued that part of the reason for remote working’s increased productivity is the sense that individuals feel they are being trusted more.
Larger recruitment pool
Agencies are used to recruiting a network of freelancers, so it’s not the biggest leap in the world for them to recruit remote employees too. The advantages are considerable. From the agency side, remote working substantially widens the pool of talent overnight, a very welcome development in a sector that is often short of the right talent. And from the applicant’s perspective, they’re suddenly eligible to work in a role that might be their dream job – perhaps something impossible before due to their geographical location.
Negatives of home working
Nevertheless, there are real issues with increased remote working. In addition to the frustrations that extroverts feel, it is harder for new employees to create a bond and grasp the culture of the business. Brief exchanges in the physical workplace bring genuine positive value: a one-minute chat at the coffee dispenser with someone you don’t directly work with adds colour, fresh insights and richness to the work experience.
Another issue is that having a hugely expanded talent pool to draw from has an unexpected downside – a potentially overwhelming number of applications to evaluate. You might say that as problems go, this is one of life’s good ones. Nevertheless, you need to plan for it. If it results in you having to become more crystal-clear in writing the job description, and candidates having to try harder to make their applications more impressive and less generic, that’s no bad thing.
But surely the biggest downside is lack of control and visibility if you don’t have a good system to lean on. Even when all teams work in the same office, it’s very easy to get nasty surprises. It’s difficult enough to drive something as complex as a busy agency, ensure everybody’s working on the highest-priority tasks, monitor that nothing is falling off the rails, be sure that nobody’s wasting time chasing information or using stale data, and drive all projects so a profitable end. Hard. But try attempting all that when people are working remotely. Without a good system, what chance?
Hybrid, or remote-first?
Hybrid arrangements, where people work some days at home and some days at the office, seem the obvious compromise for many. But some think it’s the wrong approach, because companies are typically implementing hybrid as office-first. Office-first implies an attitude of “We’re going to allow people to work from home for some days of the week”. But this makes little sense if productivity at home is clearly superior to office-based work. The starting point should perhaps be the other way round. Remote-first gives employees the choice, with no underlying implications as to which the company prefers.
Ultimately whether you operate your agency remotely or not is down to you and your agency’s needs. But when it comes to getting set up to enable remote working, Synergist can help. Synergist is a complete agency management system, bringing together people, projects and financials in one singular view. If you want to find out more about all the features that enable smooth home working, click here.
We’re excited to share that we have launched a new academy, starting with positions for Junior Developers and Digital Marketing Executives.
Get hands-on experience that will drive your career forward while getting paid!
The first step is to find out more about the roles available and then apply to join an Academy Day.
Our Academy days make the interview process more inclusive, interesting, and (hopefully) fun!
Spend the day with our mentors, participate in activities with other guests, and show us why you’re a good fit for being at Torchbox.
There will be a baseline of knowledge and skills required depending on the role you’re applying for. The full criteria is included in the specification.
The Academy Days are running on the following dates:
Find out all you need to know and how to apply.
AgencyUK have announced the launch of the latest NHS public campaign which is designed to encourage people to call ‘111’ rather than ‘999’ when they have non- emergency minor conditions.
The campaign activity is aimed at high risk groups in deprived areas, those with poorer access to GP care, or people with small children, young adults or older youth, who live close to emergency departments or far from urgent care centers and without easy access to transport.
Although national awareness of the existing ‘111 help us help you’ campaign is high (of those surveyed, 98% were aware and 72% had used 111) there is still a requirement to continue encouraging consumer behaviour to change, particularly in these deprived areas.
The figures in Bristol (61% used) and 80% in North Somerset and South Gloucester is lower. NHS Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucester CCG (BNSSG) also have targets to increase these numbers by a further 10%.
Taking a more direct, harder hitting approach is unlikely to work, and this was demonstrated following a programme of qualitative research conducted with people in these target audience groups. The agency and NHS team have developed a proposition and creative campaign that is clear and simple, showing the benefits of dialing 111 through illustrations.
“The campaign is simple in encouraging people to use 111 by showing how the service provides immediate advice and guidance for those who need help right away. The graphics can be easily understood and have been brought to life in the digital and outdoor elements created by AgencyUK.” says Dominic Moody, head of communications at NHS.
The integrated campaign leverages social media as well as traditional (OOH) and digital out of home (DOOH) formats such as buses, posters and interactive display screens.
Sammy Mansourpour, managing director, AgencyUK says “Working with the NHS is always a privilege, and as a leading brand communications agency our team have always felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility when it comes to helping improve our national services. We’ve been pleased with the media selection and KPI’s being applied to this campaign and look forward to seeing the impact it will make. The message is clear. Think 111 first.”
AgencyUK are an independent brand communications agency. The company has demonstrated significant growth over the past 12-months, contributed by the rapid expansion of their life science and healthcare portfolio. NHS is the latest major account win for the agency in the past 12-months.
Learned in Texas, delivered in Bristol. TMW Unlimited are hosting a free event at Origin Workspace to round up the most interesting bits from the world’s biggest knowledge-sharing festival, South by Southwest.
Liv Wedderburn (Social & Influence Director) and Paul Dazeley (Strategy Director) have returned from from Austin brimming with ideas and topics to discuss.
When they last returned from the last SXSW all the way back in 2019, they were most struck by how the conversation had shifted from revering tech to fearing it, with big corporations coming under mounting pressure over their ethical practices.
In the 3 years since, there’s been a pandemic, a new President, a Facebook rebrand and a whole new web has developed – so to say there’s a lot of new ground to cover is probably an understatement.
Besides a hefty dose of jet lag, the biggest issue in preparation so far has been trying to filter down the colossal amounts of information and choosing the most important things to share.
Liv and Paul will be diving into unknown realm that is our future: from the climate crisis, to demystifying the hype around the metaverse and Web 3.0, all the way to weird and wonderful conversations on space, sex tech, synthetic biology and much, much more.
To attend, register here. Free ticket includes drink, canapes and fun for all.
Date and time:
Thursday 31 March 2022 18:45 – 20:30
Location:
Origin Workspace, 40 Berkeley Square, Bristol BS8 1HP
Conscious Solutions a Bristol-based digital marketing agency that focuses on the legal sector has added six employees to our Bristol-based team in 2022 with four of those being brand new roles to support our growth.
With continued growth in digital marketing requirements across the legal sector, it has been critical for us to keep up with demand and the fierce battle for talented employees.
New hires have included project managers, copywriters, and a digital marketing apprentice.
Managing Director of Stuff & Things, David Gilroy reflects that he has embraced a long-term strategy of prioritising the wellness of the Conscious team to both attract and retain talent. He elaborates “We have understood and committed to meeting industry-wide measurements like becoming a Living Wage Employer and signing up to the Employer’s Initiative on Domestic Abuse to indicate our commitment to the wellness of our team”.
In 2021 we also got accredited as a flexible employer by Flexa (https://flexa.careers/) and even made it into their top 100 at No. 33 (https://flexa.careers/flexa100).
David continues “I love telling new employees that you will more than likely bump into one of our friendly office dogs when you in the office, but a flexible working environment is so much more than allowing the odd work from home day or welcoming a floof to the office, it’s a philosophy that says work is a thing you do not a place you go.”
A flexible approach to working means the team doesn’t feel guilty to go pick a child up from school or have a COVID vaccine. Besides those external commitments to be held accountable for a working environment that attracts employees, there are a host of other benefits including being supported by a Wellness Team and a Fun Team.
One of those benefits is each staff member is encouraged to spend two days a year volunteering at a charity of their choice (these are in addition to our generous leave policy). After a four-way pitch by employees Gympanzees was chosen as our company wide charity to support for the next two years. Gympanzeees is a Bristol-based charity that provides accessible fun and fitness for all disabled children.
This approach to prioritising the health and happiness of our staff seems to be having the desired effect for us. We have seen steady growth both in the number of clients and the number of services that clients have trusted us with their marketing spend.
A digital marketing manager from one of our clients, a top 200 law firm said “2022 is starting positively with a 47% increase in year-on-year enquiries for January, making it our best performing month ever! There is no doubt in my mind that the SEO is driving this”
Head of account management Dan Hodges is not surprised by comments like that and attributes the success to a deep strategic knowledge of the industry because of our 18 years focusing on one sector. He goes on to explain “It’s critical that my team and I understand both the industry in terms of things like trends and changes to legislation but equally important that we get to know the challenges and opportunities facing each one of our clients so that we can craft the most effective strategy to drive their business success”.
With happy clients and a growing team of talented staff, we seem poised to stay on the right side of the battle for talent.
Skylark Media is proud to announce that it is an officially certified B Corporation!
It’s a pretty big deal for us Skylarkers. Being a Certified B Corporation means that we’re joining a community of over 4,000 companies and organisations worldwide including Patagonia, Brewdog, and Bristol brands Pukka Herbs, Greenhouse PR and Triodos that are using their businesses as a force for good.
As an environmentally-conscious video agency, we aim to balance people, planet and profits. In fact, Skylark Media was conceived in 2005 by Jo Haywood, whose mission in life has been to use video as the best communication platform to tell the story of environmental solutions. To this end, we are launching our self-funded Skylark Originals series this year, kicking off with ‘Why our digital addiction is killing our planet’.
“We are absolutely thrilled to be a certified B Corporation. Over recent years, we’ve ramped up our environmental credentials and made B Corp accreditation one of our top priorities,” says Jo. “We’re excited to be part of a community of like-minded people who share our values and want to drive positive social and environmental change.”
In short, B Corp measures a company’s entire social and environmental impact. The certification is a designation that a business is meeting high standards of verified performance, accountability and transparency on factors from employee benefits and charitable giving to supply chain practices and input materials.
To be certified by B Lab UK, Skylark had to meet rigorous stands across five impact areas: governance, workers, community, environment and customers. Skylark needed to achieve a cumulative score of over 80 by providing evidence of socially and environmentally responsible practices including energy suppliers, worker compensation, corporate transparency and waste/water use.
Skylark is also a member of the Bristol Green Capital, Future Economy Network and is Ad Green accredited. Watch Skylark’s ‘How our digital addiction is killing the planet’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP0M_PSVN1w&t=15s
SPAR UK & NI has announced Mentor Digital’s appointment as their new digital agency partner. Following a competitive tender process Mentor was chosen as the winning bidder to design and develop the new SPAR UK & NI corporate websites, and to deliver ongoing creative, technical, and digital marketing solutions to help deliver on SPAR’s digital strategy.
SPAR is the world’s largest retail food chain and has around 2512 stores in the UK. Mentor Digital will partner with SPAR to: Build brand new websites for SPAR UK & Northern Ireland; to develop the digital application of the SPAR brand; and to provide SEO and digital marketing support.
Website technology is moving fast, and customers expect high quality, super-fast experiences across all devices. Keeping users engaged with retail brands online offerings and remaining cutting edge and relevant is an ongoing challenge. SPAR is in an excellent position having both ‘clicks and bricks’ through their stores and existing online presence, and Mentor Digital will work to provide modern web applications delivering on SPARs digital strategy that will focus on community and health and well-being.
Mentor’s MD Holland Risley said: “We are absolutely delighted to be adding SPAR to our client portfolio and it really feels like we are levelling up as an agency taking on clients of this calibre. I think this really reflects the high quality of the work that we have been producing in recent years. The design work is already looking really exciting, we are focusing on bringing depth and quality to the sites by using micro UX, emotive design and parallax effects and we are really looking forward to launching the new look SPAR websites later this year.”
SPAR shops are central to communities across the UK, and the new websites will support local communities by nurturing neighbourhoods, creating community hubs, and promoting health and wellbeing campaigns, as well as showcasing special offers and driving footfall to stores.
SPAR & Mentor Digital are carrying out an in-depth process of stakeholder engagement, design, and prototyping. Mentor Digital will create full mobile responsive prototypes as part of the project process to allow for the sites to be fully tested to ensure that all user journeys are intuitive and clear.
The new SPAR websites will be developed using the open-source Umbraco CMS platform, which provides highly secure, enterprise level, content management experiences with no ongoing licenses. Mentor Digital is an Umbraco Gold Partner and has implemented Umbraco CMS for many NHS Trusts and CCGs along with a wide range of B2B and B2C clients. The agency has won awards at the prestigious Umbraco awards in 2020 and 2021.
To see more examples of the work Mentor Digital produces you can visit the Mentor Digital website here. To find out more about SPAR click here.
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