iO Academy is on a mission to help to address the gender imbalance in the tech industry, and give people the training they need for a career they’ll love.
Based in the South West, iO Academy is tackling this head on with a rebrand that speaks to their core values of inclusivity and accessibility. Working with Bristol-based creative agency, Fiasco Design, they’ve created a brand that reflects their ambitions of creating a more diverse and inclusive industry, bringing about meaningful change.
It’s no great secret that there is a representation gap for women in tech. More inclusive career pathways in the technology industry have been the focus of various initiatives, such as Tech Talent Charter, Code First Girls, and Tech She Can, along with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport’s Digital Skills Innovation Fund and the Academy’s own Diversitech Fund.
Over a quarter of women students say that they are put off a career in technology as it’s too dominated by men. (PWC)
The UK economy would benefit from an extra £2.6 billion each year if the number of women working in tech is increased.
83% of millennial British women stated that they actively seek out employers with a strong record on diversity, equality and inclusion. (PWC)
Women account for 50% of the UK working age population but only 16% of IT professionals are women. (BCS)
iO Academy is an award-winning coding bootcamp based in the South West. In 2015 it was set up by healthtech company Mayden – not initially as a business, but as a way to solve a problem. Like so many tech companies around the UK, they needed more developers to sustain their own growth. So a team of Mayden developers designed a programme that would train people with no coding experience to be industry-ready developers in just 16 weeks. Their direct tech experience led them to build a course with a new approach; one that gave students the up to date and practical skills that were needed most. A course that anyone, regardless of their gender, ethnicity or background, could come out of as the sort of developer that tech companies want to hire.
After five years in business, it was time to look at themselves and uncover the ingredients which would make them an innovative, purpose-driven brand.
The Academy reached out to Fiasco Design at the start of 2020 with a view to repositioning the company, reflecting their own growth from an idea to solve a talent shortage, to a company with an international reputation. The aim was for a fresh, future-proof identity that would appeal to a diverse range of prospective students and break down perceptions about the tech industry.
With graduates working in tech companies from Bath to Berlin, a 50:50 ratio of men and women trainers, and a strong work ethic towards diversifying the industry and creating an environment that facilitates opportunities for all, Fiasco Design and Mayden Academy embarked on a full strategic review of the current branding; assessing their DNA and defining their core values and company proposition.
Through a number of workshops conducted by Fiasco and Mayden, a new brand name was formed; iO Academy. On the one hand it’s a clear nod to coding language – IO is shorthand for input/output in computer programming. On the other it’s also the name of one of Jupiter’s moons, which seemed a good metaphor for the brand’s innovative, future-focussed outlook.
Margaret Davidson, Business Development and Marketing Manager at iO says, “Fiasco saw right to the heart of who we are as a brand and came up with a visual identity to represent us which we would never have thought of ourselves. In particular, what we wanted was to become more attractive and accessible to a wider range of people, with a core focus on diversity and inclusivity. Working as part of a new niche sector within a wider industry that often seems intimidating, this was a challenge. Fiasco came up with an approach where we now feel confident that an underpinning of inspiring inclusivity will be clear in everything we do, and help us to be part of bringing meaningful change.”
With the name and proposition came a new visual expression for the brand. The visual language is designed to reflect exploration, harnessing imagination and working towards a better future. The graphic shapes give a sense of wayfinding, collecting badges and new skills following a creative pathway. Verbally the tone is positive, ambitious and empowering, and speaks to the curious and willing.
Working with Belgium-based illustrator Soren Selleslagh, the team created a suite of illustrations to depict aspects of the student journey across the course and into their new careers. Soren’s human-centred approach evokes joy and empowerment through positive representation of all types of people. With a devoted outlook to making meaningful illustrations, this partnership gave the brand identity the visual storytelling elements that demonstrate openness and inclusivity.
Ben Steers, Creative Director at Fiasco Design says about the project: “It’s been fantastic to work with the team at iO and help them towards realising their vision of leveling the playing field within the tech industry by creating a fairer, more diverse community of developers”
Welcome back to the second blog in our three-part series on Augmented Reality (AR). In our first segment, we introduced AR technology and explored its potential impact on our lives over the coming years.
But the technology already exists. And so, this poses an opportunity today.
Any brand who considers themselves a true tech pioneer, who is looking to distinguish themselves from their industry competitors, or is ready to forge an unrivalled relationship with millennial and Gen-Z customers, should consider grasping the opportunity AR presents for marketing and customer engagement, today.
When it comes to experiential marketing, there’s no better vehicle for delivering an unforgettable brand experience than AR. As mentioned in our previous blog, the possibilities are limited only by your imagination – but there is one decision you’ll need to make early on: how you’ll deliver the experience to your viewers.
For those looking to get started today, there are two methods of AR access to choose from: by building an app, or using WebAR.
For many, apps are the option of choice. In-app augmented reality enables you to control the entire experience from end-to-end, maximising elements such as branding.
Take Pokémon Go, for example. The combination of technology, art and culture to form a real-life treasure hunt was arguably one of the most successful experiential campaigns to date.
During its peak, as many as 20% of Pokémon Go players were using the app every day, and by March 2019 it had been downloaded more than 1 billion times. Those are some vast numbers.
The ease of use was a key factor in the app’s success – and it’s worth noting, there’s no doubt that downloads would have been significantly lower had the app required specialist technology, i.e. had it required additional headwear like ‘Snapchat Spectacles’-type tech to play. But every one of us has a smartphone in our pocket at all times, leaving a near-zero barrier to taking part.
The other option for creating an AR experience is to use WebAR.
Sometimes referred to as WebXR due to its ability to support AR, VR and MXR (Mixed Reality) functionality, WebAR allows you to use an AR experience directly within your browser – without having to download an app.
Most smartphones are WebAR-enabled, making it arguably even easier to access than downloading an app. However, you may have less control over some elements of the design.
So how do you choose the right platform for your audience? At P+S, we believe it comes down to your intent.
If you’re looking to integrate an AR experience into your website, maximise the ‘wow factor’ of your marketing materials or offer an AR experience in real-world locations, WebAR is a great choice. It removes barriers and offers instant access for anyone using a compatible device – without the need for having to stop and download an app.
However, if you’re looking to run a more complex experience – a game, or a more developed user interface like map overlays – then launching an app offers an excellent self-contained, immersive experience with unlimited customisation options. And you’ll have the added benefit of being able to update and push new content without disruption to your other content and materials.
Apart from creating the next gaming sensation, how can augmented reality actually be applied for brand marketing purposes?
For those businesses promoting a product, it could be as simple as creating the ability for customers to ‘see’ a 3D visualisation of your merchandise face-to-face – all from the comfort of their own sofa. IKEA have recently begun offering just this, enabling customers to view furniture in their homes before ever making a purchase. And with COVID-19 set to disrupt the store experience the foreseeable future, now has never been a better time to offer virtual product experiences.
For those businesses who offer a service rather than a physical product, this is an opportunity to think laterally about marketing.
Let’s take an airline, for example. While enabling customers to view a Boeing 747 in their own living room isn’t necessarily offering value, they could offer an augmented ‘map’ of airline routes across the sky instead.
Or, they could look closer at the in-airport experience. In larger international airports, offering an augmented map that leads customers from the security gates to the airline’s private lounge, or straight to their flight gate, would be a breath of fresh air.
Architectural firms can use AR to show their projects to a client in real-time. Financial services can demonstrate abstract concepts in a more tangible visualised form. And what’s more, the data shows that AR visualisations improve B2B buyer confidence, and help to speed up sales cycles.
From marketing, to product visualisation, to making invisible concepts visible, the AR experience creates higher levels of engagement, increases conversions, and offers a powerful branding opportunity. When done well, it’s inherently social media friendly, shareable and creates a powerful lasting impact.
But that’s not the limit of what AR will bring to brands.
Our next blog, and final instalment of our AR series, is coming soon – stay tuned.
Why not contact us today at [email protected] to discuss your goals with our team.
With COVID-19 meaning social distancing is the new norm, we’re seeing profound effects on our lives. Face-to-face meetings, gatherings and events aren’t possible, making this a difficult time for the general population and most industries. For many businesses, budgets are under increasing pressure as revenue streams are cut and operational and marketing methods undergo huge upheaval.
As a society, we’re worried about our health, our families’ health, our wellbeing and our job security. Now is not the time for brands to choose a hard-sell approach, or to appear to be ‘cashing in’ on – or even preying on – social insecurity, as audiences become less receptive and more critical of insincere marketing.
So how can businesses maintain those physical interactions that are so vital to customer engagement, and promote their services in as effective and relevant a way as possible?
One option for connecting with your customers is through hosting a digital event.
Digital events have become more prominent in the last few years, and offer a range of benefits:
Two of the primary forms of digital events are webcasts and webinars. The terms are often used interchangeably, but in fact, they both feature a distinctly different approach to hosting an online event.
If you want to engage with a larger audience, featuring tens or even hundreds of participants, a webcast is an ideal way to broadcast your message.
Webcasts are typically a one-way flow of information shared over the internet, delivered like a lecture or speech. In cases where there are a large number of participants, a webcast gives you the opportunity to deliver a valuable presentation with minimum disruption.
If you’re looking for a higher level of engagement with your audience, a webinar might be a better option. A webinar more closely resembles a meeting, often with fewer participants who are more involved in the content. In this two-way, interactive option, your audience can ask questions, and there’s more opportunity for you to drive direct interaction.
For the very highest level of engagement where creativity and collaboration is needed most, virtual workshops create an effective environment within the digital sphere. In ‘real-life’ face-to-face creative workshops, structure is often more fluid, but this can be difficult to achieve in an online environment. To successfully deliver a virtual workshop, you should have a clearly-defined process for organising and managing participation, and use easy-to-implement, highly intuitive technology, to smooth the delivery process.
If you’re looking to fully replicate an existing conference or event, then a virtual tradeshow could be well suited for you. Virtual tradeshows can be hosted indefinitely, taking place online with on-demand information. By using live chat options and providing customer support, your visitors can experience the same feeling of instant, responsive communication as they would in a face-to-face expo.
In a virtual tradeshow, you can host digital exhibition halls, booths and auditoriums, helping you to replicate the immersive experience of a real-life event. However, it’s worth noting that this type of event the longest lead time, and can be costly to set up.
In this blog, we look at the different types of digital events, how you can build your audience for your events, and provide some top tips for success.
Different events will attract different audience sizes and levels of engagement. Its success will often rely on the quality and number of participants in the audience you manage to attract.
Traditionally, digital events are split into two audience segments; your existing database contacts, and audiences built through new lead generation.
Unless you have a well-managed and maintained database of contacts, GDPR and other data legislation, such as CCPA, can restrict the opportunity for direct email invitations to your event. So you’ll need to check this, and consider alternative lead-generation tactics if this is the case.
Social media is a great tool for driving lead generation when used creatively, and can be supplemented through media partnerships or other paid media channels – for example, search engine advertising.
One of the greatest benefits of a webinar or a webcast is that either one can be held live or made available on-demand, depending on the platform you choose to host your event. By making an event recording available after it’s taken place, you can make connections with customers and prospects who can’t necessarily attend in real-time, or who may be researching the subject after the event has already taken place.
In fact, with any online session you’ll want to consider post-webinar activity – just as you would with a live event. Your digital session is just the beginning of potential engagement, and with strategic follow-up activity you can continue to nurture leads and maintain interest. Repackaged content following a webinar can be an ideal way to sustain the conversation with customers, as can additional ‘exclusive’ materials.
With a combination of session playback and additional content, your sessions gain additional longevity – and that means maximum impact for your brand.
At P+S, we’ve been hosting digital events for years, both for our own brand, and for our clients too. Our top tips for success include:
When it comes to digital events, our in-house team can take care of everything: from determining the strategy and execution of lead generation campaigns, to designing and copywriting your presentations and content. And it’s all tied together by our expert strategists, who’ll work with you to ensure we meet – and exceed – your expectations.
If you’d like to find out more about what type of digital event would best suit your business, and how we can help you deliver it, get in touch today, by emailing [email protected].
After 20 years specialising in B2B marketing, I’m about to make an uncomfortable admission. Possibly one that will put a few noses out of joint among my colleagues.
While it might not be up there with the invention of the wheel or the discovery of fire in terms of significance to the human race, this one breakthrough principle might help your branding – and so your business – become more effective than ever.
The essential problem is this. As soon as we put that B2B marketing hat on, all thought of people, of individuals, and the Pandora’s box of emotions that motivate them, goes right out of the (office rather than home) window. Instead, we become subsumed by the pursuit of sentiment-free business banality, and worship at the altar of corporate largesse.
And that’s wrong. For a brand to succeed – to be memorable, to resonate, to be the preferred choice – it needs to have humanity at its heart. Less business-to-business, and more human-to-human.
Before this theory is dismissed as an unmeasurable, intangible nice-to-have, there is some science to back it up. In 2019, Deloitte Digital conducted a report, The Human Experience: Quantifying the Value of Human Values. In it, the report writers concluded that the human condition is ‘universal and unchanging’, meaning it could be understood and measured.
Taking three core indices – customer values, workforce values and partner values –Deloitte was able to identify the ‘human centricity’ of an organisation, and predict those that were likely to grow faster and build stronger brand loyalty. Applying this measure to a testbed of brands in the fast-food sector, it found that those which focused on the human experience were twice as likely to outperform their peers in revenue growth over three years, and have 17 times faster store growth than those who don’t. Quite a prize then.
In carrying out the research, Deloitte also highlighted five ‘core human tenets’ that elevate the ‘human experience’ of a brand.
· Be obsessed by all things human
· Proactively deliver on human needs
· Execute with humanity
· Be authentic
· Change the world
But what does this mean for you when you’re developing and delivering your brand to the world? For us, it means considering the fundamental building blocks…
Great brands are built on great stories. And great stories are always about emotion. Things that capture our attention, stir our souls, fascinate or move us, leave us wanting to know (or feel) more. This is where your brand should begin, even if you’re operating in the most heavy-duty B2B markets.
Three or four years ago, I heard something said in a presentation that’s stuck with me ever since – ‘authenticity beats perfection’. And authenticity comes from us being human. When we’re authentic, we’re true to ourselves and the reality that lies behind our brands. Customers and prospects are able to trust us, to engage with us fully and to become familiar with what we stand for. They believe in us.
Technology drives today’s marketing. But technology should always be a means to create richer, deeper human-to-human connections through more intuitive and immersive digital experiences. Whether it’s AR, VR, AI, automation, or anything else, the way people experience your brand through technology must always bring them closer to you. And the same goes for the physical world. In creating a truly H2H brand, experience is everything.
The way your brand looks, feels, sounds and talks all have a part to play in its humanity. Have a personality. Avoid business jargon. Communicate like a person. Don’t use staid, cliched corporate imagery and stale, high-fiving commercial footage. Look for those unique, human moments in time that tell stories and create positive emotional associations. Be different. Be unique. Be you.
Getting to the heart of your brand’s humanity isn’t always an easy thing to do. We’re all so engrained in the traditional patterns of B2B thinking and speaking that it’s often lost amidst the front-of-mind commercial arguments we’re inevitably drawn to. But make no mistake – it’s essential if you’re going to invest in a brand that’s both measurable and memorable. And one that moves human hearts and B2B minds.
Want to know more about some of the brands we’ve helped build for our B2B clients? Take a look here.
Ifyou have an upcoming project you’d like to discuss with us, or learn more about the principles of H2H branding, please get in touch today by emailing [email protected].
Typically, we print brochures which contain product and service information about our businesses. We might hand them out at events, take them to meetings or even send them in the post to customers and clients in order to spread brand awareness, stir up new interest, and offer discounts and alluring offers.
But most printed brochures become out of date after a certain period of time, rendering them obsolete – and they’re not the most environmentally friendly solution. Add to this the world’s changing consumption habits as the scales tip towards increasingly digital experiences, and a printed brochure is no longer the most efficient solution for getting the word out about your brand.
Instead, there’s a growing demand for digital brochures.
Digitalising your brochures is a natural evolution that will help you keep up with changing consumption habits, as the world becomes more reliant on technology and virtual experiences.
Take a look for yourself at how to meet consumer expectations at the touch of a button, and read on to explore the benefits which have clients approaching us to create their digital brochures, today.
Information in a brochure can become quickly outdated – particularly if you’re part of a brand that prides itself on meeting the highest standards of quality, adapting to changing markets or staying one step ahead of regulations. If new industry standards come into play, or the government launches a new initiative that’s in line with your values, print brochures lack the agility you need to spread the word.
One of the main benefits of producing a brochure digitally rather than in print is the ability to be able to edit, amend and add to your content long after it’s been released.
Whether you’re launching a new product, reacting to market changes, new consumer habits or real-world events, you can edit your content in real-time, ensuring you’re always disseminating the latest and most accurate information.
And if your content is always up to date, it’s always relevant to your customers’ lives.
There’s no longer a need to think of a brochure as a standalone or one-off piece of content.
Instead, it becomes a dynamic document that can be built up over time and be integrated with your other digital offerings.
When it comes to your marketing, a digital brochure opens up opportunities by providing data that you just can’t get from paper.
You can gather information on who is looking at your digital documents, where they come in and drop off, and even calculate which pages are most popular. Not only this, you can track where the traffic visiting your brochure is coming from – whether it’s directly from your website, from an email campaign you’ve sent, or an internet search engine – giving you invaluable information about your audience.
This data can be used to optimise your marketing efforts. If you can see that people drop off from your brochure at a certain page, it may be worth redesigning it or rearranging your content. If most people visit via your email campaigns, but you’re only sending them once a month, you can make an informed decision to send them more frequently.
Perhaps most beneficial of all, your brochure can also become a powerful marketing and lead-generation tool in itself.
By placing calls to action (CTAs) throughout, you can direct your readers to take action: whether it’s clicking through to more information on your website, to campaign landing pages or driving them to contact you.
Take a look at the ‘last word’ in our digital brochure, for an example.
It’s even possible to embed forms within your document, so you can collect customer data while encouraging them to sign up to future brand engagement opportunities, such as webinars, newsletters and brochures.
Take advantage of the power of social media and reach an even wider audience with a digital brochure.
With some clever promotion, you can encourage people inside and outside of your business to share your document. Sharing it via a URL link –rather than in a download – can be especially useful in an age where people are sceptical of downloading unknown content.
You can even embed share buttons in your brochure, so then people who read it and find its content useful are able to share it to their own followers, growing your potential audience much wider than you could achieve with a printed version.
Accessibility is a key concern and is become much more standardised across web-based content. Digital brochures have the benefit of offering ‘zoom’ features, and even translation options where needed. And when it comes to accessibility, instead of making several print brochures in different formats, you can adjust contrast ratios, font sizes and offer speech-reader friendly content too.
Engagement is much more versatile with digital brochures, too. In fact, you can grab your readers’ attention in a number of ways.
Embedding video in your document can help bring information to life, and add personality which makes your content even more memorable. You can add animated infographics, transitions and interactive elements to maintain curiosity throughout the user journey, and maximise the impact of every page.
Plus, you can even design brochures which are entirely responsive, with an optimised appearance for every device it’s displayed on.
Have you ever received a physical letter, business card or leaflet with multiple URLs or complicated email addresses written on them? With a digital experience, there’s much less room for user error – and a much larger chance of people visiting the content you’re asking them to.
In fact, using live URL links makes brochures easier to navigate in more ways than one. You can cross-reference pages, chapters and sections within your brochure, wherever they’re relevant, or link externally to additional information – whether on your website, or creating a mailto: link, making it easier than ever for your readers to get in touch. You can explore all these examples in our digital brochure.
By removing the need for printing and delivery, you can save considerably on your production costs.
Not only can you remove the additional costs of paper, production, print and distribution, you can skip out on the stress that comes with potential errors, print deadlines and handling reprints – not to mention you’ll have a much, much lower environmental impact.
All you need to do with a digital brochure is provide the link.
Digital brochures have many features and benefits that make them a great alternative or addition to the traditional print brochure. If you haven’t already, just take a look at our newest digital brochure for an example of how interactive, memorable and engaging they can be.
Ready to open up new possibilities for marketing and audience reach? Or want to speak to us about the role a brochure could play in your promotional and marketing strategies?
Talk to us today at [email protected].
With an estimated 3.6 billion people using social media worldwide, by now you’re probably aware that maintaining your brand’s presence on social media is critical if you want to compete in this ever-progressing digital landscape.
A strong social media presence not only offers new opportunities for leads and sales, but also strengthens customer loyalty, enhances your networking, and opens the door for more partnerships and customer feedback – all the while driving traffic to your website and raising awareness of your brand.
However, the steps needed to assert or improve your presence on socials may feel unclear. Many businesses assume that social media management is easy to take on at first, due to the deceptively simple user experience on most platforms. But in actual fact, it’s a very different, more intricate experience than managing a personal account, and if handled incorrectly, it can even have a detrimental impact on your brand.
So here are seven steps that any modern business can take to ensure their brand is making the most out of social media in the digital age.
By monitoring the performance data of your competitors, you can gain insights into what works and what doesn’t, for smarter decision-making and a better strategy. Researching and analysing competitor behaviour means you can stay one step ahead, and be inspired by new ideas while avoiding their mistakes – and you can outline any threats to your business and identify gaps in your strategy.
After all, why reinvent when you can circumvent?
There are a number of social competitor analysis tools you can use to do this, including FanPage Karma, Awario, Unmetric, and Iconosquare. You then need to decide which audience, engagement, and content metrics are useful to you.
Some of those metrics might be percentage of engagement per media, followers gained, follower growth, comments, likes, the most used hashtags, average posts per day and so on – it’s what’s important to your business.
If you don’t know who your audience is, how can you give them what they want? It’s important to learn your audience’s needs and motivations, as well as their behaviours. What social media platforms do they use? When do they use them? And what are they looking for? With the answers, you can tailor your content to ensure you are serving the right message, at the right time, in the right place.
Different audience demographics behave differently online. So knowing who’s on what platform aids your researching, advertising and marketing decisions, and ensures you’re providing the most relevant content to achieve your business goals.
Once you have an understanding of your audience’s needs and preferences, as well as those of your competitors, it’s time to select which social media channels are most suited to your audience and products/services.
Each social network provides unique delivery opportunities for you to entice your audience. For example, Instagram is a highly visual, creative platform. It can be a great place to showcase your products and services in a more imaginative or artistic manner. It’s also considered to be less formal than other platforms – perfect for showing off your brand personality and company culture.
Twitter, on the other hand, is most often used for consumer care. It’s an effective platform for engaging with your audience, ripe for quick feedback and offering speedy responses. Whereas, LinkedIn is arguably the most useful platform for B2B marketing or targeting a professional demographic.
Consider your channel selection carefully to ensure your messaging is broadcast in the most effective way, reaching the right prospects and generating leads.
It’s common for marketers to spread themselves too thin, so bear in mind your staff resources as part of the selection process. If you have only one team member, attempting to establish a brand presence across six different social media channels may be unrealistic.
Your presence on social media is an extension of your brand, and should, therefore, align with your other forms of brand messaging. Maintaining a consistent voice helps your brand strengthening its trust and reliability, creating a distinct personality among your competitors.
To help you adhere to this, developing brand guidelines can be a helpful tool when maintaining consistency in your Tone of Voice. Consider why your brand exists, what its values are, and how you want customers to feel when interacting with your brand.
The overuse of internet terms or trendy slang can actually damage your reputation, making you seen out of touch or ‘cheap’, and subsequently hurting engagement. In your guidelines, you may consider outlining limitations for hashtag use to avoid being penalised by certain platforms and creating an emoji palette to regulate your messaging. Without such consistency, there’s a lot of room for errors in communication between your brand and your customers.
Arguably the most important social media best practise is your willingness to engage with your audience.
Posting regularly and capitalising on customer interest is a necessity in today’s social climate if you want to keep your followers invested in your brand – and it’s crucial for the growth of your business.
No one wants to receive an automated message or talk to a robot. So, interacting with customers and responding to them quickly is essential if you want to humanise your brand, nurture relationships and increase customer loyalty.
Ensure your account looks active with real-time updates, through Instagram stories or live tweeting for example. Avoid cheesy iStock imagery, and instead opt for authentic, original content that reinforces your brand personality and culture.
In order to remain active and engage, you’ll need to monitor your channels as often as possible, at least daily, and post regularly. There are plenty of social media management tools that can help you do just this. Pre-scheduling social posts is a huge time-saver, rescuing you from posting manually at all hours of the day.
It’s also good practise to keep your ear to the ground, through social listening. Social listening is the process of monitoring social media channels for mentions of your brand, product, competitors, and more, providing the opportunity to track, analyse and respond to conversations. Understanding how people feel about your brand helps you keep your marketing and product/service development efforts on track.
Without social listening, you might be missing out on a big piece of insight about your brand or industry that people are talking about. It also allows you to outline pain points, and better your crisis management tactics by responding right away to negative posts (should there be any!). It can also help you identify social influencers, providing opportunities for partnerships and advertising.
The final step in any digital marketing campaign is measurement. As with your initial data-gathering exercises, measuring the effectiveness of your social media marketing activity will help you to optimise your approach and guarantee ongoing success. And luckily, there are a range of analytics tools you can use to gain these insights.
Social media is a vital tool that all businesses should take advantage of in order to maintain optimum brand loyalty, reach, and engagement.
If you would like to fine-tune your business’s social media activity, boost your reach and get noticed, get in touch with us today at [email protected].
Phoenix Wharf, the Bristol-based interior design and branding agency specialising in hospitality and retail, has announced the completion of a new scheme for innovative bakery business The Bristol Loaf, who, together with other local artisanal partners, has launched a new community foodie hub in Bedminster, in the south of the city.
The Bristol Loaf was initially set up in 2017 by entrepreneur Gary Derham, whose background includes working for local hospitality operator The Assemblies. The Bristol Loaf ‘s first outlet was a single-unit bakery and café in the Redfield area, before expanding into a second unit and becoming a successful, high-end, artisanal bakery products supplier to many other local businesses, with a retail and wholesale product range that includes sourdough bread and great-looking pastries. ‘The first bite is with the eyes’ remains a founding credo of the business. The retail arm of The Bristol Loaf also built a reputation for serving outstanding coffee.
The ongoing success of the Redfield site led to the expansion into additional premises, taking the opportunity to re-locate the business’s baking operations at the same time, with the original Redfield site remaining open as a café. The new venue will also host an expanded food and drink offer, sourced not only from The Bristol Loaf, but from a number of other specialist operators, effectively creating a mini foodie hub for Bristol. Located on Bedminster Parade, the café-store sits within Engine House Developments, a boutique, mixed-use development, taking up the entirety of the site’s ground floor, with 240 sq m front-of-house space and 90 sq m back-of-house.
‘The vision for the new undertaking’ Phoenix Wharf Associate Creative Director Emma Carter commented, ‘is an ethical supermarket that is accessible to all, where customers feel very welcome to spend time and relax.’
The Bristol Loaf will be retailing its own takeaway bakery produce in the space, as well as offering café customers a menu that includes coffee and pastries and a deli offer encompassing soups and sandwiches, quiches and salads, plus drinks such as smoothies and kombucha. All the produce will be locally-sourced and all dishes made from scratch on-site. Local operator Hugo’s Greengrocer is taking a 25 sq m space within the offer and there will be two other specialist producers present: The Bristol Loaf’s new sister brand, wine specialist The Bristol Vine, and local cheesemonger Two Belly.
Design Brief
The brief for the new site was to create a community foodie hub that widened The Bristol Loaf’s offer but was still visibly linked to the original venue. The business’s commitment to sustainability meant initiatives such as using heat generated by the kitchen ovens to heat the whole space, with the smell of freshly-baked bread also filling the air. A fully-digitised order system will prevent any paper wastage, whilst the timber from former baker’s tables from The Bristol Loaf’s first premises has also been sanded back to minimise signs of wear and tear before being re-constructed as tables for the new venue’s café.
‘For the interior look and feel, the client asked for planting to be a really stand-out, nature-inspired element, building on the presence of plants in the original Redfield site’, Emma Carter commented. ‘The materials palette is both rustic and tactile and includes white tiling and the extensive use of solid ash timber for shelving, corridors and even ceiling panels, alongside brick and raw, exposed concrete, ensuring the overall aesthetic is the antithesis of a slick, super-polished look.’
The café area includes 58 covers in total: 44 at the tables and 14 at perch/bar seating along the scheme’s full-height storefront glazing, with a wooden ledge counter and upcycled stools. The tables are in a variety of 2- and 4-seater arrangements, coming together easily to cater for larger groups. Bi-folding windows along the glazed wall enable the site to have evening opening presence onto the street front, whilst signage and branding is mostly hand-scripted and low key, allowing the company’s products to do the talking.
Visitor Journey
As visitors enter, they’re greeted by a floor-to-ceiling bread display, so that the bakery offer is clearly communicated. The entrance area is glazed and open with plenty of room for buggy-parking. The planting is visually-dominant from the get-go. ‘We blacked out the 4.1m high ceiling’, Emma Carter explained, ‘and created troughs almost a metre down, clad in ash timber slats and travelling the whole ceiling perimeter, housing a number of large, trailing plants. The troughs also conceal the electrical cabling, whilst criss-cross wiring creates structural support for the irrigation system.’
Immediately to the left is the Hugo’s Greengrocer store, followed by the main café counter service area, with the café itself taking up the rest of the open space. The two additional offers are The Bristol Vine, which includes a wine-tasting station, featuring all colours of wine, along with expert reviews and guidance and cheesemonger Two Belly, offering a curated selection of cheeses and suggested beers to accompany them, both of which are located against the rear wall.
The bakery area includes a takeaway sales area; a central freestanding bread display behind the counter; a pastries area for customers to help themselves en route to the till; a chiller for the display of the deli café food offer; a hot-food area under heat lamps; a 3.5m coffee station with ample space around it for collecting drinks and the till area. Care has been taken to avoid pinch points for kitchen staff, waiting staff and customers collecting coffee, whilst at the same time separately zoning out the kitchen, counter and bakers’ spaces.
Lighting over the café seating area features clustered paper lanterns to create a soft and homely feel, whilst feature lighting over the counters is in the form of reconditioned factory pendants, offering a soft, lower level glow above the service and coffee counter areas. Flooring is an existing concrete-look tiling, which, where damaged, has been additionally concrete-screeded to ensure a safe overall level. All the counters are clad in white tiling apart from the rear counter, which is made up of wooden slats.
The back of house area includes large-scale fridges, loaders, ovens, mixing areas and shaping tables and is out of sight of customers, although some areas of prep are visible front of house to provide an element of theatre, for bread shaping, for example and lunch prep.
‘The whole design process has been a joy’, Gary Derham commented. ‘Emma from Phoenix Wharf really understood our company’s ethos and has been able to turn our ideas and vision for the space into something practical and very beautiful.’
Photography credit: Franklin & Franklin
Softech firm Amdaris have won the Great British Entrepreneur Award just 6-months after securing a £6m investment from BGF.
The Bristol company has offices in the UK, Dubai, Moldova and Romania, providing software development teams in high profile industries from Oil and Gas to finance and logistics.
In 2017 the board appointed AgencyUK to help develop a brand and marketing strategy fit for global expansion. Scale has been rapid, with new offices in Dubai and Romania in 2019.
AgencyUK have continued to support Amdaris with their external advertising, internal communications and PR strategy. This award win follows a string of new customer appointments.
Change is something we are good at working with in brand experience.
As a brand experience company specialising in working with leading media and advertising agencies. We help them deliver experiential campaigns for the diverse range of clients they work for. So being geared up for change is something we are good at. One week the team could be working at a music festival. The next at a thrilling sporting spectacle. We’ve even inflated a giant cow with a butt plug on the River Thames, for a PR stunt to convey the benefits of eating less meat to the environment! For us, no two days and no campaign are the same. This develops a culture where we are up for a challenge and always prepared for the unexpected. However the last few months were definitely unexpected, as we shut our doors stayed home and hunkered down much like the rest of the country.
But now the lockdown is gradually lifting and we’re excited to re-open the doors. We know we are set to work in potentially a very different world, so it seems a good time for us to make some changes. The new production studio made ready just before lockdown, means we can now respond even more rapidly to client’s requirements. Responsiveness and speed of delivery is going to be even more important in the foreseeable. With the new studio we are now able to develop a brand experience from concept to completion, in weeks or even days. Not only can we be faster, but we are also ready to incorporate new social distancing guidelines into event builds and sampling activation so that safety comes first.
A more sustainable approach to experiential marketing and event production.
A new production process allows us to implement a ‘greener’ way of working and by embedding sustainability policies from conception. By sourcing the most environmentally materials possible, putting an emphasis on minimal waste and recycling and re-purposing, we can help our clients deliver brand experience campaigns that minimise their environmental impact.
The merging of the digital and physical worlds is accelerating even faster. Which is something we can help our clients embrace. Though we also believe human interaction has been hugely missed and people’s desire to come together again will be bigger than before. As will the experiential industry we love.
Brand experience with a power like no other medium to empower brands with emotion is here to stay. We are here to help our clients do it, better, safer and greener.
Confectionary company Cloetta UK is relaunching its popular Chewits brand across packaging, online and social channels.
The new look includes a facelift for brand ambassador Chewie the dinosaur, who first appeared in 1976.
A range of giveaways will take place on various social platforms this week, with the rebranded product available in stores.
Cloetta UK brand manager Sarah McDermott explains: “We are excited to be relaunching Chewits with a new look and upcoming products that are set to explore bold new flavour combinations and formats.”
You need to load content from reCAPTCHA to submit the form. Please note that doing so will share data with third-party providers.
More Information