“There are many people who don’t believe this actually happened. But it was real. There are the facts.”
Yuri Trush.
What makes a good story? What combination of narrative, character and place makes a story powerful enough to last? To break out of the confines of a single creative interpretation, it must be capable of jumping from one medium to another, adapting in form whilst retaining that universal seed of magic, re-inventing itself in the hands of successive authors, creating its own mythology as it goes.
I was interested in what had happened to people living in the remote forest communities along Russia’s eastern border with China after the collapse of the Soviet Union? What happens to people when the protections of the state disappear? How do they live with no work or pension?
Looking for a commercial ‘hook’ on which to hang this somewhat abstract question, I began researching the illegal tiger trade when I came across a small but epic story.
All great stories tend to be focused on a single emotion- anger, sadness, disgust, happiness, surprise and fear. These combine in subtle ways to create a colour wheel of emotion.
The potent emotion at the heart of this story was fear. That particular fear of being hunted, a fear that still lurks deep in the recesses of our primitive imagination, buried in our pre-history when the tiger was our most feared predator, and man was easy prey. Slow, deaf, blind and foolish.
Long before the ‘blog post’ was a cultural norm, the internet was still a treasure trove of fragments of personal experience ripe for creative treatment. All one needed was a keen sense of the necessary ingredients and a focused search. A local Russian journalist had uploaded an account of a very unusual series of tiger attacks on people, written from the field notes of an eminent field ecologist, Dimitri Pikunov.
Pikunov describes a dark and disturbing series of events initiated by a desperate hunter called Vladimir Markov.
To make a mistake is only human, and we hope and expect to learn from each one. But Markov made a series of mistakes, each one compounding the next, and each steadily reducing his chances of applying the benefit of hindsight.
First he stole meat from a tiger. Then he shot at the tiger. And missed.
A wounded animal is much more dangerous, forcing ‘unnatural’ behaviours that lead inevitably to confrontation. In this case, the tiger was intent on revenge, tracing the scent of the man back to his hut where it lay patiently in wait before stalking and killing him.
Markov had triggered what was to become an infamous series of tiger attacks on people. The authorities called in specialist tiger trackers, a ‘Conflict Tiger Unit’ headed up by Yuri Trush. Yuri was charged both with investigating what had happened and with finding, and killing, the tiger.
This is Pikunov’s account of the final moments of Yuri’s deadly encounter-
“The tiger, now limping badly, wandered the logging road when, in the frosty air, came the rumble of an approaching vehicle. The predator turned off into the glade where the log deck had formerly been and lay down in a shallow ditch overgrown with wormwood. The GAS-66 truck had already made its way up to the corner of the glade.
Yuri Peonka, sitting next to the driver, saw some tracks from inside the truck that appeared to be the ones that they were looking for. Jumping out of the truck, he tested the tracks in the tried and true manner: if it ‘crumbles’, then it is absolutely fresh. Rushing to get his gun, Yuri yelled out to his partners: “He’s here!” Their dog, catching the scent of the tiger, yelped in confusion and, tucking in his tail, hid behind the truck, only sharpening even more the unbelievable tension that mortally threatened all the participants in what was now an inevitable confrontation.
A quick check of the log deck, with its occasional clumps of wormwood, yielded nothing. It was decided that Trush would be the first to go along the hot trail, to the right would be Shibnev, and a bit to the rear and to the left, Peonka. In this kind of wedge, holding their fingers on the trigger, they moved forward. In a little more than twenty meters an instantly soul-numbing roar cracked the frigid air forcing everyone, as if on command, to come to a halt.
The tiger, not more than ten meters away, flew out at them as if from under the ground from an absolutely open, clear spot.
The enormous, ferocious mass of stripes, mad from pain and enraged at people, flew like a hurricane at the first of the shooters – Trush. In a half-unconscious state, he managed to get off two shots. In a simultaneous echo, from the right and the left rang out his partners’ shots on whose accuracy Yuri’s life now depended. These two experienced hunters did not let him down and the bullets hit their mark. The enormous carcass struck the barrel of the rifle and the already lifeless mass slammed down on top of Yuri, its claws, like knives, shredding his outer, winter coat and bloodying it with hot tiger blood.
The three guys immediately composed themselves. The confrontation had taken place so quickly and so unexpectedly that no one even had time to freak. Only later, when talking about what had happened, did the three of them come to the conclusion that everything had come together all too well. And especially the fact that the confrontation had taken place on a completely open spot. What if the confrontation had occurred somewhere in the thickly wooded Bikin taiga? Most likely there would have been yet another victim. Everyone seemed to agree that Yuri Trush was born under a lucky star.”
The idea of a vengeful tiger, enraged by man’s stupidity, was lure enough for me travel to Luchegorsk, a 10-hour train journey north of Vladivostok, to meet with Yuri Trush in person. Pulling into the station on a winters night, I was greeted first by the silhouette of a small back dog, followed by the imposing figure of Yuri himself. I nervously introduced myself and explained my interest in his experience. I mentioned the idea of making a film whereupon Yuri gave a broad smile, revealing a set of sparkling gold teeth. “Sasha”, he said “I have something to show you.”
Back at his flat he sat me down in front of his old TV and inserted a VHS tape. It was only at this point that I realised that he had used a video camera to record parts of his investigation of the Markov incident and I had a film to make.
The story clearly had a universal potency, playing at film festivals around the world from Seoul in South Korea, to Goias in Brazil, winning 19 festival grand prizes and audience awards.
A year after its first release, I received a call out of the blue from the American author John Vaillant. He had seen ‘Conflict Tiger’ at the BANFF Mountain Film Festival and described a ‘light-bulb’ moment in which he realised that he had found the subject for his next book. He asked for my blessing, for some help with contacts, and, by way of thanks, sent me a copy of his previous novel in the post. ‘The Golden Spruce’ dropped through my letter-box a week later and began an extraordinary 7-year creative exchange, a subject for a separate post.
The story first made public in Dimitri Pikunov’s journal had made the leap to another medium, and was on its way to wider international exposure. 3 years later Penguin Random House published John Vaillant’s ‘The Tiger- A True Story of Vengeance & Survival’.
Here is an extract from the book that recounts the lead-up to Yuri’s brush with death-
“The sun shone brilliantly on the undisturbed snow; the only shadows there were those cast by the men themselves—long, even at midday. Gitta continued darting up the trail and then back to Trush, barking incessantly, but she gave no clear indication of the tiger’s whereabouts. She didn’t know. As they walked, the men scanned the clearing, an expanse in which it would have been difficult to conceal a rabbit, and then they focused their attention on the forest ahead, which was beginning to look like one enormous ambush. With the exception of the dog, everything was calm and nearly still. Behind them, smoke rose lazily from the Kung’s chimney, drifting off to the north. Gorborukov was still standing there by the back door, holding his rifle like a broom. In the clearing, the slender stalks and blades nodded reassuringly, as if everything was unfolding according to plan. The men had gone about twenty yards when Shibnev, picking up some kind of ineffable, intuitive cue, calmly said, “Guys, we should spread out.” A moment later, the clearing exploded. The first impact of a tiger attack does not come from the tiger itself, but from the roar, which, in addition to being loud like a jet, has an eerie capacity to fill the space around it, leaving one unsure where to look. From close range, the experience is overwhelming and has the effect of separating you from yourself, of scrambling the very neurology that is supposed to save you at times like this.
Those who have done serious tiger time—scientists and hunters— describe the tiger’s roar not as a sound so much as a full-body experience. Sober, disciplined biologists have sworn they felt the earth shake. One Russian hunter, taken by surprise, recalled thinking a dam had burst somewhere. In short, the tiger’s roar exists in the same sonic realm as a natural catastrophe; it is one of those sounds that give meaning and substance to “the fear of God.” The Udeghe, Yuri Pionka, described the roar of that tiger in the clearing as soul-rending. The literal translation from Russian is “soul tearing-apart.” “I have heard tigers in the forest,” he said, “but I never heard anything like that. It was vicious; terrifying.” What happened next transpired in less than three seconds. First, the tiger was nowhere to be seen, and then he was in the air and flying. What the tiger’s fangs do to the flesh its eyes do to the psyche, and this tiger’s eyes were fixed on Trush: he was the target and, as far as the tiger was concerned, he was as good as dead. Having launched from ten yards away, the tiger was closing at the speed of flight, his roar rumbling through Trush’s chest and skull like an avalanche. In spite of this, Trush managed to put his rifle to his shoulder, and the clearing disappeared, along with the forest behind it. All that remained in his consciousness was the black wand of his gun barrel, at the end of which was a ravening blur of yellow eyes and gleaming teeth that were growing in size by the nanosecond. Trush was squeezing the trigger, which seemed a futile gesture in the face of such ferocious intent—that barbed sledge of a paw, raised now for the death blow.
The scenario was identical: the open field; the alert, armed man; the tiger who is seen only when he chooses to be seen, erupting, apparently, from the earth itself—from nowhere at all— leaving no time and no possibility of escape. Trush was going to die exactly as Markov and Pochepnya had. This was no folktale; nonetheless, only something heroic, shamanic, magical could alter the outcome. Trush’s semiautomatic loaded with proven tiger killers was not enough. Trush was a praying man, and only God could save him now.”
It’s a strange experience to see ‘your’ story through the prism of another narrator’s imagination. John had brought new depths and insight to it with the space and time a book affords both author and reader. It’s interesting to compare how different media handle the spontaneous moment, a narrative territory that is meant to be the special preserve of the documentary film. But the written word exposes different kinds of meaning, and the experience of reading, as opposed to watching, allows us to ‘inhabit’ the story over a longer time. We become immersed in it over days, slowly losing track of where the story ends and we begin. Film is a much faster burn. But what medium has the best claim on the ‘real’? Does it matter? Working together they achieve a higher, deeper meaning, refracting different shades of emotional truth.
And so the story moves on, mutating in unpredictable ways, waiting to make the next leap in the collective imagination.
A month ago I received another note from John Vaillant. ‘Did I keep abreast of the movie news’? he asked. ‘The Tiger’ was to be adapted again, this time with big money and Hollywood production values. Ukranian Director Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi is to direct Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor Alexander Skarsgard.
He attached a link to an article featuring this quote from the producer Darren Aronofsky-
“As a producer, I’ve wanted to do two things for a while now: one is to make this film, and the other is to work with the brilliant auteur that is Myroslav Slaboshpytskyi. I am truly excited to be involved with a project that will allow me to do both, and cannot wait to bring this story to the world.”
Aronofsky doesn’t make boring films, and his partnership with an out-an-out ‘auteur’ (best known for his 2014 film ‘The Tribe’ set in a school for the deaf using Ukranian sign language and no subtitles) bodes well for a fresh re-interpretation rather than a dumbed down ‘Hunt For Red October’ version, with Yuri as some tooled up ‘Rambo’ hero primed to tame the wild and bring ‘civilisation’ back to the Taiga.
I pray they do the story justice, but I know it would survive even a proper mauling. Already percolating in the public imagination in multiple forms, it has already proved resilient and adaptable. We have to hope that we will fare as well as we continue to distort nature as we pursue our foolish ends.
Returning to the question of what makes a good story? A mysterious location, vivid characters and an epic battle do not alone explain its universal appeal. Its lasting impact comes more from the way it unfolds. It offers the familiar tension of a dramatic thriller pivoting our empathies from the preyed upon man to the suffering animal. But ultimately resolves as a parable, timeless and universal, that speaks emotively of their shared destiny.
Got a story to tell? Or purpose to communicate? Need some friendly advice?
Last week, AgencyUK attended MAD//fest, the UK’s boldest and most distinctive marketing event in the heart of London’s tech and culture scene. The space where top brands, agencies and publishers come to connect, form new relationships, fix industry issues, pitch visionary ideas and celebrate all things Marketing, Advertising and disruption!
We #gotourwings2022 and won two fantastic awards at The Independent Agency Awards 2022, including ‘Best Use of Social Media for Chewits’ and ‘Best FMCG / Retail Campaign for Chewits’!
Rebecca FitzHenry, AgencyUK Senior Account Manager says: “We’re so excited to have won two awards for our work with Chewits. It’s been so great working with Cloetta to reawaken the Chewits brand (and it’s cheeky dino friend Chewie!) This integrated campaign has been a real AgencyUK team effort, from strategy and creative through to continuous learning and optimisations with the social and digital teams. With some amazing results to date, we can’t wait to see what’s next for the brand.”
Huge congratulations to all members of the Social, Digital, Creative, Strategy and Client Services teams for all of your hard work- it has definitely paid off! And that’s not all… AgencyUK were also Highly Commended for the Agency Purpose Awards and shortlisted for Independent Agency of the year!
Sammy Mansourpour, Managing Director says: “In 2019 the AgencyUK management team embarked on an ambitious programme of self improvement for staff, community and environment. Recognition and a Commendation for our efforts by the Independent Agency Purpose Award judges is invaluable and motivating for our team and peers. We cannot wait to continue this journey and share our experiences with the judges again in next year’s entry”.
We are so proud of our achievements as an agency and look forward to creating more great content this year and beyond. See you next year MAD//fest!
AgencyUK is an agency that supports, nurtures and cares for everyone. From the bigger events such as charity walks and abseils to the smaller amenities like ensuring free breakfast and fruit are provided daily. AUK proves to its employees that they have their wellness at heart.
I’m Megan, Paid Media Manager at AUK and I started working here in October 2021 after leaving the busy London life to move closer to my family and friends. After COVID-19 and working at home at my kitchen table for the past two years, it was important for me to find a workplace where I can go back to working collaboratively, contribute to my development and most importantly feel valued. After my first interview, I knew that AUK puts people and its employees first.
I recently watched a film called ‘The Brand New Testament’ that spoke about the concept of working as ‘renting your time out’. Your employer essentially pays for your weekly time to work for them. You wouldn’t rent out something that isn’t worth your time or money, so ensure that the time you rent is worth it for you. I think wellness and wellbeing is key in this.
Since joining I have (but not limited to) – been offered the flexibility of hybrid working; taken full advantage of the free fruit, breakfast, tea and coffee; been on an incredible camping trip to Wales where we spent some well-earned time out in nature team building and canoeing; walked the London Moonwalk marathon for “Walk the Walk” charity; watched our AUK bees enjoy their new home in the AUK hives and joined the first cohort of AUK’s new initiative called “Agency for All”.
“Agency for All” is an amazing programme run by Systemic Team Coach Victoria Coxen and Psychotherapist Carolyn Bird. The aim is to guide AUK’s employees into exploring and understanding themselves as individuals, how we connect and build meaningful human relationships with our team and peers, and then how that affects the wider agency and business. It’s about being the best version of ourselves in order to strengthen the team from the inside.
This scheme has been a success, with everyone finding it insightful and appreciating the time to come away from work to sit and think about ourselves and our feelings. We look forward to everyone in the agency benefiting from this experience.
Working for AUK makes me feel confident, comfortable and valued and I’m excited to see what else AUK have in the pipeline to ensure we all have positive wellbeing… I’ve heard rumours of a summer BBQ and beekeeper training!
Employee engagement is an efficient business strategy. Happy, engaged, and resilient staff is the ultimate goal, but it’s easier said than done.
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution to employee engagement. It’s a mix of rewards, recognition, wellbeing, and community-building. Yuup provides a bespoke solution to each of these concerns surrounding employee engagement:
Employees are the heart of your business and the reason you exist. They’re also a significant investment, so it makes sense to invest in them as well.
Yuup offers a solution for employee engagement that goes beyond traditional perks such as free lunches or flexible working hours.
Based on research into what employees want from their employers, Yuup provides businesses with an innovative way to engage their teams by giving them recognition and rewarding them with things to do that are enriching and personal whilst stimulating the local economy and supporting small businesses.
Yuup is an online marketplace that offers a range of experiences that are perfect for businesses both big and small.
From team-building days to performance rewards and from staff wellbeing experiences to ways to celebrate big wins. It’s a way for businesses to engage their staff in ways they may not have been able to before.
Rita will talk about how she has found brand thinking not just fundamental to successful businesses of all shapes, sizes and stages, but also how you can apply it to yourself to ensure that you are as valued and influential as you can be. She will:
Tickets are priced at £50+VAT for BCI members and £75+VAT for non-members which includes a buffet lunch so there’ll be plenty of opportunity to catch up with old friends and make some new connections too.
If you’d like to join the BCI network, read all about becoming a BCI member here.
As a high-profile business leader, acclaimed brand guru and sustainability champion, Rita is able to inspire organisations of all kinds to find new ways to succeed in an uncertain world.
She has been called ‘Brand guru’ by the Financial Times and ‘The doyenne of branding’ by Campaign magazine. Retail Week commented that she is ‘A fabulous ambassador for business’. Alongside her board chairing and non-executive roles, Rita is a writer, keynote speaker, conference chair & practitioner on all aspects of brands, branding and business leadership.
Her career has included being a Vice Chair and Strategy Director at Saatchi & Saatchi, as London CEO and Chair at the global brand consultancy Interbrand and as co-founder of BrandCap. She is now a portfolio chair and non-executive director on the board of businesses including John Lewis Partnership, Nationwide Building Society and Ascential plc. Previous boards have included ASOS, Dixons Retail plc, Emap, Bupa and Populus Group. Her non-profit boards have included WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature), the UK Sustainable Development Commission and Green Alliance. She was recently appointed Chair at Forum for the Future, the leading international sustainability organisation. In the 2014 New Year’s Honours List, Rita was awarded a CBE for services to the creative industries.
Rita is a regular columnist and media commentator, as well as author of ‘The Future of Brands’ and two editions of The Economist book ‘Brands and Branding’. Her new book on leadership ‘Love your imposter’ was launched by Kogan Page in September 2020.
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
Here’s a great story courtesy of MailChimp.
“In 1978, a marketing manager at Digital Equipment Corp named Gary Thuerk used this new method of direct communication to send out the first commercial email to let people know about a new product. His email list only had 400 addresses, but the emails he sent resulted in about $13 million in sales.”
This was only 7 years after the first email ever was sent in 1971, and being the first person to do anything in marketing is a pretty incredible feat. Nowadays, more than half the world’s population has an email account – and most of them are more than happy for the brands they love to take up space in their inbox.
Email marketing is an all-encompassing term for sending promotional and commercial emails to a list of subscribers who have given you permission to do so. This includes newsletters, updates on special offers and events, welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, order confirmations, delivery updates and lots more.
Email marketing often takes a back seat to the ever-present social media marketing, but it’s still a major player in the mix. I am a big fan of email marketing, and by the end of this post, I hope you will be too!
There were 4 billion emails users in 2020, with about a 3% increase each year. In comparison, there were 3.6 billion social media users in 2020, and these days we regularly see large numbers of people shifting to new platforms or giving up social media completely.
73% of millennials say email is their favourite way to receive communication from businesses.
44% of users check their emails to find deals from brands they like, compared to just 4% who would go to Facebook for a bargain.
Still not sold? How about this: email marketing has a return on investment (ROI) of 3800%. You’d be hard-pressed to find a figure like that anywhere else.
1. Segment and Personalise
Segmentation is the process of separating your contacts based on a number of different factors. Personalisation is using those factors to engage people in a way that will resonate with them.
Here’s a very basic example. You sell candles, and you offer shipping across the UK. Your purchase process contains an opt-in form for your newsletter, so most of your past customers are on your mailing list, and you’ve segmented them geographically. Now you’re planning an event in Bristol, and you want to get the word out. It’s probably not worth sending that email to your customers in Edinburgh. I’m sure your candles are good, but they’re probably not ‘travel 400 miles to get one’ good. Especially if you can buy them online and get them shipped out. So we can send a personalised email along the lines of “Bristol customers, come to our event and make your candle dreams come true!”.
According to SendinBlue, there are four main types of segmentation.
Demographic – concrete information about who contacts are (e.g. age)
Psychographic – subjective characteristics of contacts’ personalities (e.g. values)
Behavioural – contacts’ past interactions with your business (e.g. abandoned cart)
Geographic – where contacts are located (e.g. timezone)
As you can see, these are pretty broad and the possibilities are vast. Revisit your email marketing goals to figure out what would be most beneficial for your business.
2. A/B Testing
Should I add that emoji to the subject line? How about another paragraph of copy – would that lead to more clicks? They say the little things can make a big difference. Luckily, A/B Testing helps you figure out which little things actually work.
A/B testing is a clever little tool that allows you to send two slightly different campaigns to your audience. Then you can look at the data and find out which performed better, and use this knowledge to make better decisions in the future.
As business owners, we feel like we have to have all the answers. But sometimes A/B testing can prove our hypotheses wrong. Don’t be disheartened – instead, think of it as an opportunity to learn more about your customers.
Here are a few things you can A/B test:
Subject line – (long or short, emojis or no emojis)
Content – (more or less copy, more or fewer images)
CTAs – (how many, where are they placed)
Schedule – (day of the week, time of day)
3. Clear Out Your List
Chances are, you’re paying for your email marketing provider per contact on your list, so make sure those people are worth it! If you haven’t used your list in a while, start with a retargeting campaign to draw people back in with an enticing offer. After a while, clear out any contacts that haven’t interacted with your emails at all. Make this a regular habit to ensure your list is always up to date.
4. Optimise for Mobile
Over 70% of people prefer to read emails on their mobile, so don’t forget to check the mobile version before hitting send. The good news is that 1 in 5 commercial emails are not optimised for mobile, so getting this right could help you stand out from the competition.
Here are a few things to consider before scheduling that campaign.
Mobile devices will show just 25-30 characters of a subject line, so keep it short or make sure your key points are included at the beginning.
Some email apps don’t show images by default, so think of any images as a bonus, rather than the main event.
Make your CTAs clear enough to show up on a small screen, and big enough to easily accommodate a tap from a fingertip.
Test before sending! Always send a test email and view it on as many devices as possible before you hit send.
5. GDPR
GDPR legislation can feel super intimidating, but don’t be afraid. Essentially, its purpose is to give people more control over their data, and it certainly doesn’t spell the end of email marketing. If anything, it means those people who choose to give you their data are going to be even more engaged with your business, leading to a more valuable list.
A few things to consider here:
Make sure everyone on your list has given clear consent to be contacted by you, and keep evidence of this consent.
Only ask for the data you really need (this is important both for GDPR compliance and to maximise sign-ups, as a long form will put a lot of people off).
Use a reputable email marketing platform (MailChimp is great for beginners), and a lot of the complicated stuff will be taken care of for you.
Of course, by entrusting your email campaigns to Turnhouse, we can put all this into practice for you. Find out more about email marketing and the services we offer.
Please note: Since publication this crowdfund has closed. £988,776 was raised in 28 days with Yuup reaching 131% of its desired fundraising target.
Yuup, the Bristol-based online local experiences marketplace, has been offering the city’s creative community a platform to generate income through hosting experiences since it was founded in September 2020.
In just a year company has grown from supporting just under 40 experience hosts to now being a community with over 270 people and small businesses and 500+ experiences to enjoy throughout Bristol city.
On Yuup’s platform you will find anything from unicycle lessons to rum tasting, wild winter swimming to hot air balloon rides, and pottery making to fresh pasta making masterclasses. Each one of these unique experiences is hosted by a local person that can’t wait to share their skills and passion with new people.
The platform has seen side-hustlers and hobbyists turn their favourite thing to do into a business and their main source of income. In the past year, Yuup has generated over £450k of income for local people and small independent creative businesses in the Bristol and Bath region.
Maria Fernandez, from Healing Weeds, hosts foraging workshops in Bristol. Her experiences teach guests how to identify seasonal wild produce and how to make balms, medicines, cordials, and elixirs from the foraged harvest. Using Yuup, Maria was able to change her career in order to properly pursue the thing she loves. She said:
“Yuup helped me turn my hobby into a business and Healing Weeds is now my main source of income.”
Since launching in the middle of a pandemic, Yuup has been used by Bristol creatives to help their income streams and businesses bounce back from lockdown and the effects of the pandemic.
The drop in economic activity within the UK in response to the pandemic impacted SMEs and the self-employed significantly in comparison to their larger business counterparts.
Local businesses were forced to adapt in order to survive. For indie businesses that could facilitate experiences, Yuup provided a platform that allowed alternative revenue streams to the local businesses that were struggling to achieve their pre-pandemic footfall.
Alice from Trylla shop on North Street joined Yuup early on in order to use the platform as a kickstart to her business’ post-pandemic recovery. Her pottery making experiences have been so popular that Alice has since hired new staff to help support the demand for her pottery classes on Yuup.
Yuup’s positive social impact extends to platform support, marketing, and a ticketing system for charity events and fundraisers. Yuup’s recent collaboration with Belly Laughs comedy festival 2022 raised over 22k for charity and generated over 10k of revenue for local restaurants and bars. The company have also recently supported grassroots charities such as MAZI Project and KASK’s Ukraine Fundraiser.
At the start of February 2022, Yuup announced that the business will be opening up investment to the public to allow for the company’s scaling up operations this year. There are a number of ways that you can join the Yuup community. As an investor, as a Yuup host, by introducing a Yuup host, or as a customer.
How to join the Yuup community as an investor: Yuup’s crowdfund is open until March 31st, and the funds raised will go towards reaching hundreds more potential experience hosts in Bristol and Bath, generating income and jobs for locals and the communities that need it most.
Yuup will also be launching in its second city this summer, connecting creatives, makers and dreamers from another UK city to the Yuup community.
You can join the crowdfund from as little as £20. You will own a part of Yuup and participate in the financial rewards of share ownership. Your investment will support local independent businesses whilst helping even more people to discover incredible things to do in their local area. Visit the Yuup crowdfund webpage to watch the investment film and find out more here: https://invest.yuup.co/
How to join Yuup as an experience host: If you are a creative or passionate local person, you could turn that love of something into an experience for others to enjoy. Yuup helps people create, promote, and host experiences.
It’s free to join the platform, and you get simple tools, a host portal, and marketing support and investment. A small commission is taken from each sold experience, so Yuup only makes money when you make money.
The scope for experiences is almost boundless. From food and drink tours to cooking classes, craft workshops to cinema nights, outdoor adventures to indoor wellbeing sessions. If you love it, why not share the experience? Get in touch with the Yuup team about your future experience here: https://www.yuup.co/pages/join
How to introduce an experience host: Do you know a wicked weaver? A crowd-pleasing cook? A passionate painter? A cool climber? Refer your friend to the Yuup team and help them turn their passion into a business. Refer an experience host here: https://www.yuup.co/host_referrals/new
How to join the Yuup community as a customer: Just browse yuup.co and pick something that you would love to do! Alternatively, you can also buy experiences as gifts, purchase gift cards, or use Yuup’s experiences in your employee rewards scheme.
When you’re just starting out and your business is growing, hiring a freelancer or an agency to own and manage your digital marketing can be a risk – financially and otherwise. To help with the overwhelming task of DIY Marketing in your first months or years of business, I’ve put together a list of resources, tools, websites and apps that I use for my clients, and my own business to help me manage marketing channels like social media, Google My Business, email marketing and blog writing. I’ve organised this list into the seven categories which make up my content creation + marketing workflow:
Mental health issues do not discriminate. They can affect anyone at any time, and reflecting on the last two years, it comes as no surprise it is being experienced by more and more people.
In the UK alone, 1 in 4 will be affected by a mental health problem of some kind each year. Leaving more and more people searching for support from charities, the NHS and healthcare providers.
For the second year in a row, we have decided to raise awareness and help fundraise for a chosen charity by donating our Christmas Card video.
We did lots of research into which charity we wanted to raise money for, and the decision wasn’t easy. There are so many organisations fighting for important causes, and that’s just in Bristol and South Gloucestershire alone.
The chosen one
We finally came to an agreement on OTR, a mental health movement for young people in the region.
Their mission?
To defend, promote and support the mental health of people between the ages of 11-25. This incredible organisation focuses on breaking the stigma around mental health and their aim is to get people talking about it.
Their approach?
OTR runs a number of workshops, 1:1 therapy sessions, support projects and much more.
They run Resilience Lab workshops, helping young people develop the tools to manage stress.
And host Acts of Activism sessions, where young people can go to socialise, express their frustrations about inequality and come together to encourage small and big acts of activism.
They also hold a 6-8 week Nature Works project, which teaches young people the importance of nature for their mental health, and how connecting with it can be a very beneficial tool for stress-relief.
And their work doesn’t stop there.
OTR works tirelessly to make mental health an aspect of life that people can talk about without any feelings of shame. They believe in the power of partnerships and collaboration and that the world around us, also impacts our wellbeing.
Ultimately, they provide a help and support network so that young people can develop tools to cope with day-to-day life and the challenges that may come their way.
The OTR fundraising video
We worked closely with OTR to develop a video that represents their personality, demonstrates their mission, and spurs people to get talking (and donating).
And once you’ve watched the video, we hope you can help. With your donation, you can help a young person gather the tools they need to shape their own futures. You can help change the game.
A wellbeing pack is just £5. But the self-esteem it brings is priceless. Please donate what you can here.
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