Lounges.tv, a new and disruptive streaming platform backed by Simon Cowell, is now a proud member of the IPM. The disruptive new business model allows fans and followers to discover, interact with, and support the creators they love.

Since Lounges.tv launched last year, it’s helped thousands of artists and creators earn money and connect with fans. The platform is home to a diverse range of creators, from musicians, comedians and chefs to educators and fitness trainers. It’s a space where creators curate and share their content through live, interactive streaming, video-on-demand and one-to-ones, via their own channels or ‘live lounges’.

From the viewers’ perspective, Lounges.tv is a place where they can find exclusive content (i.e. content not available anywhere else) from their favourite creators on their individual Lounges channels, and interact with these creators. They can take part in livestreamed events, watch video-on-demand, and request one-to-one sessions (two-way streaming) with creators. During livestreams, viewers can interact with creators via web chat, can send tips – visible to other viewers as well as to the creator running the livestream – and can even be invited to take part in a livestream (i.e. ‘come on stage’).

In addition to Simon Cowell, the streaming platform is backed by Prince’s former manager Kiran Sharma and BBC iPlayer founder Ben Lavender. It has fruitful partnerships with several innovative companies including: C-Screens, Ocean Outdoors, Time Machine Capital Squared, and The Outernet.

What sets Lounges.tv apart from other streaming platforms?

Whereas many streaming platforms rely on a conventional revenue model, Lounges.tv offers a pioneering, creator-first revenue model. Specifically, the platform gives creators access to a pay-per-view paywall (viewers pay to watch video content), tipping revenue model (fans can tip during live performances), and ticketing revenue. Creators keep 80% of their streaming income, and are paid within 24 hours of their content being made available on their Lounges.tv channels.

Another way Lounges.tv is a truly interactive platform where creators create their own communities or “live Lounges”, and invite followers on their social media channels to Lounges.tv for longer-form, exclusive content, e.g., livestreams and video-on-demand. Creators manage their own channels – they are in the driving seat – and can choose to monetise as much of their content as they wish. The fact that they are rewarded fairly (80% of revenue) motivates creators to use Lounges for their best content.

What the Lounges.tv team says:

“What really drew me in to this platform is that it supports emerging talent. The artists literally get paid within 24 hours and take 80 per cent of the revenue – brilliant.”

Simon Cowell

“Musicians, comedians, educators and any other kind of content creator are having a hard time now. At the heart of Lounges.tv is our creator-first revenue share model. We want to enable creators to move away from an unhealthy obsession with meaningless reach and follower numbers, and instead to a focus on meaningful and true fan engagement. This is how creators will be rewarded fairly, and this is what will motivate them to create content and fulfil their potential.

Craig Gardner, Lounges.tv Co-founder and CPO

“One of the things we wanted to do when Craig and I set up Lounges.tv was support musicians – and creators more generally – in making a living. This is also why Simon Cowell – the ultimate champion of talent – has backed our company.

“There’s a wealth of talent out there and we believe that – whether you’ve got 10 followers or 100,000 followers – you should be able to generate income from your hard work and creativity.

“I find it really heartening to hear incredible artists talking about how the platform has made a difference to their lives – and to their bank balances. This is exactly what we set out to do when we created Lounges.tv. It’s our mission to democratise content creation – and that means making sure that talented creators have access to a have a fair platform where they can share their content, get discovered and make a living.

“The creators who join us know that the platform represents an exciting departure from the conventional ad-centric model that values creators according to how many ad views and followers they can amass. We are in the business of making sure that talent that gets rewarded, which is why we don’t rely on ads but instead give creators a number of fan-funding options – tickets, tips or pay-per-view. It’s so great to see artists taking control!”

Scott Green, Lounges.tv Co-founder and CEO

How exactly do creators get earn revenue on Lounges.tv?

There are three ways creators can get funded by fans and followers via the platform. Importantly, creators can choose not to charge for specific events or video-on-demand – they have full control of their channels or ‘live lounges:

• The tipping function, which allows viewers to make financial contributions (tips) to artists during their online performances (it’s fun for creators and viewers see the tips and tippers flagged during the live chat)
• Ticket sales for creators’ online gigs/livestreams
• Pay-per-view for any video content that creators share via their Lounges.tv channels.
• Profile tipping – earnings revenue does not stop when the creators are not live; viewers can tip via creators’ profiles.
• One-to-ones

The harsh reality of the music industry in statistics – calling all music venues!

Research shows 54% of musicians in the UK earn an annual income of less than £21,000, with many (44%) saying a lack of income means a career in music is ‘unsustainable’*¹. Among content creators more broadly, it is becoming harder than ever for them to get their work seen online. With a staggering 3.7 million new videos flooding YouTube*² and 34 million TikToks uploaded daily*³, almost three quarters (72%) of content creators say they made less than £393 ($500 USD) in the last 12 months*⁴.

Artists are not the only ones facing challenges – the UK’s grassroots music venues are closing at an unprecedented rate, according to a report from the Music Venue Trust*⁵. In 2023, 125 venues have closed – a rate of two per week. And 38% of the venues that are still open report making a financial loss in 2023, despite seeing an increased demand for tickets.

It’s against this industry backdrop that Lounges.tv is aiming to shake up the content creation industry, to the benefit of creators – and venues – who want to livestream to a broader audience, get discovered and earn money. The music industry has changed a lot over the last fifteen years, driven of course largely by streaming and digital technology, but we don’t want this to be at the expense of live venues. We all want venues to stay open – this is important for artists and important for fans. We’d encourage more venues to come on board and embrace the positive aspects of these changes. Step 1: set up livestreams of your events!

Lounges.tv is a sanctuary for talented content creators, and works with them to ensure they receive the recognition and rewards they deserve. Lounges.tv is the future of the content creation industry and things are moving fast – so watch this space!

Discover more here: https://lounges.tv

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Aside from matters of family, love, and religion, little else raises more passion on a global scale than sport. They stand as the ultimate uniter and divider in the realm of entertainment. With Summer 2024 poised to deliver one of the biggest sporting calendars in recent years, featuring the Olympics in Paris, the Euros in Germany and Champions League in London, a new era of marketing approaches. To examine the meteoric rise of live fan experiences, and what to expect from sports marketing in 2024, IPM sits down with its latest member, C-Screens, the largest provider of Out-Of-Home Screens in the UK. C-Screens will be bringing multiple pop-up screening events, showing live premium sports all day, from iconic bustling city centres through to high end shopping districts such as Covent Garden. Equipped with large state of the art high-definition LED screens and multiple unique activation spaces, C-Screens offers ready-made sporting havens, heralding the future of live fan experiences. But first, let’s remind ourselves why 2024 is so special for sports. 

Summer of Sports 2024

• 2023 set a precedent for the UK, with major sporting events injecting a remarkable £373 million into the national economy, as researched by UK Sport.

• This figure is set to soar with the Guardian heralding this summer 2024 as “one for the ages”, referring to the extraordinary line-up of sporting events.

• The Olympics are set for Paris, with the Champions League final in London. Dublin will host the Europa League Final, and England is a strong contender in the European Championship. The year features two T20 World Cups, The Open Championship, Tour de France, Wimbledon, and the British Grand Prix, among other major events.

• This pivotal moment in sports is also a turning point for marketing. The industry is poised to revolutionise how fans experience, enjoy, and engage with sports.

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With this high concentration of major sporting events, fan experiences are expected to reach peak interest during the summer period. Originally designed to extend the live sports experience beyond the stadium to a wider audience, fan zones emerged in the early 2000s around major football tournaments. These unique brand experiences have since become more than just places to watch sports. They are now immersive hubs of excitement, “bringing the party to the people,” as described by the Paris 2024 sports minister, Amelie Oudea-Castera. By combining the power of the big screen alongside a brand activation can provide a valuable addition to immersive experiences. C-Screens partnership with Multiplay attracted bigger than ever audiences with its free, outdoor live gaming event that featured a knockout style football tournament on the giant screens, streamed simultaneously across multiple locations.

“Today, sports is all about the experience. It’s not just watching a game but feeling part of it, no matter where you are. This evolution has opened up new avenues for engaging with content and creating moments that bring fans together.”

Robert Hicks, CEO, C-Screens

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C-Screens as a modern outdoor broadcaster has a clear goal to entertain consumers and can help brands and agencies facilitate a wide range of brand engagement activations and lifestyle content, as well as offering opportunities with on-site retailing. The effectiveness of these captivating environments stems from the extended dwell time of audiences engrossed in the action on the big screens, providing an optimal setting for impactful and emotionally charged consumer interactions.

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Enlivening Spaces, Engaging Minds

With key sporting milestones compressed between May and September this Summer, live-screening experiences are one of the hottest trends in marketing right now. C-Screens stands at the forefront of this movement, providing solutions for official sport sponsors as well as catering for those who are just dipping their toes into the world of sport to engage in new and creative ways with a sport loving audience. As the latest addition to the IPM Community, C-Screens extends a warm invitation to fellow IPM members to help support their promotional and brand experiences this sporting season. If you’re interested in exploring what’s possible, please get in touch with hello@c-screens.com

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Ambient Media Worldwide worked with Lynx on a global campaign launch with an OOH stunt, featuring a bold statement. The new Lynx Black Vanilla scent has triumphed over Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille, with 74 per cent of men favouring Lynx over the pricey designer fragrance, according to research for the brand.

To reinforce this message Ambient brought a non-branded, scented billboard to London’s Southbank, with a playful message asking passers-by if they thought the billboard smelt better than a £200 fragrance. Lynx Black Vanilla was diffused with fragrance across the 10ft billboard, enticing Londoners to lean in and take a sniff. The billboard displaying the results was unveiled by Love Island star and musician Wes Nelson, with support from 11 additional influencers and the sampling of 500 products.

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Award winning travel, prize and fulfilment agency Cloud Nine Incentives is growing its full service
offering with the appointment of Emma Coleman, Director of Events.
Joining from BCD Meetings & Events, Emma will harness her experience across multiple sectors
to drive Cloud Nine’s events division forward; an important strategic pillar for the agency.
Founder and Director Michael Chambers says, “As Cloud Nine Incentives enters its 13th year,
it’s critical we continue to innovate and deliver excellent service. Growing our events team means
we can offer a ‘one stop shop’ to clients.
I am delighted to welcome Emma to the Cloud Nine team. Her wealth of events experience and
passion for exceptional service levels will help steer the agency into its next chapter.”
With an amplified prize and promotions capability, brands will receive seamless, end to end
campaign management, with their customers at the heart of the journey.

Emma Coleman, “I am delighted to join Cloud Nine Incentives, a leader in their field working with
some fantastic brands. Their ethos of curating standout experiences alongside providing
excellent customer service aligns perfectly with my own passion for events. My role, leading the
strategy and development of the events offering, sparks a new chapter for Cloud Nine and I’m
delighted to be involved at the beginning of this exciting journey.”

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Keeping your business’s equipment clean, tidy, in great condition can be a big task for any company.  But when your equipment is 2.5 metres wide, 4 metres tall, 16.5 metres long and weighs 30,000 kgs that task is not only more tricky but absolutely essential for health and safety reasons. XPRESSION Logistics pride themselves on the upkeep of all assets, to ensure high standards are met.  Being the preferred servicing supplier in the UK for Rolfo gave the company the capability to service all trucks and trailers. “Managing something like this doesn’t just mean servicing and hydraulics checks every 8 weeks, but ensuring the vehicle is pristine inside and out before and after every delivery” said Jonathan Hill, XPRESSION Logistics MD “the UK Government, quite rightly, has strict regulations with regard to the safety of haulage and we do our best to exceed those for our customers”. 

There lies another mammoth task. In order to keep all assets to the highest standard the recruitment of the correctly trained staff is essential, and finding Truck Technicians a challenge.  “We are always in the market for great, highly experienced Truck Technicians” said Mr Hill “they are the backbone to the success of the company and we look after them, as we do all of our team”.  

For more information please email jonathan@xpressionlogistics.co.uk or call directly on 01869 233324

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Opinion from Jonathan Hill

Cities across the country are following the lead of the Mayor of London, and ULEZ (Ultra Low Emissions Zone), by implementing their own measures to reduce carbon produced by combustion engines.  
 
Xpression are based just outside Oxford, where Oxfordshire County Council and Oxford City Council have introduced a zero emission zone (ZEZ) to improve air quality, cut carbon emissions and move towards zero emission travel in the city.  The ZEZ is an area of Oxford where zero emission vehicles such as fully electric motor cycles, bicycles, cars and vans can be used without incurring charge but where others may be charged – including hybrids.  
 
Jonathan Hill, MD of Xpression Logistics said “we are investigating a number of ideas to reduce costs for our customers who need to deliver or collect goods from inner-cities, finding ways to minimise the daily fees incurred by combustion engines, whilst cutting carbon”.   There are a number of ideas they are investigating but the most obvious was for the business to invest in electric vehicles (including electric vans) to add to their electric car fleet.  “We have already worked on a number of carbon-reducing ideas such as running all diesel generators on carbon-offset fuel with which we also intend to run two vehicles on the logistics fleet” said Mr Hill. 
 
Xpression have for many years had a close relationship with Volkswagen and therefore their first instinct was to research (and then purchase) a Buzz.  Mr Hill said “the initial opinion of the drivers what sceptical, but as each of them has the opportunity to test drive the Buzz and use it to make deliveries, their minds are quickly changed”.   EV technology has improved dramatically over the years and the Buzz is proving to be able to do nearly 300 miles on a full battery, charge quickly, have plenty of space to carry customers’ goods and (importantly to the team) is exceptionally comfortable to drive.  
 
“We took the Buzz to the British Grand Prix at Silverstone this year and it was ideal, as well as attracting a lot of attention”.   Mr Hill added  “I am not concerned about the future of logistics in an EV world, every problem is an opportunity and this company is looking forward to managing those opportunities going forward”
 
For more information please email Jonathan@xpressionevents.co.uk or call 01869 232234

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Opinion from Andrew Ryan, Director at Halo

When John Pemberton invented Coca-Cola in 1886, not even their catchy positioning of “Delicious! Refreshing! Exhilarating! Invigorating!” could persuade consumers to try it over all the other carbonated wonder tonics and elixirs already on the market.

So, to help increase sales his bookkeeper started giving away tickets for free tastes of Coke, but Pemberton chastised him for extravagance. Fast forward a few years when tycoon Asa Griggs Candler bought the company in 1888, he revisited the bookkeeper’s idea, and distributed thousands of bits of paper like the ones above, and so the coupon as we know it was born.

By 1913, Coca-Cola had redeemed over 8.5 million free drink coupons.

Thankfully the humble coupon itself has made a smooth transition to the 21st century and the new dawn of digital coupons will soon be the norm. If you want to boost your sales and attract more consumers, couponing is still a solid marketing tool to use. Coupons can help you create a sense of urgency, reward loyal consumers and increase brand awareness.

This is especially true in the cost-of-living crisis when consumers are even more value conscious. The tightening of consumer purse strings is placing an even greater demand on the need to deliver value where it matters. This is being born out from our findings across the UK, Europe, Africa and the US that there is a noticeable increase in response and uptake on any promotion that delivers real consumer value. Free and Save messages are currently outperforming all other mechanics.

However, unknown performance can place greater demands on budgets which is where Fixed Fee comes in to provide much needed cost certainty. Fixed Fee is perfect for when costs are variable and the final outcome is unknown. It allows a campaign to be budgeted for regardless of the final performance, protecting the variable costs under a one off completely covered​ Fixed Fee with the backing of re-insurance.

By combining the powerful mechanic of couponing with the cost certainty benefits of Fixed Fee, brands can better navigate these tough trading conditions.​

Why coupons?

1. Couponing creates a sense of urgency. When consumers see that a coupon has an expiration date, they are more likely to act fast and make a purchase before they miss out on a good deal.
2. Couponing appeals to the masses, everyone loves saving money, and couponing allows consumers to feel like they are getting more value for their money.
3. Couponing encourages repeat purchases. By offering coupons that can be redeemed on future purchases, you can increase consumer retention and loyalty. You can also use coupons to cross-sell or upsell other products or services that complement your main offer.
4. Couponing generates word-of-mouth. Social sharing. When consumers are happy with purchases, they’re more likely to share their positive experiences with friends and family. You can also incentivize referrals by offering coupons to both the referrer and the referee.

  Quick couponing checklist                                         

• Set clear goals and objectives for your coupon campaign. What do you want to achieve? Who do you want to target? How will you measure your success?
• Choose the right type of coupon for your offer. There are different types of coupons, such as percentage off, £1 off, buy one get one free, free delivery. Choose the one that best suits your product or service and your target audience.

Tracking, ROI and first party data

• Analyse and optimise your coupon campaign. You can monitor and evaluate the results of your coupon campaign regularly. You can use metrics such as redemption rate, conversion rate, average order value, consumer acquisition cost, consumer lifetime value. You can also collect feedback from your consumers to improve your offer and consumer experience.
• Coupons can help you collect valuable consumer data and feedback. You can use coupons to ask consumers for their email addresses, phone numbers, or opinions. This can help you build your consumer database and improve your marketing strategies.

The humble coupon might not get the recognition it deserves, especially at awards events, but you clients will thank you for the direct impact it can have on driving trade.

Couponing is certainly not broken, far from it, but they might need fixing in which case we’d be delighted to help.

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The IPM is delighted to welcome members to take part in our brand new Webinar Series. As a member of the IPM, you now have the opportunity to share invaluable knowledge, champion thought leadership and raise your profile.

In the fast-paced world of promotional marketing, staying up to date with the latest trends, strategies, and insights is essential for success. The IPM Webinar Series offers you a unique platform to engage with industry experts, thought leaders, and seasoned professionals who are at the forefront of promotional marketing. Through these webinars, you’ll have access to cutting-edge information, innovative ideas, and best practices that can propel your campaigns to new heights.

Taking part in The IPM Webinar Series is free for IPM members. For more information on how you can get involved contact emmak@theipm.org.uk

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The IPM are delighted to launch the 2023 IPM Awards, celebrating the success, innovation and creativity that is carried out right across the promotional marketing industry.

This is your chance to recognise the outstanding campaigns and showcase the achievements delivered by you and your team. Find out more.

This year the IPM celebrates its 90th year, and we look forward to getting together with you all to celebrate all the incredible campaigns that have been delivered.

This year, our categories reflect our long-standing IPM awards with the reintroduction of sectors and our member community groups across the promotional marketing spectrum.

Don’t delay, you have until 31st March for the Early Bird Deadline. For more information on this year’s awards including pricing and eligibility criteria, please visit our website or click here to register on our awards platform and start your entry.

We wish you all much success in this year’s IPM Awards.

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GottaBe! are currently celebrating their 15^th anniversary and what better way of doing so than with an award.

This year at the GG2 Leadership & Diversity Awards GottaBe! brought home the GG2 Independent Agency of the Year 2022 Award.

The GG2 Independent Agency of the Year Award recognises the small agencies that have made a difference within this space over the past year. GottaBe! spent 2022 once again championing Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion through work with clients such as Western Union, National Trust, NHS, Severn Trent and more. As well as through their tireless work to educate, encourage and empower brands and other marketing professionals to engage with minority audiences. 

Tomasz Dyl, Managing Director and Founder said, “It is always great to be recognised for the work you do. I would like to thank the entire team for the hours they point in to help support our clients in making a difference. I would also like to thank our clients for always trusting in what we believe and supporting us on our journey through 15 years.”

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