The UK’s most effective brand activation agency, zeal creative, has appointed Tim Solano as Managing Director in London. Tim will support zeal’s mission to be the world’s most recommended agency with a remit to deliver with excellence for clients and to triple the size of the agency’s London operation.

Coming from a multidisciplinary background, Tim connects campaign delivery, brand activation and the growing need for digital engagement – all of which is sought out by forward-looking brands in the FMCG, lifestyle and drinks space. He will support zeal to build on its proven effectiveness and reputation in brand activation. Tim will also work alongside the team to build digital activation into all consumer and brand engagement.

Tim brings 20 years of client and agency experience across brand activation, campaign and agency leadership. He joins zeal from Because, a Global BTL agency where he was MD for three years. Prior to that he was MD at A Little Bird.

Tim’s proven track record growing agencies and brands is part of zeal’s continued investment in people, growing the business across the UK and internationally while maintaining a clear focus on effectiveness and excellence for clients. 

zeal creative’s founder and Creative Director Stewart Hilton comments:

“We have taken a long time to find the right candidate for this important role and in Tim we feel we have someone that our existing clients will love to work with.  He is passionate about building high performing teams and relentless in helping his clients to consistently improve their results. He is a perfect fit for our agency’s focus on effectiveness and we are sure he will be able to hit our ambitious growth targets and help zeal become a big name in the capital.”

Tim Solano, MD for zeal creative London, says:

“Joining at such an exciting part of zeal’s growth journey is a career defining opportunity. The agency’s consistent performance for delivering client success combined with the passion shown by the founders was an incredible draw for me. I look forward to continuing the stellar growth achieved by the London team as we expand the business and our service offering across the UK and wider global markets.”

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The key motivation for running a consumer promotion is always business growth.  This might be stimulation of short-term sales but also an increase of brand equity leading to longer-term sales too.  

However, one of the additional benefits of running activations is the opportunity to capture incredibly valuable information about your shoppers and build your database of customers.  

Data is the heartbeat of every business and all need to know more about their customer.  Even if you think you know them now you want to stay in touch with them to help define your future plans and that customer contact will always need to evolve and grow.  The reliance on third party data providers is expensive and facing more challenges especially online with the deprecation of cookies (even if that has been delayed).

There are brands that do not naturally lend themselves to engagement online where almost all customer data capture now happens.  For low interest categories, more functional products and impulse purchases the traffic volume to a brand website might be incredibly low as a proportion of shoppers.  Some brands really do need an incentive or value exchange to get the traction.   

Consumer promotions present an opportunity to drive visits to a brand environment and acquire fresh customer data.  It is important to point out that the relevant data privacy rules must be respected and opt-in / opt-out checks in place.  However, the potential for customer connection and data generation through promotions is often overlooked and undervalued.

5 reasons to collect customer data

Better understand your customer

Learn more about your customers with the potential to even segment your target audiences for future growth.  Even a few simple questions (on an entry form for a promotion for example) can help drive future product development, influence communications or determine the next promotional plan.

Build and evolve your CRM

Gain permission to re-contact customers and achieve greater understanding of them.  Upsell, cross-sell or get early feedback for NPD and offers.

Open up to customer feedback

Make connections, build trust and enable customers to share their challenges and contribute to future success. 

Drive advocacy

Word-of-mouth and peer recommendations are incredibly powerful and enabling a friend-get-friend approach (respecting data privacy) to sharing news and offers including promotions (such as Mars’ Win2Gether) increases the opportunity to learn even more about even more of your customers.

Enable measurement

With customer data you have the ability to track, measure and evaluate marketing activity as well as brand equity.  A more robust customer database can help with control & test experiments too and benchmark performance over time.

Chris Arnold is Business Development Director at VCG PromoRisk.

Contact: chris@vcgpromorisk.com

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Jägermeister UK will open the doors to the first Jäger coffee shop in the heart of East London.  Yes, you heard that correctly. In celebration of Jägermeister Cold Brew Coffee Liqueur, ‘Coffee Haus’ will open its doors to the public on Thursday August 19th, from 9.30am – 3.30pm serving a full menu of complimentary coffee from Caravan Coffee Roasters, to be enjoyed with friends. Visitors will also receive a sample size Jägermeister Cold Brew Coffee bottle to take-away.

As if that wasn’t enough, next to the doorway, visitors will find the innovatively designed Jägermeister Cold Brew coffee dispensing billboard, issuing complimentary bags of premium Caravan Coffee Roasters coffee beans. People have already been seen lining up to grab their take-away bags of coffee, dispensed from the giant billboard bottle of Jägermeister Cold Brew, and another 300 bags will be available with the Coffee Haus opening.

Coffee Haus will be open to the general public, serving a variety of complementary coffee styles available on a first come, first served basis. People are invited to visit and enjoy a Coffee Haus like no other, done in a way that only Jägermeister could. Guests will be able to enjoy a full menu of freshly brewed Caravan coffee while enjoying the unmistakable vibe a Jägermeister event brings.

All who pop in will receive a goody bag containing Jägermeister Cold Brew minis, a coffee bean grinder and Jägermeister Cold Brew Cocktail Recipe Cards.

COFFEE HAUS ADDRESS: 347 Old St, London EC1V 9LP

OPENING TIMES: 9:30am – 4pm

Jägermeister Cold Brew is the unique fusion of Jägermeister’s 56 botanicals with a backbeat of intense cold brew coffee.

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TWELVE Agency have just wrapped up the delivery of Old Mout Cider’s KIWI Camp at this year’s Boardmasters festival.

The festival within a festival delivers a packed weekend of entertainment, including Disco Yoga, Rockaoke, fashion upcycling and lots more.  It is a place where the curious, adventure-seeking, progressive and environmentally-aware can have fun, and enjoy an Old Mout whilst doing good!

Since its inception, the Kiwi Camp has grown year-on-year and achieved destination status across the festival circuit. Over the years more than 100,000 people have visited the camp and hundreds of millions more have read about it.

It’s a place for people to enjoy themselves, with a bar, activities, a range of entertainment acts and quirky spaces to simply hang out. But crucially, it has also become a place where people can actively get involved in the good work Old Mout do by supporting their charitable campaign, or simply by looking after the environment and reducing their footprint at the festival.

KIWI Camp moves on to Isle of Wight Festival on 16^th September.

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National BBQ Week returns in early July to celebrate 25 years of better British BBQ.

Sponsored by leading grocery brands, as one of the UK’s top awareness weeks*, National BBQ Week both educates and encourages consumers to become better BBQ’ers and enjoy alfresco eating, as our lifestyles continue to be more home-centric.

In recognition of its Silver Anniversary, this year, National BBQ Week will run for three weeks and will offer consumers a longer opportunity to celebrate better BBQ and gastro grilling and allow them to enjoy long-awaited reunions with friends and family, without social-distancing restrictions. Launching on July 5^th and running to July 18^th, National BBQ Week, will see the return of live BBQ sampling Roadshows, in addition to major events such as Barbi for Britain and the BBQ Baptas, plus brand sponsored competitions. The week will also be supported with a major digital, PR and social strategy – including the launch of a new website, that will act as a ‘go to’ BBQ information resource covering BBQ tips, advice, recipes and BarbiBlog.

The 25^th National BBQ Week is supported by leading grocery brands including:

Wine – Beefsteak Club

Plant Based – Birds Eye Green Cuisine

Beer – Budweiser

Sauce – Bull’s-Eye

Meat- Sainsbury’s Summer Edition

Soft Drink – Shloer

Chief GrillMaster and founder of National BBQ Week, Brian George, said: “We are delighted to be celebrating a Quarter Century of Better British BBQ. BBQ & alfresco eating and entertaining is now the UK’s No.1 at-home, summer leisure activity with now 3 out of 4 households owning a BBQ grill.

We’re also delighted to welcome back our major brand sponsors, all of whom we’ve previously worked with over a number of years. With a dynamic market currently worth around £1.7 billion, we predict that, with the lifting of social restrictions, this will significantly increase, delivering up to 200 million BBQ occasions this year, so we’re thrilled to continue to encourage consumers to be Better BBQ’ers.”

For more information, BBQ facts, tips and advice plus brilliant recipes please visit www.nationalbbqweek.co,uk

*PR Week

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Crown Brands Live are excited to announce the launch of City experiential with Culture Liverpool. Our first partnership is with Circle Agency and together we welcome global brand Costa Coffee to the City of Liverpool.

Kicking off a 7 date nationwide roadshow, Costa will be reinforcing their status as an official partner of UEFA Euro 2020™, by offering the chance to win tickets to the UEFA Euro Cup Final 2020^TM. Snap a pic of Costa 1, Costa’s newly launched coffee truck- featuring the brand’s state of the art Costa Express machines , and share on Instagram, tagging @costacoffee using #SpotCosta1 for your chance to win.  We are very excited that Costa Coffee have chosen to launch the tour in Liverpool and look forward to welcoming them to Liverpool Lime Street Station in June.  This will be the first of many brand activations, we are excited to bring to the City of Liverpool this summer and throughout the rest of 2021!

For a summer of experiential opportunities in the City of Liverpool please contact Jack at jack.horlock@crowntalentgroup.com

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We worked directly with Givenchy to provide a team of sales staff who raised awareness and drove sales of the Givenchy hero fragrance: L’Interdit, during a key period. The team activated an 18 day sampling and gift-wrapping campaign on the Givenchy pop up stand at the Trafford Centre Manchester.

Our pool of carefully selected and thoroughly trained staff represented the brand’s values and brought to life it’s rich history in the few seconds that they occupied shoppers’ attention, and successfully drove record sales.  The POD team used their selling expertise to cross-sell and maximised opportunities, also offering a bespoke gift wrapping  and calligraphy service to complement the customer experience.
Key to the success of the activity were the bespoke COVID safety measures we put in place including PPE, regular cleaning and sanitisation and social distancing protocols. Each of these ensured the safety of both visitors and staff, instilling consumer confidence in the brand experience and team – a necessity for the times.

“I can not praise and thank you guys enough. This campaign has been the best yet. You all worked so hard. The team worked as one and together we have smashed last year sales and this year’s target. Thank you again.” Tony Coxon Account Manager Givench

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LONDON, 15^th April 2021 – Trebor, the Mondelēz International-owned confectionery brand, is bringing back its iconic “minty bit stronger” jingle in a new campaign to mark its 100^th anniversary. The push was developed in partnership with creative agency ELVIS.

In order to build brand love and drive consideration, the campaign aims to rekindle the emotional connection that people had to Trebor in the past, in a way that celebrates its longevity but also resonates with a new, younger audience.

ELVIS and Trebor are tapping into nostalgia for the advertising that the brand has become known for, reimagining the much-loved Trebor Extra Strong Mints jingle (“Trebor Mints are a minty bit stronger”) that was originally created in 1969.

The campaign features an all-new revamped version of the famous jingle, recorded by a leading gospel music singer and featuring new lyrics.

The push will run on radio and across social media channels including Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.

As part of the activity, Trebor and ELVIS have also created a 100-mint-long promotional Trebor pack, in the brand’s biggest promotion in recent years. People can win one of the special packs and £/€10,000 or £/€100 by scanning any normal Trebor pack at trebor.co.uk to see if it grows extra-long.

Media strategy and buying for the campaign is by Carat.

Alistair Scrimgeour, Brand Manager, Trebor, said: “Trebor has a history of distinctive advertising, and our “minty bit stronger” jingle remains in the public’s consciousness to this day. To mark our milestone anniversary, we wanted to tap into the nostalgia and love that people have for the jingle while also reaching a whole new audience who may not have heard it before.”

 Rob McEvoy, Senior Creative, ELVIS, added: “The opportunity to recreate an iconic jingle doesn’t come around very often. It was our responsibility to put a unique spin on a classic – to find a way to be faithful enough to the original while at the same time delivering an unexpected twist that would resonate with today’s audience.”

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Brand Culture, specialists in entertainment and lifestyle partnerships and promotions, have powered up their client Energizer’s 2020 Christmas promotional campaign. 

Continuing with their long term international marketing strategy for Energizer, ‘Highly Commended’ at The Drum Marketing Awards this year, the promotion once again tapped into Energizer consumers’ passion for travel, offering them 10% off their next hotel stay with Hotels.com.

Building on the success of previous campaigns, the promotion has expanded to include over 40 markets across EMEA and APAC.

With Covid-19 having impacted consumer ability to get away, the Hotels.com offer should help fulfill pent up demand to enjoy a break, either as a staycation or abroad. Additionally, an extended promotional redemption period will help ensure Energizer consumers can enjoy the Longer Lasting holiday offer when they can travel again.

Scott White, CEO of Brand Culture adds: “It’s been a really collaborative effort across the agency and with Energizer to make this happen in so many markets. Whilst we do these large multi-market campaigns regularly, they don’t get any less complex, and with the pandemic thrown in to the mix, I’m particularly proud of how the account team has pulled together to make it happen.”

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Creative agency Space has developed a campaign for Nature Valley that sees the UK’s #2 cereal bar brand^[1] teaming up with Tripadvisor, the world’s largest travel platform, to encourage Brits to explore some of the UK’s most beautiful nature spots, in a new £1.8 million #visitnature campaign.

The promotion, which will see Nature Valley become the first ever FMCG brand to partner with Tripadvisor in Europe, will run from 14^th September for six weeks.

Nature Valley-curated travel guides and bespoke trips, all designed to boost UK tourism by showcasing the stunning locations our country has to offer, will feature across the Tripadvisor site.

The content will be promoted via a raft of media activity, created by Space, which includes social media (Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest) and digital advertising, directing people to Nature Valley and Tripadvisor bespoke guides, inspiring them to book their next adventure. The campaign is also supported by TV.

The campaign takes its cues from the tourism industry’s advertising language and imagery, and inspires consumers to explore the nature on their doorsteps, supporting the brand’s global mission to encourage everyone to simply ‘get out more’. Nature-inspired scenes and Imagery featured in the campaign creative is sourced from Tripadvisor reviews of the locations, and activities featured in three Nature Valley-themed guides.

#visitnature also includes a competition, running across Facebook and Instagram, that encourages consumers to upload a photograph they have taken while outdoors, enjoying nature, tagging #visitnature and @naturevalley.  The winners will bag an ultimate trip to nature for four people, including Tripadvisor-recommended activities, and will see their images included as part of the campaign.

Helene Henderson, Brand Manager, Nature Valley, said: “With limited travel options in the coming months, we’re encouraging people across the country to fall in love with UK nature and enjoy the exact same escapism that a trip abroad can offer.

“Space has delivered a first-of-its-kind partnership for Nature Valley, and an exciting evolution of our Get Out More campaign which further highlights our tasty range of Nature Valley snack bars as the ideal accompaniment for an outdoor adventure.”

Sean Kelly, Associate Director, Space, said: “The lockdown restrictions in the UK have seen so many people begin to appreciate the joys of discovering the local beauty spots and attractions on their doorstep, and we want to encourage them to do this more. Tripadvisor was the perfect partner to join with Nature Valley’s mission to get everybody out more, providing guides and suggestions based on real reviews and experiences supporting our unique tourism theme.”

The #visitnature initiative is part of a whopping £10 million marketing investment by Nature Valley-owner General Mills, the #1 manufacturer in Better For You Snacks^[2], to support its three leading brands: Nature Valley, Fibre One and LÄRABAR.

The new campaign is expected to reach 5.6million people within Nature Valley’s target audience. Retailers are encouraged to stock up on the brand’s wide range of snack bars to meet increased demand.

^[1] Nielsen last 52 Weeks | Currency: USD | Market: Total Coverage including Discounters

^[2] Nielsen total coverage Latest 4 weeks

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