PayAsUGym, the UK’s largest virtual gym chain, has appointed partnership marketing experts LIME Communications to manage its brand partnership program during 2018, after a successful trial at the end of 2017.

PayAsUGym first approached Lime in October 2017, asking them to approach relevant brands to help drive brand awareness and new customer acquisition. Since then, Tough Mudder, Gap Fit, O2 Priority, Simply Cook and eHarmony have signed up as partners, with more in the pipeline.

For the Tough Mudder relationship, PayAsUGym offered all Tough Mudder customers a 25% discount off a three month Monthly+ pass, while Tough Mudder offered all PayAsUGym customers 25% off Tough Mudder entry tickets. They also ran a joint competition with a prize of two Tough Mudder season passes, with everyone entering receiving a 25% discount off any future UK Tough Mudder event. The partnership was communicated across Tough Mudder’s newsletter, Facebook and Blog and across PayAsUGym’s social channels.

While no single UK gym operator has enough venues to serve a national customer base (even the largest gym chain only has around 150 clubs), PayAsUGym says it has built a network of 3,000 gyms and health clubs, which delivers scale and reach for brand partners.

Neil Harmsworth, COO & Co-Founder of PayAsUGym, says: “PayAsUGym is a unique proposition, and we are seeing a huge increase in customers looking for a gym services that offers total flexibility. We see partnerships being a huge part of helping us to raise awareness of what we have to offer in what is a very crowded and busy market place. We are really pleased to have Lime on board to help us achieve our objectives for the year ahead.”

Tim Hook, Head Of Brand Partnerships at Lime, adds: “Partnerships have become a huge focus for brands, due to the role they can play with helping drive brand awareness and acquisition, often at a fraction of the cost of traditional media. They also allow brands to talk to new audiences and unlock exciting and topical content and offers.”

PayAsUGym claims to be the UK’s largest virtual gym chain, with almost 3,000 participating gyms – almost half of all gyms and health clubs across the country – meaning it has a gym in 96% of postcodes in the UK

Consumers can use the network to exercise anywhere, anytime at thousands of gyms, pools, fitness classes and spas. They can sign up for unlimited membership to the whole network or pick and choose discounted day passes or bundles without the need to sign up to a contract with no admin, no induction process and the option to cancel anytime.

Lime Communications is a brand partnerships and sales promotion agency specialising in connecting brands with entertainment, sport and leisure. Clients include Mars, P&G, Pizza Express, Merlin, Rakuten and Interflora.

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Sony Pictures Releasing UK has appointed agency Lime Communications to manage its brand partnerships and promotional marketing activity on all its key theatrical and home entertainment releases.

Sony’s slate of 2018 releases includes Hotel Transylvania 3 (July 27^th), Venom (October 5^th) and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (December 14^th), as well as the home entertainment release of The Crown Series 2 late next year.

Peter Staines, Head of UK Partnerships at Sony Pictures, says: “We’re delighted to be working with Lime. Their creativity and knowledge of the promotional landscape in the UK is second to none and we look forward to delivering best-in-class promotional partnerships on what is an exciting and diverse slate of movies.”

Alex Ward, CEO of Lime, comments: “We’re absolutely thrilled to be representing Sony Pictures in the UK. Their slate of films in 2018 and beyond is incredibly impressive.”

Lime Communications works with media companies and brands to create media partnerships (particularly ones involving film, sports and gaming properties), sales promotion campaigns, retail activations and experiential marketing. It works with leading film and TV distributors as well as leading FMCG brands, including Mars, Procter & Gamble and Pizza Express.

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PizzaExpress is launching a brand new campaign called PizzaExpress Film Club, an on-pack led promotion running on one million pizza boxes exclusively in Sainsbury’s, offering consumers a film with every pack, in partnership with video-on-demand (VOD) streaming service wuaki.tv.

The campaign will run from June 8^th to August 31^st. To claim a film, consumers simply have to purchase a pack and enter the promotional code found inside the pizza box along with their details into the PizzaExpress Film Club promotional website at www.pizzaexpressfilmclub.com, where there are over 1,000 films from which to choose.

The promotional partnership was put together and is being run by brand partnerships and sales promotions agency Lime Communications. Tim Hook, Head of Brands at Lime, says: “We are delighted to be managing this partnership on behalf of PizzaExpress. Pizza is the favoured choice for friends, getting together for a big night in, so offering a complimentary movie makes perfect sense, and as digital download sales look set to surpass traditional DVD sales in the UK for the first time in 2016 , it couldn’t be a better time to launch this exciting and innovative offer.”

wuaki.tv is a (VOD) streaming service operating in Spain, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Austria and Ireland. Headquartered in Barcelona, it is owned by Japanese e-commerce and online services giant Rakuten. It provides film club services for a number of companies including EE.

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Butterkist popcorn is launching a new campaign called Kick for Cash, coinciding with the run up to the 2016 UEFA European Championships or Euro 2016, with an online ‘penalty challenge’ game offering consumers the chance to win a share of £1m.

The on-pack promotion will appear on more than 8.5 million bags, including best-selling SKUs Toffee, Cinema Sweet, Sweet & Salted, Salted, and Sweet. Consumers will be driven to the Butterkist website, www.butterkist.co.uk, where they can register their details and then enter the barcode from their pack to be able to play the penalty shootout game.

They then get to control a penalty kick and will be instantly told if they have won one of the cash prizes on offer, which will be worth £10, £50, £100 or £1,000. Everyone who takes part in the promotion will be rewarded with a 50p Money Off Next Purchase coupon for Butterkist popcorn.

The campaign will run from May 2nd to August 31st with promotional packs in all the major multiples, convenience stores and wholesalers.

The promotion was created and will be managed by agency Lime Communications.

Butterkist is not a sponsor of the Euro 2016 tournament and so has to be careful to avoid suggesting any official link. As a result, its marketing will focus on encouraging people to share their enjoyment of the upcoming summer of sport, particularly football. It ran a similar promotion, Try for Cash, during last year’s Rugby World Cup.

Anjna Mistry, Senior Brand Manager for Butterkist, says: “The ‘Try for Cash’ promotion last year during the Rugby World Cup was very successful and I look forward to the Kick For Cash promotion generating more incremental sales as the chance for consumers to win a share of a bigger prize fund increases. Football is a sport that unites the nation and Butterkist is one of the few snack brands that brings people together, making it a perfect snack to enjoy whilst friends and family get together during this sporting event.”

Butterkist is the UK’s leading brand of popcorn with around 40% of the £90m market. It is owned by Tangerine Confectionery.

Lime Communications is a leading brand partnership and sales promotion agency. Offering services including brand and media partnerships, sales promotion and experiential marketing, it is best known for creating promotions linking brands with film, sports and gaming.

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Chinese sauce brand Lee Kum Kee has partnered with Twentieth Century Fox and DreamWorks Animation to feature characters from the new movie, Kung Fu Panda 3, in its latest brand campaign.

Lee Kum Kee, founded in 1888 by the inventor of Oyster Sauce, kicked off the ‘Let’s Panda’ campaign during the Chinese New Year celebrations in February, with it reaching its peak this week to mark the release of Kung Fu Panda 3 which opens in the UK on March 11th.

Put together by Lime Communications, Twentieth Century Fox’s retained brand partnerships agency, the campaign is supported by a significant investment in advertising across outdoor, print, digital and retail channels. Lee Kum Kee also created limited edition labels for its four key products (Premium dark soy sauce; Premium light soy sauce; Pure sesame oil; and Chiu chow chilli oil) and has been running an on-pack promotion in Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Waitrose, Morrison’s and independent Chinese retailers.

A bespoke recipe book was created in partnership with food Vloggers ‘The Dumpling Sisters’ and is being distributed through foodie magazines, at cooking demos and via sampling events at VUE cinemas.

Lee Kum Kee is running a gift with purchase promotion (offering consumers a choice of four bespoke Kung Fu Panda 3 bowls) as well as the chance to win trips to Europe to visit real life pandas.

The partnership campaign has also been running in Germany and The Netherlands.

Shuang Cheng, Marketing Manager for Lee Kum Kee Europe, comments: “We are thrilled to be part of the release of Kung Fu Panda 3 – the latest DreamWorks Animation movie. With the ‘Let’s Panda’ campaign, we are looking to introduce the range of our awesome Chinese sauces, provide consumers with inspirations of authentic, home-made taste, and also use it as a great way to engage with a much loved movie.”

In Kung Fu Panda 3, hero Po is reunited with his long-lost panda father and has to train a village full of his fun-loving, clumsy brethren to become Kung Fu Pandas to fight a supernatural villain.

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