Creative agency ELVIS has made a raft of new hires and boosted its creative firepower following a period of significant growth, which has seen it pick up five pieces of new business in the last year, including ODEON Cinemas Group’s pan-European creative account. 

In a move to further strengthen its award-winning creative output, the agency has appointed Tom Gudgeon to the newly created role of Head of Design. Gudgeon joins ELVIS having previously worked at agencies including AnalogFolk, McCann Enterprise and The Playground.

In his new role at ELVIS, Gudgeon will lead the charge on building the agency’s design credentials, aiming to inspire and mentor the growing design team and continuing its success as a Yellow D&AD pencil-winning studio.

ELVIS has also hired Akanksha Oberoi to the position of Senior Creative. With significant experience of delivering high-quality brand-first ideas with an emotional impact, Oberoi was previously Creative Group Head at Grey and VCCP Singapore, before moving over to VCCP London.

In her new position, Oberoi will take a leading role on projects working across the agency’s client portfolio, supporting its Creative Directors in identifying award-winning creative opportunities. 

The agency’s other key new hires include George Walters and Bernard Burton, who join as a midweight creative team from MullenLowe London, where they spent just over six years.

At ELVIS, Walters and Burton will work closely with the agency’s Creative Directors as they push to make career-defining work.

Adding to its growing motion team, ELVIS has also appointed Rhys Clarke and Pui Yi Peri Chiu as Motion Designers. Clarke joins having previously held roles at McCann Worldgroup and Joint London, while Chiu joins from RD Content, where her work included motion graphics, graphic design, illustration and video editing.

Clarke and Chiu’s primary focus at ELVIS will be creating video content, encompassing 2D and 3D design, video production, VFX and motion graphics.

In addition to the six creative hires, the agency has also appointed Robyn Lyness as Account Director. Lyness was most recently in a similar role at Field Day London, and has experience of working both client- and agency-side, having held positions at Tesco and Paperchase as well as agency Haygarth, where she spent four years delivering a wide range of strategic and activation-led shopper marketing projects across a variety of FMCG and drinks accounts.

In her new role, Lyness will work on the agency’s Mondelez and PepsiCo accounts, leading on key European campaigns.

ELVIS grew its headcount by nearly ten percent in 2021, following growth from new business and existing clients.

Tom Gudgeon, new Head of Design, ELVIS, said: “What appealed to me most about ELVIS first and foremost was the people, closely followed by the role itself. I jumped at the chance to work with such an amazing team, in a space where I could make a real difference to work that really mattered. It really was a no-brainer.”

Neale Horrigan, Executive Creative Director, ELVIS, added: “These exciting new appointments reflect our growing client portfolio as well as our commitment to further boosting our creative output by hiring the industry’s best talent.”

The post Raft of New Hires at ELVIS Boosts Creative Firepower Following Period of Growth appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

Tottenham Hotspur FC has again picked specialist staffing agency StreetPR to provide a team of ‘fanbassadors’ to welcome supporters to its games. This time they will be delivering services at the new stadium.

StreetPR, part of Crowdify Global, previously helped Tottenham welcome fans to its temporary home, Wembley Stadium, following the demolition and redevelopment of the White Hart Lane site.

The first official Premier League match to take place in the new stadium will be against Crystal Palace on April 3th 2019. However, under official rules, Spurs must hold two test events before it can get a formal safety certificate.

StreetPR ‘fanbassadors’ will be deployed outside the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the hours before kick-off. Their role will be to meet and greet fans and hand out flags, stadium guides, posters and offering face painting for youngsters.

The contract between Tottenham and StreetPR at Wembley was initially for one year, covering the 2017/18 football season, for all Tottenham home matches at Wembley. That contract has now been extended to cover the 2018/19 season at the new stadium.

Dorian Payne, Client Services Director at StreetPR, says: “What can I say? We were over the moon when Tottenham asked us to provide fanbassadors at Wembley, and you can imagine how chuffed we are to be working with them at their amazing new stadium. They are a worldwide brand, and we’ve been developing a whole range of new fun and engaging activities which we’ll be rolling out as the season progresses to engage fans, and drive Tottenham Hotspur’s membership sign up.”

The post Tottenham Hotspur FC appoints StreetPR for new stadium ‘Fanbassador’ role appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

Written by Paul Cope, Managing Director of the IPM in collaboration with Andrew Orr, Client Services Director, TRO, Helen Hanson, Founder and Creative Director, Hel’s Angels, Neil Survilla, Business Director, Kreate and Joe Sheppard, Managing Director, POD Staffing.

This article was first featured in Campaign this week and presented by this group on behalf of the IPM Experiential Community at the Event Production Show, Olympia on 26^th February.

The past decade has seen a much-reported surge in the ‘experience economy’. People are seeing the value of moments and interactions over stuff. Which makes sense. We’ve got loads of stuff, but we crave opportunities to connect, experience and share more than ever. Watch ‘Minimalism’ on Netflix, read ‘Stuffocation’ by James Wallman or talk to your nearest millennial if you’re yet to be convinced by this burgeoning trend.

As a consequence, the expectation of what experiential marketing can, and should, achieve for brands has not unreasonably increased significantly. Our understanding of consumer behaviour and how people interact with experiences, the opportunities presented by emerging new tech, and the tools and techniques we use to measure the effectiveness of these experiences have all evolved at great pace.

However, this development doesn’t appear to be equally true of the highly specialist area of experiential staffing. Commoditisation and a ‘race to the bottom’ on price have been worryingly prevalent during the same ten-year period. Hourly rates have, for the most part, remained at the same level as they were in 2009. Not when adjusted for inflation or in real terms… the same amount. This has had – and is having – a hugely detrimental effect on the quality of individual that can be hired and the level of training that can be given, inevitably impacting the success of experiential activation.

According to Andrew Orr, Client Services Director at TRO: “In a world seemingly dominated by the language of uncertainty – the gig economy, surveillance capitalism, fake news, chat bots, click farms, Artificial Intelligence and so on – people are crying out for the human touch, and that includes from brands. In our headlong rush towards all things tech, it is essential that we don’t forget the human and their unique role in delivering emotional connection”.

Who hasn’t been enjoying a well thought-through and fantastically realised event or brand experience, only to have the whole thing scuppered by a monosyllabic gum-chewing student or grumpy out of work actor thrusting a product sample in your general direction? Often this is the outcome of a depressingly familiar erosion of the staff hourly rate and training cuts throughout the development process, and is entirely avoidable.

Effective recruitment and appropriate levels of training are, of course, essential steps in delivering remarkable human interaction. Helen Hanson, Creative Director and founder of Hel’s Angels, is very clear on this point: “There are many different types of staffing, but we must accept that experiences which demand hand-picked and trained Brand Ambassadors will cost more. The job of a Brand Ambassador is often to be the face of a brand, to create a bond of trust between that brand and its target consumers. Like any credible role, this requires a thorough search and selection process, skills testing, cultural mapping and matching, and a fit-for-purpose training programme.”

Perhaps then, by glimpsing into the near future and attempting to understand the context within which brand experiences will need to perform, we can truly appreciate what we need to do now from a staffing point of view to positively influence success. For Neil Survilla, Business Director at Kreate, the first step is to appreciate the cultural landscape: “We’re seeing a number of growing trends that are influencing the work we do: the desire for deeper, longer-term experiences, the expectation of cultural relevance and appreciation, sustainability, seamless integration of tech, social reach and proof of success. These are all aspects which require very specific skills from the brand ambassadors staffing the experience, and if any of these elements falter then effectiveness measures usually suffer”.

Add to this the need for water-tight compliance (codes of conduct, HFSS, GDPR, employment law etc), the opportunity to develop rich content that can be enjoyed beyond a one-off experiential campaign, and a growing transactional/retail aspect and it’s clear that much is expected of the people at the brand coalface.

At the IPM we will be supporting the industry in this evolution of the brand ambassador, specifically by working with our members (and beyond) to agree future-proofed standards of skills, training, pay and conduct. Creating a support network that protects brands, staff and agencies alike, and calling out great – and less than great – working practices, will go some of the way to securing a bright future for experiential staffing. The rest will be up to the people that do it.

I’ll leave the last word to Joe Sheppard, Managing Director of POD Staffing: “Our industry is actually in a pretty good place. The benefits of experiential are clear. But there’s still work to be done. The very best activations have a quality brand ambassador team at their heart, so cutting standards, pay and training at this key point of interaction is completely counter-productive”.

The message, then, is clear: when it comes to implementing great brand experiences, whatever you do, don’t forget the human.

The post When it comes to implementing great brand experiences, whatever you do, don’t forget the human appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

Juliet Caswell, Product and Proposition Director at CR Worldwide, details the importance of incentivised learning to help create brand ambassadors out of staff.

When your brand uses a sales channel to sell its offering, it needs to stand out from the competition. But as your channel staff sometimes sell products or services for other brands which are similar to yours, this can be easier said than done.

Making sure your sales channel staff know and understand your brand and keep it front of mind is fundamental to standing out. They should also adapt the right attitude to want to do more for you, over your competitors. Behavioural change is key to your channel staff achieving these things. And this where the idea of incentivised learning can help.

Learning with incentive

Incentivised learning takes the concept of e-learning and brings it into a reward system, such as for a sales channel incentive scheme. By doing this, it builds upon the idea of online learning, as a way to help upskill your staff, but also encourages employees to behave and perform in the way you desire.

With traditional e-learning, an employer will give their employees some online training to complete in relation to an area of their job. While research shows this form of training, which is growing in popularity, can help upskill staff, the approach of just giving employees the training creates the idea that a business expects their employees to complete it. Knowing the purpose of the training is to benefit the wider business, the employee might also wonder, what’s in it for them?

Rewarding the employee for successfully completing said training can help overcome this hurdle. It takes away the idea that staff are just expected to do the training without question, and instead, shows that the employer values and appreciates them and the time and effort they have put into it. It also helps communicate the importance an employer places on completing the training successfully.

Learning that changes channel behaviours

So how does all this help your brand help your sales channel staff achieve behavioural change?

The way incentivised learning works means brands can use it to reward sales channel staff for building knowledge of everything from their latest products and core services to their company history and business objectives. Incentives could include points that staff can collect to claim a bigger reward, like a personal gift or experience. Staff can also be set goals to help put into practice what they have learnt in their training, such as using their new knowledge to sell a brand’s latest product to a new customer.

By creating sales channel staff who know your brand well, you can achieve behavioural change – that is, the ideal behaviour you want staff to embody to become an effective salesperson for your brand. For instance, how they perform, how well they can sell your products, and how they view your brand over your competitors.

There are different ways incentivised learning could be used to help achieve this behavioural change.

Building mindshare

By providing training that comes with an incentive, you can encourage staff to want to learn more. They know that there is a reward each time they complete training, so there is an incentive to keep building their knowledge. Moreover, the more learning programs they complete, the higher that knowledge can become. As a result, you can create staff with greater mindshare of your brand that can more effectively help sell your offering and convert more customers.

Keeping your brand front of mind

Using incentives to encourage staff to complete training across your business can constantly remind them of your brand, helping to increase brand awareness. For instance, they could associate the rewards they win with your brand, making it feel more prominent than your competitors and helping to keep it front of mind. In doing this, while sales channel staff will have targets to hit, selling for your brand might feel like a priority.

Creating brand ambassadors

Over time, your channel sales staff can become proud experts on your brand. This, paired with the right knowledge, mindset and attitude, will encourage employees to feel loyalty towards it, enough to become a brand ambassador – embodying your brand and everything it stands for. They will speak highly of your brand, not just in their daily job, but outside of their working hours, like in their social circles, at company events and on social media.

Ideal employees to further your brand

Adding a strong learning program to your sales channel can only be a good thing when aiming to build brand awareness and team knowledge. When an incentive is attached to that learning, it doesn’t just help create highly skilled staff, who are better equipped to sell in your sales channel. It helps those staff achieve behavioural change, becoming the ideal employees to take your brand further.

Established in 2002, CR Worldwide helps companies grow by enabling them to reward best behaviours from the people most valuable to their success – employees, customers and partners. In creating award-winning recognition, incentive and event programs, the company’s solutions help companies to engage these people and improve performance.

The post Achieving behavioural change in your sales channel with incentivised learning appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

Alex Agertoft, Sales & Marketing Executive at Black Tomato Agency details five ways to ensure great team performance.

It’s a challenge that faces every organisation – how do you motivate your staff and keep them striving to smash ambitious company targets?

At Black Tomato Agency we spend our days crafting experiences to motivate and inspire global audiences in far-flung parts of the world. And while there’s no denying the power an incentive can have when it comes to team performance, we know that’s only one part of the puzzle. It’s accepted that a motivated employee is a productive one, but in this age of information overload, as expert opinions flood every blog, magazine and white paper, sometimes it’s difficult to know which advice to listen to. So let us help, with a distilled run-down of five effective ways to engage and motivate your staff.

1. Managerial Recognition
Manager behaviour is often the make or break of a business’ success. As the saying goes, employees join companies, but leave managers and the stats support the bumper sticker. A Gallup poll of over one million US workers confirmed that 75% of those who left their jobs voluntarily did so because of their immediate manager. While a survey by Tjinsite found that more than 35% of employees consider lack of managerial recognition at work as the single biggest hindrance to their productivity.

Everyone responds well to a pat on the back for a job well done. It confirms that their work is valued and that they’re contributing to company goals. Whether it takes the form of a simple thank you email from a manager, a public toast at after-work drinks or an elaborate double-page ad in the FT, the effect is the same; tap into that fundamental human need for appreciation and you’ll see a positive response.

 2. Peer Recognition
Peer recognition is another vital building block in fostering a positive company culture. It generates a sense of loyalty amongst a team, improves motivation and creates a sense of working towards a shared goal. Encouraging a team to look up from their desks and appreciate the successes of those around them can mean just as much, if not more, than recognition from management themselves.

The golden rule for recognition is the earlier it happens after an event, the better it is. It’s no good thanking someone a month after the fact, so if you can successfully weave a culture of peer recognition into the fabric of your company, you’re in the best possible position to provide instant feedback. This will, in turn, encourage behaviours that you value and help align your business goals with employees’ performance goals.

 3. Rewards
Over the course of 10 years, Sirota Consulting surveyed 2.5 million employees in 237 private, public and non-profit organisations in 89 countries to reveal that only 51% of workers were satisfied with the recognition they received for a job well done… so how do you up the ante? In reality, the impact of the recognition model can only go so far, a Market Tools Inc report revealed that 77% of employees said they would be more motivated if their hard work was rewarded rather than simply recognised – people are looking for a return on their extra effort.

What this reward looks like is the big question in itself – the key is finding out what makes an employee tick. Historically, people have been motivated by money so it stands to reason that if you offer someone a financial results-based reward then they’ll work harder to achieve those objectives. Research by TED favourite Dan Ariely and his collaborators clearly demonstrates that financial rewards increase productivity. Interestingly, however, once the reward cycle had run its course, productivity actually dropped below pre-reward levels. Not exactly the long-lasting legacy – or return on investment – we’re all looking for.

So how do we avoid the competition ‘hangover’? We lose the cash. Studies show that employees respond best to well-designed reward programmes that distribute non-monetary rewards. This might seem counter-intuitive since cash is the most flexible prize, but people tend to recognise that they’re likely to spend the money on something either mundane or instantly forgettable. So, whilst it’s unlikely that anyone’s ever going to hand back that cheque from Sandra in accounts, the self-motivation and superior levels of performance you’re looking for could be a plane ticket away.

The real value of an experiential reward comes from the opportunity for winners to make emotional connections, create lasting memories and reinforce positive associations with the organisation behind it. According to a 2013 survey by SITE, 96% of employees are motivated by the prospect of a travel incentive, and of those who earn that sought-after seat on the plane, 72% feel an increased sense of loyalty as a result. These are impressive figures even before taking into account the effect on productivity.

A study by the International Society for Performance Improvement found that incentive travel programmes increased individual performance by up to 22% and of a team by 44%. Similarly, the Incentive Marketing Association’s Recognition Council notes that companies that recognise their employees in this way outperform competitors by 30-40%. We may be biased, but you really can’t argue with the stats.

4. Employee Wellness
We know that companies can benefit from increased productivity by focusing on the physical, mental and social well-being of their workforce – and that poor mental and physical health costs British companies an estimated £26-40 billion per year. That’s the equivalent of more than £1,000 per employee, a figure that doubles when we take presenteeism into account – a term used for people who are physically at work but not actually engaging with it. So how do we turn wellness into a motivator? Just make it a priority.

Employees are increasingly looking for companies that prioritise that all-important work-life balance; that’s why the likes of Asana’s nap rooms and unlimited paid time off, as well as Google’s onsite chiropractors and guitar lessons regularly see them attract the top talent (and keep them there). Look at wellness initiatives as an opportunity to take care of your bottom line as well as your employees’ health and happiness and it’s a win-win all-round.

5. Clear Roles & Progression Plans
Companies with a highly engaged and motivated workforce have 37% fewer sick days, 30% higher productivity, and up to two-and-a-half times better customer satisfaction than the average business. So what’s one final tool that is well within your managerial powers to influence? Clearly defined job roles and plans for future progression. Quite simply, talented people want to progress.

If your employees don’t have a clear idea of how they need to work or what they’re working towards, they’re unlikely to ever get there. Implementing both short and long-term development plans is one of the best ways to demonstrate your commitment to your staff. Through honest, two-way communication you can highlight achievements, pinpoint development areas, improve team effectiveness and boost retention – all ingredients that fuel an employee’s fire to succeed.

So be a fire starter. It’ll make the boat go faster.

Black Tomato Agency are specialists in delivering world-class prize promotions and reward campaigns. They create, manage and fulfil boundary-pushing prize experiences for the world’s most demanding brands. With an in-house team of travel experts, videographers and event planners, they work with the biggest brands and agencies to deliver ‘wow factor’ solutions, ranging from once in a lifetime experiences to unique and engaging prizes to brand experiences for multiple guests.

The post Five effective ways to motivate your staff appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

The IPM COGS Awards 2018, the awards and recognition programme for service agencies – the providers of specialist services which are used to build promotional campaigns – is now open for entries. The entry deadline is July 19 2018.

The Institute of Promotional Marketing (IPM) launched The IPM COGS Awards eight years ago as a recognition programme for the work of specialist services agencies, to run alongside the IPM Awards, which are for creative agencies.

Richard Pink, Head of Awards at the IPM, says: “The IPM COGS is the most important awards programme for the promotional industry’s service agencies – they give deserved recognition to the companies behind the scenes who make sure that everything runs like clockwork. They are the awards for the unsung heroes of our industry.”

Entry is open to any company from a range of business sectors which support great promotional marketing campaigns – handling, print, staffing, digital, mobile, event and risk management, to name but a few.

Companies do not have to be IPM members to enter (except for the IPM COGS Awards 2018 Service Agency of the Year Special Award, which is only open to IPM members). IPM members enjoy the advantage of paying lower entry costs, however.

The online awards entry platform has been updated and streamlined, to make the entry process even easier than in previous years. In order to submit an entry, you will need to register for this new awards platform – https://theipm.awardsplatform.com/

The IPM – the marketing industry trade body which represents the interests of brands and organisations which use promotional techniques to target their audiences and also of the agencies and service providers which advise them – is encouraging members and non-members alike to seize the opportunity to show the world how their contributions have helped create world-class campaigns.

Now in its eighth year, The IPM COGS awards programme is constantly setting benchmarks and driving up the standard or promotional campaigns.

A full list of the 2017 winners can be found on the IPM website. 

The full list of categories for The COGS Awards 2018 is below:

• Coupons
• Print Management
• Risk Management
• Digital
• Promotional Merchandise
• Experiential and Event
• Handling and Fulfilment
• Staffing
• Direct Marketing
• Loyalty
• Prize, Incentive and Reward
• Innovation
• Multi Territory

In addition to the industry and sector categories, there are three special awards:

• The IPM COGS Awards Service Agency of the Year
• The IPM COGS Awards Breakthrough Company of the Year
• The Grand Prix

Information on the criteria for each category and how the special awards are selected can be found on the IPM website. Alternatively, download the IPM COGS Awards 2018 Handbook which also includes details of how to enter, timings and costs.

The post IPM COGS Awards 2018 now open for entries! appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

Valassis, the UK’s largest coupon and voucher services provider, has launched Cashback & Rewards, a new multi-channel promotional solution that facilitates direct payment between the brand and the promotion’s beneficiary, removing reliance on third parties to fulfil the promotion.

Valassis says cashback has significant and broad-reaching promotional applications – research has found that nearly 20% of shoppers made a purchase or spent more than planned because of a cashback offer. Cashback & Rewards can be implemented for any number of target audiences – shoppers, merchants or even staff, as an employee benefit – the company adds.

The Cashback & Rewards mechanic has been designed to be simple for the shopper, the company says. Once they have bought a product, the shopper inputs their details online along with a picture of the receipt and is then sent a cashback or reward payment.  Payment can be delivered via a number of methods – cash, PayPal, cheque or coupon. Rewards can also be product samples or entry into a prize draw.  This direct fulfilment allows brands to reinforce messages, which often is not possible when fulfilled via a third party.

Valassis has worked with brands across Europe to deliver Cashback & Rewards for products in the pharmaceutical sector, with cashback given to both merchants and shoppers. The service is now being made available in the UK.

Charles D’Oyly, Valassis’ Managing Director, observes: “Our new Cashback & Rewards solution means that brands can deliver benefits directly to intended beneficiaries and without involving point of sale.  It taps into existing interest among consumers for cash back and represents a flexible and compelling promotional tool to engage shoppers via an easy and seamless customer experience.”

Valassis Limited is the UK’s largest coupon and voucher services provider, performing crucial data management and financial clearing services. Responsible for handling most of the UK’s coupons and vouchers, Valassis Limited is uniquely positioned to deliver insights on UK consumer promotions and is regularly quoted as an expert in the media. Valassis is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Harland Clarke Holdings, a US provider of payment solutions, multi-channel marketing campaigns, and secure data-driven lead generation and critical communications.  In addition, Harland Clarke provides promotional products, call centers, and governance, risk and compliance (GRC) solutions.

The post Valassis launches Cashback & Rewards promotion mechanic for brands appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

Cross-border promotions can be let down by a lack of consistency in recruiting and training promotional staff, says Carina Filek of Elevate Staffing UK & US

Sourcing the right promotional staff to work on a campaign is crucial. If you don’t have the right people at the heart of your strategy, then no amount of planning or creativity, or the quality of the actual product for that matter, will make a difference – the initiative will fail.

But what happens when a client requires multiple teams in multiple geographic markets? Usually, the solution will be to engage with several agencies covering different countries to allow the campaign to achieve the desired reach.

However, this can cause a number of headaches, including a lack of consistency, along with an inefficient use of client time managing multiple partners, all delivering the same product.

We all love a challenge, but when you need to execute an international campaign, you’re going to want some peace of mind. As the client, you’re going to want much more than a vague promise and a handful of hope. With stats showing that 76% of marketers say their event and experiential marketing initiatives are integrated with their other marketing campaigns, can you afford for your multi market event campaign to fall short?

Clients need a unique approach to recruitment to ensure that the talent hired is bespoke for any given project. Depending on the nature of the campaign, promotional staff may need to be highly skilled at a range of different things. That means they’ll almost certainly need bespoke training in order to present themselves as true brand advocates and experts.

To deliver successful and seamless international staffing campaigns, we believe there are four essential things to get right.

Local knowledge

When it comes to carrying out an effective campaign, local knowledge of the host locations is huge. Utilsing a staffing partner to provide a coordinated global approach makes sense from an efficiency perspective but it’s important to ensure there is also knowledgeable local application to drive effectiveness. Look for a supplier that can offer a service based on proven experience in the required markets.

Established global network

You need access to an established global staffing network of highly trained and experienced field staff, all of who are ready to deliver results for you at short notice. This network needs to be backed-up with a stable infrastructure that can delivery seamlessly, in multiple markets.

The Importance of consistency

Consistent communication and execution is crucial in any campaign, so there should be one person who is solely accountable for the overall delivery of any campaign, who is supported by a regional network. The importance of consistency shouldn’t be undervalued, especially when launching a multi-region campaign and ensuring the local market challenges that will inevitably arise.

One size does not fit all

Cross-territory campaigns are much less effective when a myopic “one size fits all” solution is applied. To ensure that this doesn’t happen, cultural understanding is vital so that selection, training and engagement plans reflect the unique nature of the host market, the local nuances and of course their consumers.

People are truly the most effective way to engage people, no matter the market. Their value can’t be undervalued.

Carina Filek is Global Managing Partner of Elevate Staffing UK & US, which delivers bespoke staffing solutions and marketing activations across the UK, EU and US. Elevate works with experiential and activation agencies including Havas, LIFE, A Little Bird, IMG, 3 Monkeys Zeno, and Jack Morton. Brand clients include Oculus, Facebook, Monster, Coca-Cola, and Soap & Glory.

The post Staffing across borders – one size definitely doesn’t fit all! appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

London live brand engagement agency Kru Live is claiming to be the first UK agency to accept digital currencies for payment for both UK-based and international work. KruLive will now take payment in any of the top five cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Dash and Litecoin.

Tom Eatenton, CEO and Founder of Kru Live, says that he is confident in the viability of cryptocurrencies as a payment mechanism and adds that the company has been approached by clients wanting to use them. He observes: “It won’t be for every client, although if one of our clients wishes to use this method of payment then we are more than happy to accommodate them. If household names like Microsoft, Expedia and Subway can do it, why can’t we? We are willing to demonstrate this confidence and the desire of many of our global clients to find more cost-effective means of doing business across borders by offering this as a method of payment.”

Eatenton adds that Kru Live has “put in place a detailed structure and processes to make this possible as well as to manage the risk in current currency fluctuations.”

Sarah-Jane Benham, managing director of Kru Live, comments: “We are now seeing the rise in interest and investment in cryptocurrencies, so we again want to stay ahead of the game and ensure we are responding to client demand.”

Kru Live works with a global group of agencies known as The Staffing and Entertainment Collective, and claims to be seeing growing demand for international activity, with more than 20% of its business coming from outside the UK.

Founded in 2005, Kru Live is a multi-award winning global live brand engagement agency specialising in event staffing and entertainment. It works with both brands and agencies; brand clients include MasterCard, HSBC, NFL, LandRover, Birds Eye, Oculus Rift, PlayStation, Google (pictured) and Nivea.

Kru Live founded global network The Staffing & Entertainment Collective in 2014; it now covers 34 countries. Recent international activations include pan-European tours with Reebok, Footlocker, Taylor Swift, Salesforce and PlayStation.

The post Experiential specialists Kru Live “first UK agency to accept BitCoin” appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

The world of work is changing, and more and more people are taking advantage of the ‘gig economy’. But it’s nothing new for the marketing industry, particularly experiential, says Shushanah Bull of BD Network

It’s hard to ignore the gig economy. It’s everywhere – a simple search on Google returns very polarized results, from one camp who think it’s the future of work, to another who think it’s the beginning of the end for job security and the economy.

Oddly enough, the marketing industry as a whole has been largely silent on this matter. Marketing and advertising are typically the first sectors to jump on new trends, and are also where the concept of freelancers – a very different role from short term gig work, but still non-permanent – and project-based work has been entrenched for years.

Promotional marketing and live events have a natural voice on this matter too – hiring short term staff to run branded events and bring products to life has been part and parcel of that space for decades.

It’s the essence of ‘gig economics’ in action – and it seems to be working, with happy staff returning to event after event in order to help engage customers.

But, as ‘gig’ employment becomes more widespread, there are certain key elements which those of us activating the brand experience would do well to keep in mind.

The brand has to be the touchstone. It is essential that the right people are matched to a brand – given that they then go on to embody it. The wrong person won’t be credible to the audience or be able to express a product or service quite as well as someone who is passionate about it. So you need to have multiple-step screening processes in place, to make sure the people who are put forward to represent a brand are actually the best possible ambassadors.

Not everyone can be a brand staffing professional – just as not everyone could work as a Deliveroo cyclist. It may even be more arduous a process for someone interviewing staff for an event rather than for a permanent role – as in promotions, where it’s all about the right offer at the right time to the right audience, in experiential, you have to be absolutely certain that you’re delivering the right people for the brand.

That could involve recruiting true chocolate lovers to communicate the pleasure and joy of a well-known chocolate brand or recruiting native Italian speakers to reflect an international brand’s heritage. The point is to connect with audiences on a much deeper level.

Given the rise of the gig economy, it may be tempting to cut costs and jump on gig apps or staffing sites to locate your event staff. However, the right people with the right stuff for a brand experience can’t simply be booked through an app; well-matched brand ambassadors are worth their weight in gold, as brands will continue to come back to them. Great staffers are in huge demand, so staffing agencies and experiential agencies must treat them well.

It’s also important to follow the law and the regulations around employment. Brand ambassadors are NOT freelancers if they are being ‘directed’ by an agency or a brand – so if their hours are set, or they are required to wear a uniform or branded kit, for example, they have to be paid PAYE. Best practice is to ensure staff get at least an eight-hour day minimum contract for working at an event, and most importantly, have access to holiday pay.

Good events staff know what to expect; they are chosen because they bring life and joy to an event, and often these are people who would be attending these events themselves if they weren’t working there. Many are using these jobs as ways of topping up other income, or filling time around other priorities – they thrive on the flexibility that working live events can bring, and they enjoy sharing things they are passionate about with others.

It’s this careful balance that makes aspects of ‘gig’ work within the marketing world – it’s impossible to force the kind of enthusiasm which is essential for these events to be successful, and it takes a certain kind of person to want to share a brand story with another. These are the essential components of making gig work successful overall – when your connection to the work itself isn’t purely transitory or fleeting, but there is a deeper motivation than purely a financial reward at the end.

It’s also why the Freeman Global Brand Experience Survey this year saw CMOs around the world predict their spending would be between 21% and 50% of their budgets on brand experience. It brings energy and attractiveness to a brand to see real life connections with their products happen – and all of that is fueled by the integral staffers bringing those events to life, and, most importantly, to customers.

Shushanah Bull is Staffing and Talent Director at leading integrated marketing agency BD Network

The post It’s hard to ignore the gig economy appeared first on IPM Bitesize.