Martin McLaughlin to lead The Point.1888’s new marketing agency Story.1888

The Point. 1888 has detailed the launch of a new marketing agency, Story.1888, a new business arm that will be headed up by specialists in the marketing and advertising sectors, alongside a line-up of licensing and retail veterans to deliver new services such from product branding and style guides to content creation and brand management.

The new agency will be led by Martin McLaughlin, who joined The Point.1888 in June 2019, having previously delivered communications, advertising, and brand partnership planning for brands like T-Mobile, Cadbury, Amazon, Warner Music, and Ford. Since joining the team, he has grown a book of clients as well as its marketing and creative division.

The Story.1888 offering will include creative services such as product branding and style guides, product marketing, strategy, content creation and campaign management. The agency launches with three clients already on its books, including the retro animated hit, The Raccoons, and Comic Relief. McLaughlin and his team will work to create a global hub for fans around the world to celebrate the animated property, while carrying out strategic and creative work for Comic Relief.

McLaughlin said: “It’s not the norm for a brand licensing specialist to launch a marketing agency but it’s the most obvious next step. The licensing industry is great at creating amazing products, but not always so effective at telling the brand story and connecting the product purpose to the consumer. Connect those dots with a retail hat on and you can create really powerful moments that drive consumer love and revenue.”

The Point.1888’s managing director, Will Stewart, added: “Our business has experienced rapid growth thanks to talent, grit and strategic thinking. Pre-pandemic we saw there was a need for specialist marketing support for our brand licensing clients and we have taken our time to find the right team and approach to make it work. I’m thrilled to be able to reveal this exciting development for our business and cannot wait to see it grow.”

The Story.1888 team will be in attendance at BLE and will be taking meetings with interested parties to walk through their credentials and approach.

Bits and Pixels revamps website to showcase company’s evolution into events and influencers

The video game and geek culture licensing and brand extension agency, Bits and Pixels has revamped its website to reflect the evolution of the company and its expanded business into event production and influencer recruitment.

Founded in 2016, Bits and Pixels set out initially to provide a specialised brand extension service to video game developers and publishers. Over the past five years, the outfit has worked for a number of industry icons including Bungie, Capcom, Blizzard Entertainment, Re-Logic, and Wargaming.

Over the past 18 months, Bits and Pixels has expanded into new terrain, taking on event production projects and influencer recruitment briefs from a broadening array of clients.

“We wanted to redesign our website to reflect that evolution and to more clearly communicate the fact that we are working with clients both in the games industry and on the periphery of it, whether it’s fashion, telecoms, fast food or tech. The common goal of all our clients is to engage the gamer audience and we are doing that now in more ways than ever before,” said Su-Yina Farmer, co-director, Bits and Pixels.

Sandra Arcan, co-director, Bits and Pixels, added: “We love the fact that we still maintain our identity as a video game sector specialist but have added what we see as very complimentary services to the core of licensing and brand collabs. We have the experience and a great resource network which allows us to confidently expand our agency proposition in a way which allows us to work with existing clients in more diverse ways and start new, exciting partnerships with brands who aim to be more relevant and front of mind for gamers.”

You can check out their redesigned website here: www.bitsandpixels.agency

The Insights Family launches IP performance comparison tool called the IP Index

The Insights Family has lifted the lid on its latest tool development with the launch of a new platform that allows brands, partners, and retailers to compare the performance of their IP with thousands of others, across various types of media.

Called the IP Index, the tool has been launched to provide data to help identify new partners, spot opportunities, benchmark properties, and engage stakeholders with its independent data. The aim of the tool is to ‘provide context and insight into a property’s audience.’

The Insights Family 2021 Industry Report found that ‘Identifying new IP’ was the number one licensing-related issue businesses are facing, with almost seven in 10 organisations citing this.

To address this challenge, the company’s Research and Data Science teams, in collaboration with brands, partners, and retailers, have determined four key metrics to measure performance, which is based upon the following four stages:

  • Access & Demand
  • Engagement & Interest
  • Purchase & Consumption
  • Fandom & Advocacy

The beta version of the tool presents data through a league table, and provides an independent score based predominately on The Insights Family propriety data, as well as utilising data from API sources such as Google and YouTube.

Nick Richardson, CEO and founder, The Insights Family, said: “For years, the licensing and consumer products industry has relied on historical sales data. Considering the speed of change in kid’s attitudes, behaviour, and consumption and the advent of so many new properties – this does not seem fit for purpose.

“We have made it our mission to understand the industry’s needs and develop a tool, which looks at future demand and will ultimately enable industry professionals to compare Batman, FC Barcelona, Cocomelon, Ryan’s World, and Fortnite side by side.”

Richard Wainwright MEng, principal data scientist, The Insights Family, added: “The IP INDEX utilises our own proprietary data but also API data to score each property. The first three of the scores are based around a traditional purchase funnel – Access & Demand, Engagement & Interest and Purchase & Consumption.

“However, with kids having a far greater desire to co-create and co-commercialise – our methodology also provides a fandom and advocacy score as well.”

 The IP INDEX Beta (across 17 countries and four media types) is now available for all clients and partners in Portal 4.0. To celebrate the launch of the tool, The Insights Family has released a new report, highlighting the top performing brands according to the IP Index.

The report is available to download now at: https://get.theinsightsfamily.com/ipindex

Family fortunes | The Insights Family talks its ‘game changing’ Portal 4.0 and the ever growing business of family market intelligence

This week witnessed some pretty major new developments for the kids’, parents, and family market intelligence outfit, The Insights People, which not only revealed its re-branding to The Insights Family, but also welcomed its new chairman – in the form of Simon White – and unveiled its ‘game-changing’ new client tool and platform, the Portal 4.0.

In line with the sweeping changes across the children’s and parents’ media and entertainment landscape, The Insights Family’s new platform now holds proprietary data collected from surveying over half a million children and parents across 17 countries every year, providing over 600 million data points for its customers to view, filter, and analyse. By anyone’s standards, that’s a lot of data.

Here, Licensing.biz catches up with Nick Richardson, founder and CEO of The Insights Family to explore the trails being blazed and the paths being carved by a Manchester start-up that over the course of the last four years, has made its international presence well and truly felt.

To kick us off, Nick, can you give us a bit of background on yourself and how The Insights Family came to be?

I grew up in Manchester and graduated Manchester Metropolitan University with a degree in Marketing Management. As part of that degree, I had a placement with Mattel Toys – where I worked on the Hot Wheels, Matchbox and Tyco brands.

After graduating, I worked in senior marketing and commercial roles for brands and agencies such as ExxonMobil, Momentum Worldwide (part of IPG group), Just Marketing (now CSM Sport & Entertainment), Hilton Hotels, Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research, and PennWell (now Clarion Events).

As a marketer, I have always been naturally curious and creative – and have worked closely with data. I have had several roles where I was responsible for auditing existing research, developing research, and using this information to redevelop commercial strategies.

After 10 years of living in and around London, I decided to move back to Manchester. When I returned to the city, I enrolled on an Executive MBA course. During this course I started to see an opportunity to develop a disruptive and highly innovative research business which could be scalable, so I started to look at which industries were lacking data and insights.

During a catch-up meeting with SuperAwesome’s Matt Lester, who I had worked with while leading Hilton Hotels F1 sponsorship, it became very apparent that kids’ lives were unrecognisable from when I worked at Mattel in 2002/2003.

However, the ways in which companies were approaching their marketing had not really changed. Companies who operated in this space needed help and support to understand what was going on, what it meant, and ultimately some clarity and confidence to make decisions to evolve their previously tried and tested approach.

That was the challenge, so we made it our mission to do that, a mission which still burns hard in everyone who works for us.

You guys haven’t seemed to stop this past year, with international growth at a phenomenal rate. What has the thinking been behind the growth you guys have seen? What’s driven the growth? Does having operations around the world mean you’re set up with holidays for life?

Since our launch in 2017 and as the business developed, it soon became apparent that a lack of data on the kids and parents’ ecosystem was not isolated just to the UK – but there was a need on a global basis that nobody was fulfilling. Therefore, we set our vision to be the global leaders, and made it our business to achieve that.

While we are now operating in 17 countries, our international team of researchers and developers are driving these developments from our Manchester HQ. The growth has been quicker than I could have ever imagined, which is down to so many factors from our initial investor, some lucky breaks, but most importantly it is down to the culture we have created, and the incredible efforts and collaboration from all our team.

Once we and other countries come out of Covid-19 restrictions, I cannot wait to see our team and get to travel more, no doubt with a few extra days rolled on for the odd holiday.

Speaking of developments, there latest major development from you guys is the Portal 4.0, a new platform for clients, destined to ‘change the way it all works for them’. This sounds exciting. Can you tell us about this one?

Firstly, everything which made Portal 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 so special remain. The ease of use, real-time data, and the ability to view, filter, interrogate, and analyse the data intuitively remain.

However, with all the feedback we have captured, we have not only made hundreds of small but significant improvements and enhancements, but we have also now integrated all the cutting-edge innovations which we have been working on in the background.

First and foremost, the portal holds all our propriety data, collected from surveying over half a million kids and parents across 17 countries every year. It provides over 600 million data points to view, filter, interrogate, and analyse.

In addition to that, it houses all the tools we have been developing, such as our Media Mix Compass – which is a media planning tool that enables clients to compare 11 different categories of media, based on their reach, preference, and time spent.

The platform also includes clustering tool Persona Perspectives™. Powered by cutting edge Machine Learning and utilising the latest theory from the world of psychology, clustering will unlock previously unseen insights into an audience and fanbase. This tool was developed with a team of academics at Manchester Metropolitan University.

We have also added contextual data for every country which we operate in, providing socioeconomic and demographic data and insights for additional context. There are new API feeds from the likes of Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, and YouTube.

A new section of the portal has also been created to house all our clients’ bespoke research projects – enabling them to utilize all the functionality of the portal as well as our persona technology.

So, in summary we have not only moved the goalposts, but we have completely rebuilt them. But don’t just take my word, I would encourage people to go and have a look and let us know your feedback.

How will this new platform position you guys in the UK and on the international stage? How will it work to help position clients on the international stage?

Despite 2020 being a challenging year, we managed to grow substantially and lay the foundations for this year – which we believe will see us essentially double in size every six to eight months.

Our new identity and portal will also provide the foundations for this. As I mentioned, there are so many significant new developments in the new portal – with our team of researchers, data scientists, and developers working with academics, and collaborating with our clients from around the world to bring in a suite of solutions.

This will see us transition from not “just” being a research company, but to a business-critical partner to clients who can use the tools such as our Media Mix Compass™ to actively shape their strategies.

One of the core approaches to our research which makes us standout from anyone else, is that we are independent, and the kids, parents, and families surveyed are age, gender, and nationally represented and not recruited through our own platforms. This means the data is not biased, has no agenda, and can be analysed on a global, regional, national, or local basis – something which I believe will be critical as we transition from globalisation to localisation.

Why is it important that clients are armed in this way with the ability to spot and react to opportunities in the ever evolving kids’ and family market?

It is my belief that research, and data is now a critical part of all our jobs. If you work in advertising, content, licensing, marketing, product development, or sales it is an essential tool to provide understanding, test our convictions and ultimately measure our results.

However, there are still large amounts of market research and data which are not accessible, and worse than that – quite intimidating. And whilst we can call default to doing a bit of desk research or talking to our own kids, if we are honest with our selves – that doesn’t really stack up. That is why we have set it to be our mission to become the world’s top brands business-critical partner. Portal 4.0 is so accessible that even my mum can use it!

Our unique approach to surveying kids, parents, and families on a continual basis enables us to identify trends as they are forming. Likewise, if we take the effects of Covid – it provides our clients with an unrivalled view of what their attitudes, behaviour, and consumption were before Covid-19, how they have evolved during the pandemic and lockdowns and ultimately what they will become after.

As far as I am aware, we are the only company in the world to have this information. We know from our industry report that only six per cent of organisations that operate in the kids, parents, and family space believe that they have a sufficient understanding of them.

Our Trend Alert™ Reports and real-time data also saw us spot the rising popularity of trends such as Fortnite and TikTok months before they exploded in popularity in the kid’s ecosystem.

However, one of the most important trends we have tracked is this generation of kids have more influence than ever before. For example, our data in the UK shows a 15 per cent increase in influence that tweens have from Q1 2020 to Q1 2021 in terms of grocery items purchases, as kids are increasingly concerned with our effect on the environment and becoming healthier.

It is therefore more important than ever to reach and engage these young stakeholders and every brand must now become a family brand.

What do you think are some of the biggest challenges to have swept the children’s and family space in recent years? What sort of picture of the future does this all paint, and how are you helping businesses ready themselves for that future landscape?

There are so many challenges. I look back to my days at Mattel – and cannot believe how much the landscape has transformed. If we are all honest, it has probably taken the best part of a decade for the industry to recognise this, and the scale of the change.

I would like to think that we have helped the industry and individuals to not only recognise the changes, but also understand the implications and be best positioned to transform their approach across their business.

As for the biggest challenge – my view would be the impact of digital, this impacts all aspects of an organisation and business. It has transformed everything, from advertising and media to the need to be a content curator and syndicator. Plus, the arrival of new digital centric IP.

It has been challenging, but it is also extremely exciting as there are significant opportunities that come from this – and that is why we do what we do, to mitigate the risks and accelerate the opportunities.

For you, what is the most exciting part of working in the children’s and family space? To what extent is this a market that leads change across the consumer landscape, and how does it shape future trends?

As Nelson Mandela once said “children are our greatest treasure. They are our future”. Being a proud father of my daughter, I am so proud that we as a business provide children, parents, and families with a voice to shape their worlds. And of course, with the speed of technology evolution it is incredible to witness the impact of this on their and their parents’ attitudes, behaviour, and consumption – and how brands need to evolve their thinking to remain relevant.

To get freemium access to our award-winning real-time portal, please visit:

https://try.theinsightsfamily.com/toynews

KidsKnowBest bolsters performance marketing division with three new hires

KidsKnowBest is bolstering its performance marketing division with a suite of new hires that will work to expand the agency’s paid media offering to deliver wider performance marketing campaigns.

The creative agency – with its focus on the youth market – has welcomed a trio of new appointments in newly formed roles with Camila del Mazo Nales taking up the role of senior paid social executive, Michael Heming as eCommerce manager, and Daniel Foot as PPC manager.

The trio of new starters will be reporting to Ulrika Lundvall, head of paid media at KidsKnowBest.

Del Mazo Nales joins the agency from a paid social executive position with OMD. She will be helping to further elevate campaigns through continuous optimisations to ensure KidsKnowBest stays at the forefront of platform expansion and new targeting opportunities.

Meanwhile, Heming comes from a PPC role with Reprise Digital and as an Amazon marketing specialist he will ensure that KidsKnowBest campaigns convert at the selling point, while Foot has made a move from MediaCom where he was a digital marketing planner and will be working to reach potential customers and increasing brand awareness through search channels.

This latest move is a response to the growing client need for considered performance marketing support across search and eCommerce with a particular need for Amazon Marketing. Having search and PPC now available in-house means KidsKnowBest will be able to communicate keywords and exchange learnings across different channels.

Lundvall, head of paid media at KidsKnowBest, said: “We can now build on our 360o service. We saw a gap in our services and have quickly filled it to offer the best service to our clients.

“We’re always driven by research and data to inform our campaigns, and now we can do this through search and eCommerce to circle back and create a really solid and informed process.”

Generation Media explores how brands are innovating in the experiential marketing space of today

With festivals and national sporting events cancelled at the hands of the coronavirus pandemic, there’s been a need to innovate new forms of experiential marketing. Generation Media’s director of entertainment, Greta Bisetto Donelan explores how the likes of TikTok and other social platforms have been put to use by the industry’s creatives.

The very phrase ‘experiential marketing’ implies a physical event, in which a brand’s target consumers are invited to immerse themselves in a memorable activity that increases brand loyalty, drives a call to action, or achieves some other marketing KPI. But with everything from iconic festivals to national sporting events cancelled, what hope does this area of the industry have for survival, or relevance, in the new normal?

It would have been all too easy for brands to simply write off the idea of running any experiential marketing during Covid, but in common with so many other parts of the media landscape, creative thinkers have responded to the fact that hard times call for innovation, pivoting and rethinking ways to deepen the relationship with their customers.

Parents in particular have been calling out for opportunities for their children to connectwith the outside world now traditional
interaction has been curtailed, and the kids and youth markets have risen to the challenge.

TikTok was one of the first out of the gates with a major new initiative, partnering with LiveXLive to host a 48-hour music festival featuring over 35 artists who performed live from locations ranging from private studios to backyards and bedrooms. Meanwhile, Mark Ronson took the immersive experience one step further by creating a music video for the track ‘Pieces of Us’ on Instagram Stories using AR effects, stickers, and video clips provided by the fans themselves.

At Generation Media, we adapted a planned cinema-led experience for the launch of the video game Fast and Furious Crosswords by pivoting to a drivein cinema experience, fulfilling our client’s original objectives whilst complying with local lockdown restrictions.

Virtual events such as these have of course increased greatly in number since March. However, they’ve been a part of the media mix on digital platforms for a while; they are a scalable offering with huge reach that can be amplified on social and they offer that audience an opportunity to interact and gain a deeper level of connection with brands in a way that other methods can’t. Physical live events are starting to slowly return, and they too will continue to deliver on everything from PR and marketing objectives, to clear measurables such as footfall and sales.

For brands seeking to amplify messaging via non-traditional advertising, experiential marketing remains an opportunity worth serious consideration. Crucially, and contrary to some assumptions, it’s measurable. The key is to set out with clear KPIs at the beginning of any experiential event so you know what success looks like and you have the relevant measurement in place. Live events enable brands to sell or sample products to fans, while their virtual equivalents can include tagging to ecommerce sites and create a huge wave of social engagement, from which re-targeting campaigns can be built, and bespoke research sits perfectly alongside.

Generation Media knows the market intimately. Experiential remains a strategically important platform for brands that are looking to engage their audience and tell their story in new, immersive ways, wherever that experience has to take place. Get in touch with our Generation Entertainment team today for a virtual coffee and to see how your brand can benefit from experiential marketing

Going viral after the virus: Fanbytes’ Timothy Armoo talks the new future of toy and brand marketing

Timothy Armoo is the CEO and founder of Fanbytes, a digital marketing business that has shot to success in the three short years it has been plying its trade as a leading light in Gen Z marketing and tapping into the global TikTok sensation early doors. At 24 years old, Fanbytes is Armoo’s third business.

At the age of 17, the young entrepreneur had sold his second business, EntrepreneurXpress, a platform that held open the door for his subsequent success in the world of social media marketing.

Before the coronavirus really took hold of the UK earlier this year, Armoo – working alongside the team at Playtime PR – launched the first TikTok campaign for the global toymaker Bandai and its Yolkies product campaign.

Bandai is just one of five major toy companies that Armoo’s company is now working with, and one of many more global entertainment brands that have turned to the young marketing magician to better tap into today’s younger audiences.

Licensing.biz catches up with Timothy Armoo, CEO and founder of Fanbytes for his insight on the future of toy marketing in a post-pandemic world.

Last time we connected, Fanbytes had just kicked off a marketing campaign with Bandai – how did it all go? What was response like, and what kind of engagement did you guys see with that?

The reception was incredible, the brand Yolkies was a perfect fit for TikTok and working with the team at PlayTime PR meant that we could have a full 360 approach both with media and PR. The content now stands at millions of views but most important are the comments, with a 93 per cent positive sentiment across the comment. TikTok is one of those platforms where it can be very easy to swipe and leave

A lot has happened since back then. How have things evolved at Fanbytes over the last few months? How has lockdown and the pandemic impacted on the social media marketing space in that time?

Pretty interesting. At the start of the lockdown, we brought out the Bytehouse which was the first-ever UK TikTok house which did insanely well. We put 6 of the biggest and most influential creators on TikTok in one house to create content We’ve now clocked over 100 million views on our content and we signed on What Do You Meme as our games partner which did very well and now work with Rubik’s, Gymshark and even helped Government organizations with spreading the word about coronavirus.

I think the pandemic has accelerated some changes in the social media world where agencies who solely relied on client revenue from one service are failing. We’ve had to be nimble in what we do constantly bringing out products and services which are innovative. The Bytehouse for example was featured on BBC News, Sky and every major press article because it was genuinely innovative, taking all the IP and insight we’d used from helping brands reach this audience to then build our own brand.

How far do you think the last few months will influence the future of social media marketing? Will brands be adopting the ‘home made’ social media approach more? Have you guys seen an increase in activity here?

Yes, this was a trend we were already seeing with people not needing the Hollywood treatment of content with “shot at home” becoming more in vogue. It’s clear this works. People buy from people and the less photoshopped and real it looks the better.

Fanbytes is working with some big names in entertainment – Warner, Universal, Paramount and more – why are companies like these now turning their attention to this kind of marketing, and Fanbytes in particular? 

I think it’s because we’ve stayed incredibly true to what we do. Helping brands win Gen Z audiences. Everything we do is centred around that. The insights we share on our socials, the language we use when communicating to clients, it’s one of those things that if you’re an expert in, people will always come to you for.

We often turn down work if we think we can’t do a good job which is quite funny sometimes, try saying to your investors we turned down this six figure deal because we didn’t feel like it hit our sweet spot! But it’s been a good decision for us.

What’s the uptake been like from the toy industry to date? What potential do you think this market has for TikTok marketing – is the industry waking up to idea, and is it being quick enough to react?

We now work with five of the biggest Toy companies in Europe and funnily enough, they’ve all come to us. I think the shift has come because people think that on TikTok it’s just brand awareness, however, when you show clear case studies of being able to drive sales, that always wins.

We’ve developed a framework we use for all our campaigns which works exceptionally well to drive sales and when we can predictably guarantee results that’s very strong. We’re also starting to bring out long term collaborations with these toy brands, rather than just a simple collaboration.

What do you think the next stage of evolution for influencer/social media marketing could be for brands and for the toy industry in particular?

I think it’s going to be deeper integrations between influencers and brands where people will bring out their own collection in partnership with a brand. You see a lot of makeup brands doing this, but I think it will extend to toys where the influencer could bring out their own range of a particular toy. This makes intuitive sense. Most toy manufacturers sell through retailers so with a bit of personalisation you could have the influencer as the retailer, which will drive huge volume and sales.

How did this all get started for you? What does the future look like for Fanbytes in the coming years – any big plans we can be shouting about?

I built my first company at 14 and sold my second company, EntrepreneurXpress at 17 which really got me into the social media world. I started Fanbytes in university three years ago and it has grown well into being a strong force in the advertising world which I’m very proud of.

The future is very interesting for us, using our expertise we are building our own products tailored to Gen Z as well as branding out the agency itself into supporting clients on a whole range of things including paid media + partnerships. Of course, we’re also gearing up for our US launch, we do a lot of business there but no real meaningful presence. That’s going to change soon.

Going viral after the virus: Fanbytes’ Timothy Armoo talks the new future of toy and brand marketing

Timothy Armoo is the CEO and founder of Fanbytes, a digital marketing business that has shot to success in the three short years it has been plying its trade as a leading light in Gen Z marketing and tapping into the global TikTok sensation early doors. At 24 years old, Fanbytes is Armoo’s third business.

At the age of 17, the young entrepreneur had sold his second business, EntrepreneurXpress, a platform that held open the door for his subsequent success in the world of social media marketing.

Before the coronavirus really took hold of the UK earlier this year, Armoo – working alongside the team at Playtime PR – launched the first TikTok campaign for the global toymaker Bandai and its Yolkies product campaign.

Bandai is just one of five major toy companies that Armoo’s company is now working with, and one of many more global entertainment brands that have turned to the young marketing magician to better tap into today’s younger audiences.

Licensing.biz catches up with Timothy Armoo, CEO and founder of Fanbytes for his insight on the future of toy marketing in a post-pandemic world.

Last time we connected, Fanbytes had just kicked off a marketing campaign with Bandai – how did it all go? What was response like, and what kind of engagement did you guys see with that?

The reception was incredible, the brand Yolkies was a perfect fit for TikTok and working with the team at PlayTime PR meant that we could have a full 360 approach both with media and PR. The content now stands at millions of views but most important are the comments, with a 93 per cent positive sentiment across the comment. TikTok is one of those platforms where it can be very easy to swipe and leave

A lot has happened since back then. How have things evolved at Fanbytes over the last few months? How has lockdown and the pandemic impacted on the social media marketing space in that time?

Pretty interesting. At the start of the lockdown, we brought out the Bytehouse which was the first-ever UK TikTok house which did insanely well. We put 6 of the biggest and most influential creators on TikTok in one house to create content We’ve now clocked over 100 million views on our content and we signed on What Do You Meme as our games partner which did very well and now work with Rubik’s, Gymshark and even helped Government organizations with spreading the word about coronavirus.

I think the pandemic has accelerated some changes in the social media world where agencies who solely relied on client revenue from one service are failing. We’ve had to be nimble in what we do constantly bringing out products and services which are innovative. The Bytehouse for example was featured on BBC News, Sky and every major press article because it was genuinely innovative, taking all the IP and insight we’d used from helping brands reach this audience to then build our own brand.

How far do you think the last few months will influence the future of social media marketing? Will brands be adopting the ‘home made’ social media approach more? Have you guys seen an increase in activity here?

Yes, this was a trend we were already seeing with people not needing the Hollywood treatment of content with “shot at home” becoming more in vogue. It’s clear this works. People buy from people and the less photoshopped and real it looks the better.

Fanbytes is working with some big names in entertainment – Warner, Universal, Paramount and more – why are companies like these now turning their attention to this kind of marketing, and Fanbytes in particular? 

I think it’s because we’ve stayed incredibly true to what we do. Helping brands win Gen Z audiences. Everything we do is centred around that. The insights we share on our socials, the language we use when communicating to clients, it’s one of those things that if you’re an expert in, people will always come to you for.

We often turn down work if we think we can’t do a good job which is quite funny sometimes, try saying to your investors we turned down this six figure deal because we didn’t feel like it hit our sweet spot! But it’s been a good decision for us.

What’s the uptake been like from the toy industry to date? What potential do you think this market has for TikTok marketing – is the industry waking up to idea, and is it being quick enough to react?

We now work with five of the biggest Toy companies in Europe and funnily enough, they’ve all come to us. I think the shift has come because people think that on TikTok it’s just brand awareness, however, when you show clear case studies of being able to drive sales, that always wins.

We’ve developed a framework we use for all our campaigns which works exceptionally well to drive sales and when we can predictably guarantee results that’s very strong. We’re also starting to bring out long term collaborations with these toy brands, rather than just a simple collaboration.

What do you think the next stage of evolution for influencer/social media marketing could be for brands and for the toy industry in particular?

I think it’s going to be deeper integrations between influencers and brands where people will bring out their own collection in partnership with a brand. You see a lot of makeup brands doing this, but I think it will extend to toys where the influencer could bring out their own range of a particular toy. This makes intuitive sense. Most toy manufacturers sell through retailers so with a bit of personalisation you could have the influencer as the retailer, which will drive huge volume and sales.

How did this all get started for you? What does the future look like for Fanbytes in the coming years – any big plans we can be shouting about?

I built my first company at 14 and sold my second company, EntrepreneurXpress at 17 which really got me into the social media world. I started Fanbytes in university three years ago and it has grown well into being a strong force in the advertising world which I’m very proud of.

The future is very interesting for us, using our expertise we are building our own products tailored to Gen Z as well as branding out the agency itself into supporting clients on a whole range of things including paid media + partnerships. Of course, we’re also gearing up for our US launch, we do a lot of business there but no real meaningful presence. That’s going to change soon.

Carte Blanche’s Me to You partners with Tesco for Mother’s Day £1,000 shopping spree competition

Carte Blanche Greetings’ award-winning Me to You brand has partnered with Tesco for the seventh year running to offer customers the chance to win a £1,000 shopping spree for Mother’s Day.

The campaign will roll out across 400 of the supermarket giant’s stores, and will be hosted online, as well as promoted across all of Me to You’s Mother’s Day gifting and cards, including pajamas, mugs, and chocolates.

Customers to the store can enter the free prize draw simply by entering the competition URL promoted on Me to You Mother’s Day product and submitting their details online.

Me to You marketing manager, Grace Elphinstone, said: “We are really excited to be partnering with Tesco for the seventh year running on this Mother’s Day activity. We are delighted that Tesco has recognised the synergy between the Me to You brand and this special occasion, allowing our product portfolio to own the Mother’s Day space in store, offering customers a one stop solution for their Mother’s Day gifting and the ability to shop across categories for the brand they love.”