2019’s TOP 5 URBAN INFLUENTIAL FACES

December 3, 2018 Team Soho Fresh, New Trends  

As we enter the final month of 2018, we feel it’s the right time to reveal our shout for the top 5 urban faces that will help propel brands or bridge the gap to the lucrative urban market in the UK.

The urban market continues to grow at a rapid pace, as does the acceptance of its musicians, actors and social media personalities in to the mainstream market. As such, these are the 5, in no particular order, we’re tipping to have a very influential 2019 with brands:

1. Mo The Comedian: Honing his craft for years as a comedian on the underground circuit, Mo The Comedian is proving his ability and like-ability with every gig. Such is his rise, he is now hosting award shows, co-hosting on main stream television, headlining his own tour and done a stint on Live at the Apollo. We can see brands definitely seeking out his crossover comedic appeal. 

2. Yxng Bane: The East London rapper certainly drips a coolness that brands will want to align themselves with, and why wouldn’t they as he has a great mentor in Tinie Tempah as he’s managed by his music company, Disturbing London. Having done a collaboration with clothing brand Timberland in his recent music promo for the Slip N Slide record, Yxng Bane demonstrates his selling abilities to the urban market as his music continues to stream in the millions. 

3. Dig Dat: The newest comer of the lot to the urban scene, but what an impact he’s made. Charting on the UK Official Charts at No 20 with his Airforce Remix, the song has made headlines for being the first song from the Drill genre to chart nationally. The teenage to young twenties demographic are definitely feeling this new artist so expect brands to follow closely behind.

4. Maya Jama: You’d be mistaken for thinking Maya is only Stormzy’s girlfriend. The half Somali, half Swedish business woman, TV and radio presenter, model and entrepreneur to name a few of her many talents, is naturally an influencer to a wide demographic of females from multiple backgrounds with a few clothing and beauty brand deals already. This is sure to increase in 2019.

5. Fredo: Why this West London street rapper has not got a brand partnership with Harrods or Selfridges is baffling to us, as many of his lyrics talk about spending obscene amounts of money shopping in the luxurious stores. With a collaboration on Dave’s record Freaky Friday, charting at No 1 on the UK Official Charts, Fredo talks about the expensive things in life on many of his songs. We believe he wont get through 2019 without a partnership or collaboration with a high end designer being revealed, especially after his early 2019 UK headline tour. 

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SOMETIMES, REACTIVE CONTENT IS THE BEST

November 5, 2018 Team Soho Advertising, Creative, OOH  

Audience engagement by way of answering a users comment on social media is always a good way to increase visibility in your OOH and print media ads. It makes the brand seem really on the pulse and aware of consumers opinion of them.

After their recent saga of no chicken in restaurants earlier this year, KFC have very much responded in a variety of OOH campaigns addressing customers directly with issues they have with their brand. Would this work for every brand though? Could your brand benefit with this reactive content? Knowing your target audience is the first thing to consider when pulling this off. Is your target audience the type to react well to this?

At soho Pixels we know just how to decide the best engagement for your target audience and come up with tailor made campaigns that engage visually and mentally…and occasionally in real time too.

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CULTURAL RATINGS

September 5, 2018 Team Soho Advertising, Influencer, Music, New Trends, Urban  

In to its fourth year now, the Rated Awards is arguably the most influential urban award ceremony when it comes to honouring those creating the current sound of youth radio and things of the urban culture. 

At least 70% of the music being churned out now on mainstream radio stations like BBC 1Xtra and Capital Xtra are from artists who won big last night. A lot of these artists are becoming faces of national campaigns for brands like Adidas and Nike, with their music being synced with adverts and TV programmes like Sky Sports live football matches.

As the urban scene continues to grow and the music continues to get popular with a mainstream audience, there’s no better time like now to align your brands with these popular artist.  As we work with many of them and are specialised in urban activation, why don’t you get in touch to see how your brand can benefit.

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IT STILL CAME HOME…FOR BRANDED CONTENT!

July 12, 2018 Team Soho Advertising, Creative, Memes, New Trends  

The eerie silence of commuters on the train this morning after England exited the World Cup was strange. Usually it’s filled with tired souls dragging themselves into Central London unhappy about another day in their 9 to 5, but today it was a different type of silence. Today the silence was infused with a sense of, “we were almost there,” sadness.

Since 1966 England have been hoping to lift the famous Gold World Cup trophy aloft, and the closest we’ve come to that was on penalties in 1990 as I’m sure you’re now tired of hearing. Many years of disappointedly underachieving performances was shattered over the last 28 days, as Gareth Southgate’s young lions performed out of their socks to narrowly be beaten by a Croatian side that has never reached the finals. In the end, it didn’t come home for England…or did it?

Outside of football and back to adland, it truly did come home for the brands who heavily invested in the World Cup with a stream of content being shown across all mediums. You seriously couldn’t look left, right, on your TV or mobile device without seeing some sort of branded content dedicated to the World Cup. The success of England reaching the semi-finals engaged the British public like never before, and strategically placed ads definitely bolstered the economy during the 28 days. I know, I know, the weather certainly helped too with prolonged sunshine which added to the feel good factor, but the consumption of social media and the delivery of branded content hit record heights as fans and the average consumer shared, then shared some more with their online communities. This World Cup even introduced the public to branded memes for the first time.

It seems the appetite for big sporting events, branded content and the use of influencers will not be slowing down anytime soon, and a lot of this content created is not as expensive as you may think. In two years time when England play at Euro 2020, it may be worth it to your brand to think about getting some strategic content in place, it may well just increase your visibility 10-fold or help with sales to no end on your product or service. Don’t believe me? Neither did the whole nation that we could win a penalty shootout…but look what happened with that.  😉

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THE FUTURE OF INFLUENCING

June 8, 2018 Team Soho Advertising, Creative, Fashion, Influencer, New Trends  

Influencers are still a new concept for most traditional brands as part of a campaign. A big name movie star or sporting legend normally gets banded about in creative meetings, or indeed by the brand themselves. Trying to pitch reality TV stars is still not fully appreciated by some bigger brands, though becoming a little more popular as the influencing power they possess grows. 

So how easy do you think it is to convince a brand to use an influencer who’s made their name solely on one of the social media platforms? What if we said the influencer wasn’t even human, but an Artificial Intelligent, or AI, influencer? Would you be convinced?

Meet Miquela Sousa, aka Lil Miquela, a 19-year-old singer (yes she has songs on iTunes), ‘It girl’ and social media influencer from California, with 1.3 million followers on Instagram (@lilmiquela). Sporting a space bun hairstyle with a micro fringe and doused with pretty freckles, she wears clothes by the likes of big clothing brands like Supreme and Chanel. Even the likes of Prada invited her to take over its Instagram account during one of its Milan shows and she has appeared on the cover of magazines such as Wonderland and V Magazine. 

Miquela frequently posts across her Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr accounts, and Time magazine named her as one of 2018’s 25 most influential people on the internet and she doesn’t even exist. Miquela is a CGI creation who lives in a virtual universe, which resembles our own world. Miquela isn’t the only one though, she’s at the forefront of a new wave of AI influencers.

She was created by LA start-up, Brud, in 2016 with many followers not even reading that she wasn’t real, but her capacity to rake in the cash via endorsement deals and brand collaborations is vast, even better than some household Hollywood stars and musicians.

With this power pull continuing, coupled with the ability to fully control the influencer for brand alignment and suitability, just how far can this go? I guess the real question may be, how far is the consuming public willing to be dictated to by a CGI/AI creation?

Suddenly all the futuristic movies of old don’t seem so, well, futuristic. The future of influencing lives now, in our present. How soon will you be willing to include an AI influencer on a future campaign?

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X,Y…Z?

March 27, 2017 Team Soho Advertising  1

To most, the simplified letters of X, Y and Z will mean nearly nothing apart from the last three letters of the modern alphabet. To some they may believe it to be referring to coordinates or axis on some sort of map. Yet to marketeers, these letters are crucial, as they define a particular group of consumers; a generation of consumers in fact.

Millennials were who brands were predominantly focussing their attention on, but now it seems Generation Z is here and ready to make their mark. Generation Z, the newest generation, are starting to make an impact on retail buying, and according to Forbes, Generation Z (those born in and after the year 2000) already make up 25% of the US population and a similar number here in the UK. That makes Generation Z a larger percentage of the population than Baby Boomers and are quickly approaching Millennial levels.

Not only large in size, Generation Z are also strong in purchasing influence. A recent IBM study (15,600 people in 16 countries) has Generation Z’s purchasing power at approx. £35 billion. Furthermore, Generation Z influences 93% of the family budget. The IBM study also reveals that Generation Z is all about mobile; 25% of Generation Z spend over five hours per day on a mobile device learning, socialising, but most importantly, purchasing, and they are the first generation to be born into a life where mobile technology is all they know.

Generation Z want to browse online and in stores, and they are looking for a seamless experience no matter what method they use to do this. If a brand can’t, or doesn’t react quickly to their needs, they will drop it and move on to another quickly, so brands need to be mobile-savvy, create a seamless, omnichannel experience and respond quickly to their needs.

With Generation Z, Brand loyalty is not at the forefront of their minds, as it is with Millennials and Baby Boomers. They are a new, but powerful group of buyers, so it’s important to start preparing for them now as they are impatient due to their overstimulation to technology.

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MORE SUPER POWERS FROM NPOWER

January 18, 2017 Team Soho Advertising, Content Marketing, Creative, Influencer, Online, Video  

Having been commissioned on the Super Powers campaign last year for Npower, Soho Pixels began the second phase, #familysuperpowers, with another fun commercial, teaming up again with Peter Andre.

Npower were very clear on what they needed from the video: it needs to be fun, have a flowing narrative and continue the Super Power theme from the last commercial we filmed. Well, time to unleash the creatives; let’s get to work.

The shoot itself took a day, with post-production another four days of CGI, editing, music composition, sound design and colour grading added so that delivery to Npower was on time and within the week for their marketing team to begin distributing the asset as part of the #familysuperpowers campaign.

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