WHICH DO YOU PREFER?

March 19, 2019 Team Soho Advertising  

Arguably one is no more important than the other. But for you, one is certainly more fun to be a part of, no?

Those that work on the implementation of any great idea surely must win the argument that they are the real brains in an agency, as they’re the ones who brought the idea to life so to speak.

Then there are those who sit in a mythical chair all day throwing a ping pong against the wall with the hardest Spotify hip hop playlist pumping out the office speakers, waiting for that, “oh shit, I’ve got it!” moment. They will agree that their task is the true gem.

What if you’re tasked to do both though? Hmmm.

Read More

WHEN THE COMPETITION ADVERTISES IN YOUR SPACE

February 28, 2019 Team Soho Advertising  

In a galaxy far, far away…not really, more like Kings Cross. 

Now, there are liberties, then there are just straight violations. This has got to be skating the line between the two, akin to the rebel forces fighting the empire; okay major exaggeration. But on travelling to work today, I did see a Santander docking station playing home to two of their competitors in the war of London’s cycle hire schemes.

Both Lime-E and Mobike had one of their cycles parked up in the Santander spaces. These two brands of cycle hire are dockless and users are required to drop them off to anywhere that is ‘safe’ and not a disruption to the public. I guess the two users thought this was an appropriate place. 

As I took the snap another user was approaching to pick up the Lime-E cycle. My thoughts immediately went to picturing Adidas merchandise in and amongst the display on a mannequin in Nike’s flagship Oxford Circus store. In urban terms, that would be a violation. 🤦‍♂️😄

Read More

CREATIVES RUBBING SHOULDERS

February 6, 2019 Team Soho Advertising, Creative  

What happens when you get a bunch of talented creatives in a room sharing and critiquing ideas? Hopefully content worth millions, lol. This was the case last night (this week) as a few of our creatives went to Meet The Commissioners at the offices of M&C Saatchi in Golden Square, London.

The event was hosted by Shiny Awards and Directors Notes and it had a few of the creative industry’s hottest emerging talents in attendance. The panel from a diverse background gave out valuable expertise to some of the creators of submitted entries of work, whilst those in attendance listened in whilst sipping on their beer and eating pizza and chicken bites laid out.

On the panel there was Estella Alvares and Gareth Williams, who are the Senior Film Producer and Producer/Director respectively at M&C Saatchi; Leah Joyce, Head of Music at Academy Films; MarBelle, founder of Directors Notes and Sarah Bolshi, Co-Director and video commissioner of iconic indie record label, Sunday Best. Each one critiqued three up-and-coming directors that showcased their work in front of the audience, as well as giving sound advice on what a lot of the big wigs at brands are looking for from creatives.

In all it was a fantastic evening of networking and sharing creative ideas, we certainly look forward to working with some of the up-and-coming creatives that approached us, as well as collaborating with other agencies on projects.

Read More

Is A Monthly Challenge A Great Advertising Opportunity? IS A MONTHLY CHALLENGE

February 1, 2019 Team Soho Advertising  

New month, new personal ‘challenge.’

After the splurge of food and alcohol over Christmas, but mainly alcohol, many partook in ‘Dry January,’ which was a complete month of abstinence from alcoholic drinks. This ties in neatly with everyone’s desire to get healthy and get in the gym. Its also a great 4-week campaign for health conscience brands and content makers, not so good for the beverage industry. So as today is the first day of Feb, the next challenge has been rolled out, ‘Fizz Free Feb,’ which is tailored at cutting out fizzy drinks. Now I have never heard of this one before but it seems to have some form of government backing and aimed at parents and in particular their kids.

So once this is over, where do we go for the remaining months of the year? Money Saving March?  Anti-Social Media May? Organic October?

What is obvious is that with the right marketing behind one of these monthly challenges, a brand  can really ignite something that can be spun annually to a mass market, raising the brands profile and generating some good income in the process. Tie it in with a long-term campaign or roll out of a new product over that particular month, whilst keeping it close to social media and the demographic of 16 to 40-year-olds, and you will definitely increase the chance of click and repeat on any visual assets as well as high engagement.

Is this the new cool advertising opportunity? It seems like it may well be.

So brands, pick a month, instruct your agency to come up with a challenge and watch your market share grow. All you creatives just remember to credit us as the source for sparking the idea to pursue your inspired challenge please, *cough cough* 🙂

Read More

FACEBOOK MERGING WHATSAPP, INSTAGRAM AND MESSENGER

January 25, 2019 Team Soho Advertising  

With the news that Facebook is to merge its Messenger with arguably two of the other most popular social media platforms messaging services, we ask ourselves, is this good for content providers and brands?

The move is set to make communication between the three messaging systems that Facebook own easier and fluid. Obviously the security risk may pose as a real problem as WhatsApp messages are encrypted from end-to-end, whilst Instagram doesn’t offer anything and Facebook offers the feature if you turn on ‘secret conversation.’ So what happens if an Instagram user messages a WhatsApp user and vice versa?  That aside, the real intrigue we believe is how this can help monetize WhatsApp, as has been documented that Facebook have had a hard time earning revenue off of its 1.5 billion users, due in part to the end-to-end encryption.

The key to all of this is data, and the collection of data for insight for the all important Ad analytics and revenue. With the impeding merge of these three services, does this mean content makers and brands will have to shift their marketing strategies?

I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Read More

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. 

Read More

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.

Read More

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.  😉

Read More

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?

Read More