Media

Rule 5’s Lockdown Venture to Keep Leisure in Focus

Today the team at Rule 5 officially launches Twenty Twenty, a publication for the leisure and hospitality industries. The aim is to keep these businesses in the public eye during the pandemic and beyond.

 Twenty Twenty, which has been in beta for a fortnight, fixes a spotlight on destinations in the UK such as tourist attractions, bars and restaurants, as well as features on global attractions and how they are coping with restrictions and their plans to bounce back.

 With several clients within the sector currently not welcoming visitors, Rule 5 has allocated staff time to keeping the whole industry firmly in focus. It’s an entirely not for profit initiative and it won’t take advertising or sponsorship. The agency wants to support not compete with existing media. The MediaCityUK-based agency will use the platform to promote and support all destinations with a story to tell, no matter how big or small.

 “As a team, we’ve found ourselves with a some extra time on our hands, so whilst we’re unable to visit our favourite weekend spots – we thought we’d try to keep them front of mind for when we get back to the new normal. Twenty Twenty is there not just for our clients but for the whole industry and we’ll welcome submissions.’ said Managing Partner Rob Brown.

 “It’s also a great way for us all to stay motivated – we all love to travel, eat out and attend events; writing about what we love and where we’ll be going when this is all over has been a passion project for us all.”

Live from today, Twenty Twenty will run daily stories about what the leisure and destinations industry is doing to keep resilient and updates of plans for the present and the future.

Hawksmoor’s Winegate

PR Stunt or Genuine Cork-up?

In certain PR circles it has been suggested Hawksmoor’s media domination in the last 24 hours after two lucky customers were accidentally served a £4,500 bottle of red wine, was a full-bodied PR stunt. The mistake came to light in a tweet from the restaurant:

As an agency with several restaurant clients we decided to put the theory to the test.

In the red corner, the half-case for the prosecution:

  • Neither the member of staff nor the customer has been named. Admittedly the staff member would need a lot of bottle to come forward, but the same doesn’t apply to the diners. It conveniently makes it difficult to check the facts.
  • The £260 bottle ordered and the £4,500 bottle don’t look remotely similar, as Hawksmoor Founder Will Beckett said, the similarity doesn’t go beyond the fact that: “They’re both 2001 Bordeaux and there’s a “P” in there somewhere.” The member of staff has been described as manager level so it’s an unlikely mistake for an experienced employee.

The case for the defence:

  • The story was announced with one tweet at 1.15am. That’s hardly a carefully planned, multi-channel strategy calculated to deliver maximum impact.
  • There’s a definite authenticity to the tweet. Despite the forgiveness they say “One-off mistakes happen”. Why the implied warning not to do it again if it didn’t actually happen?

The view from Rule 5 is that it was a genuine cork-up, and someone correctly spotted that it might make an amusing piece of social content. When the tweet started to go viral the PR machine sprang into action to maximise the media opportunity.  There is one aspect of this story though, that we find hard to swallow – who orders wine priced at £4500?

2018 Predicted By Pinterest

Pinterest-100-c-blog-header-US_0

Pinterest, the platform described by CEO Ben Silbermann as a “catalogue of ideas” that inspires users to “go out and do that thing” has evolved into a trend prediction platform.

Launched in the US in 2010 the social media site has, in comparison to platforms Facebook and Instagram, struggled to develop as a commercial retail platform, despite garnering over 175 million daily users.

Media outlets and retailers are, however, now fully realising the benefits of Pinterest as a customer insight tool and not just a sales one.  It’s a move that sees the power shift between consumers and retailers move increasingly in consumer favour, with users’ daily pins no longer just capturing trends but informing them.

Published every December Pinterest 100 captures the top 100 biggest trends based on the activity of its subscribers.   Style, beauty and home decor are just some of the categories covered, with analysts looking for topics that showed critical mass, grew at least 50% in 2017 and trended up towards the end of the year.  You can view 2018’s top trends to try here.

Such is the credibility of the predictions, leading influential media outlets are using the platform as a source for new season forecasting features, the very articles that influence our buying behaviour for the year.  Coveteur, WhoWhatWear, the Daily Mail. Metro and Instyle are just a handful of those that have run over recent weeks.

In a world where data is gold, it’s no surprise Pinterest plan to further build on the predictions.  This year the platform will launch Audience Insights, a subscriber based tool that will afford businesses the opportunity to take a deeper look at its audience and how it engages.  The tool will be available to US business accounts early in the year and is expected to roll out to follow.

With traffic to Pinterest having increased significantly over the last six months, the platform’s potential to inform new product development and business marketing strategies is only set to grow.

The use of the platform by media outlets as a source for seasonal trend features isn’t new but it is gathering momentum.  Where trends were once dictated by designers and magazine publishers, consumers are increasingly the ones to watch.

Rob Brown Talks Google Ads to the BBC

Rule 5 Managing Partner Rob Brown, was interviewed by BBC Breakfast Business Reporter Ben Thompson, this morning (Tuesday 21.03.2017).  The interview followed the revelation at the weekend, that Google was allowing adverts on its YouTube platform to run alongside extremist content, such as videos promoting terrorism and antisemitism.

Hundreds of advertisers have pulled ad spending from the online video platform.  Rob believes that this will mark a tipping point for online advertising. The revelations and the subsequent outrage from advertisers will result in a “fundamental change in the way internet advertising is going to be bought and sold in the future” said Rob. Online platforms “are going to have to employ more people and write new algorithms” he added.

Dock10 Adds Rule 5

Studios

Rule 5 has been appointed by MediaCityUK based media services business dock10 to deliver a regional and corporate PR campaign.

dock10 is well known as a major supplier of studios, post production and managed services to the BBC, ITV and a host of independent TV production companies. It is now actively growing its customer base beyond the broadcast sector.

Video is growing at an exceptional rate, with significant growth in corporate and advertising. Last year, UK video ad spend grew over 50% to £711million, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau UK. “Broadcast continues to be our core business but the demand for broadcast quality video content is expanding well beyond traditional TV” said dock10 CEO Mark Senior.

“We’ve appointed Rule 5 because they understand the market, with the additional benefit of being located very close to us in MediaCityUK” he added.

Rule 5 founders Rob Brown and Julie Wilson both have extensive previous experience working for agencies in global advertising networks.