Susan Wickes, Author at Jellybean Creative Solutions

Blog Archives

12 Days of Giving 2022

15th December 2022

12 Days of Giving – Hospitality Action’s Emergency Appeal

First came Covid and the hospitality world faced a crisis of mammoth proportions, added to that the challenges of Brexit and now we find ourselves in a cost of living and energy crisis. It is relentless.
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Susan Wickes

Insight

12th December 2022

Lumina Eating Out Menu Trends

As a leading food and drink marketing agency covering both away from home and convenience channels (as well as consumer) we look forward to the quarterly Lumina Intelligence briefings to help ensure we keep up to date with the latest trends in the eating out market. Here are my top 10 take outs from yesterday’s Food Strategy Forum debrief…

Susan Wickes

Awards & Events

17th November 2022

A Gold Win at the B2B Marketing Awards 2022

The rain may have been torrential, but the spirits were high as we headed to Old Billingsgate for the 2022 B2B Marketing Awards. Having scooped a win in the B2B category at the Alliance of Independent Agencies Wing Awards, with our ‘You Don’t’ Know Philly!’ campaign for Mondelez UK, earlier this year we had everything crossed for the night ahead. This time the campaign was shortlisted for ‘Best Use of Customer Insight’ in what is essentially the Oscars of the B2B marketing world.

Susan Wickes

Industry News

6th October 2022

National Curry Week

If you ever needed an excuse to indulge in a curry, and believe me as a leading food and drink agency we need very little excuse, well, here it is. This week marks National Curry Week during which we have been hugely excited to launch an on-pack retail promotion for Cinnamon Kitchen. A newly launched brand which offers Indian fine dining at home with a range of premium ready meals developed by celeb chef Vivek Singh of The Cinnamon Collection. The range which is available exclusively through Tesco includes everything you could need to re-create fine Indian cuisine at home, without any of the hassle or effort – result! Having tried it myself I can testify to the quality and frankly my local Balti may have some serious competition on its hands.

Susan Wickes

Awards & Events, Industry News, Insight

29th September 2022

Lumina Food Strategy Forum Top Takeout’s

You may recall my last Lumina food strategy forum exec summary blog was split into the good news and the bad news. I’m sad to say that the weight of bad news is rather overwhelming this time around, however that isn’t to say there isn’t some good news. As ever things are changing on a daily basis as this debrief happened on 21st September two days before the Chancellor’s ‘mini budget’. However, that said, it offers up a useful snapshot of the market. My top take outs from the debrief are as follows:

Susan Wickes

Insight, Jellybean News

27th September 2022

A Heavenly Food Tour Around Angel

The Lumina team are no stranger to a food tour, well versed as they are with the hottest new concepts in town. But this time they wanted to mix things up a bit and treat the Food Strategy Forum members to a tour around not Soho, but Angel and not one, but three meals! Had I had known I perhaps would have opted for an elasticated waist but that frankly is my only complaint.

Susan Wickes

Jellybean News

9th August 2022

A Stirring Time

jellybean 35th cocktail masterclass

As a leading food and drink agency we’re rather partial to a classy cocktail (or three) as you may have seen from our World Cocktail Day blog. So last Friday, to mark our 35^th anniversary, Fiona our CEO organised a cocktail making masterclass for all the beans. Held outside in glorious sunshine our mixologist Simeon founder and MD of Soul Stirrer greeted us with a deliciously sweet and sour jellybean cocktail ‘jellybean fizz’, complete with mini pack of jellybeans delicately clipped to the side (nice touch!).

Susan Wickes

Insight

8th July 2022

Lumina Food Strategy Forum Debrief July 2022

As ever the Lumina Foodservice strategy forum was a deluge of data and insight. A hugely informative and useful look at the eating out market and of course as a leading food and drink agency with over 35 years in foodservice we were there to ensure we keep on top of the latest market dynamics and trends.

There is of course good news and bad news, so we’ll start with the bad first (you’ll be relieved to see the good list is longer!) …

Susan Wickes

Industry News

20th June 2022

The Craft Guild of Chefs Awards 2022

In foodservice marketing we’re used to magazines, but this was a first. It wasn’t the kind you thumb through like Stockpot or The Caterer. No, this was ‘Magazine’, the venue located just a stone’s throw away from the O2, where this year’s annual Craft Guild of Chefs Awards was held. As ever, it was the hot ticket, playing host to the great and good of the chef world. Raymond Blanc no less was in attendance, along with celebrated chefs from across the industry. Guests and nominees enjoyed a fabulous meal (no pressure catering team!) the highlight of which was for me the fish course, sponsored by our client McCormick’s and featuring their amazing hot sauce – Cholula, which I applied liberally to mine.

Susan Wickes

Insight

16th May 2022

IGD Eating Out Report – Top Take Outs

Last week saw the IGD run their latest webinar on Eating Out: a world of challenges and opportunities. As ever, their insights presented by Rhian Thomas and Nicola Knight were well considered and highly relevant to us, a leading out of home agency, as we are always keen to stay ahead of market trends and consumer behaviour. The report was very comprehensive and certainly worth a read. But for those in a hurry, here are some key take outs:

Susan Wickes

12 Days of Giving 2021

20th December 2021

12 Days of Giving – Susan

It’s that time of year again! And sadly, with Covid still with us we haven’t been able to get out and about in person to volunteer this year, but we are doing the next best thing for charities who desperately need our support and that is to donate money! The charity I have chosen this time around is a new one for me and one I just started supporting this year. The RNLI – Royal National Lifeboat Institution was a charity my grandpa supported back when I was a little one, as he had a boat proudly flying the RNLI flag and helped to raise money for them. I however had never really taken an interest in this charity, focusing on other causes close to my heart, like the British Heart Foundation, Blood Cancer, Cancer Research and NSPCC etc.

Susan Wickes

Industry News

10th December 2021

Three Menu Megatrends for 2022

As 2021 comes to a close, Lumina has announced what they believe will be the top 3 megatrends to shape 2022 and beyond. As a leading food and drink agency we wanted to hear the latest from this trusted insight specialist, so without further ado, here we go…

Susan Wickes

Jellybean News

26th November 2021

Quadruple Award Winning Campaign

As the pandemic hit, the bean team not only managed to effectively work remotely and rework plans to the new world-order, they did it on a game-changing level. I can say this with absolute confidence as the proof sits in our boardroom along with our existing collection of gongs.

Susan Wickes

Interesting Stuff

12th November 2021

Dog Friendly

Back in 2019 I wrote about dog friendly dining (a subject close to my own heart, as Mum to our ‘office dog’ Whisky). Since then, we have seen dog ownership explode. With Covid lockdowns and more working from home, those who had always wanted a dog but felt they couldn’t, took the plunge and got a furry friend. Whether it was for company, for the kids, or just because, UK citizens opened their homes to man’s best friend. Indeed, the BBC reported back in March that UK households had bought 3.2million pets in lockdown (a large proportion of them dogs)! Whilst according to the Pet Food Manufacturers Association (PFMA) a third of households now have a dog. That’s 12.5 million dogs. Great news for the members of PFMA, but also a huge opportunity for hospitality businesses.

Susan Wickes

Awards & Events, Interesting Stuff

21st October 2021

London Cocktail Week Month

As London Cocktail week is now all of October (nice!) we thought we’d share some of the Beans’ favourites. According to international research from Brandwatch, Margaritas are the most popular cocktail followed by Martini, Mimosa, Bloody Mary, and Manhattan. But closer to home it is safe to say, us Beans have found solace in a wide range of cocktails over the past 18 months (of course, all drunk responsibly!). We are after all a leading food and drink agency so really, it’s research. Isn’t it?

Susan Wickes

Interesting Stuff

13th October 2021

Social Media Promotions

Do’s & Don’ts for Social Media Promotions

Long ago if you wanted to make sure your promotions didn’t fall foul of the law you simply had to turn to ISP (Institute of Sales Promotion), check the CAP code and ASA guidelines. Of course, these days it’s not ISP it’s IPM (Institute of Promotional Marketing)and often times it’s not an on-pack promo or ad, but a social media promotion.

Susan Wickes

Insight, Interesting Stuff

7th October 2021

Eating Out & Pub Market Trends

The Latest from Lumina Intelligence’s Food Strategy Forum

As a leading food and drink agency we make it our business to keep up to date with the latest eating out market trends. Each of the Lumina briefings is hotly awaited to see what they have to share with us as we use these key market insights to inform our planning and strategy for clients in foodservice and the hospitality market. This session looked at the current status of the market and predictions up until 2024 with a focus on the pub and bar sector pulling on findings from their latest report.

Susan Wickes

Industry News

21st September 2021

There’s more to Hospitality Action

As a proud Hospitality Action Ambassador, I thought I knew all there was to know about Hospitality Action, but in the inaugural Ambassadors Briefing even I came away having learnt a thing or two.

Susan Wickes

Jellybean News

16th September 2021

Double Wing Awards Win

Award season has arrived, and with it, not one, but two wins at the inaugural Alliance of Independent Agencies Wing Awards.

Tuesday 14^th saw us walk away (figuratively as it was a virtual event) with both the Best B2B Campaign Award and Freedom Award for Agency Collaboration – one of three special awards recognising outstanding performance across areas where independent agencies have the freedom to excel.

Susan Wickes

Jellybean News

27th August 2021

Awards Season

We are always proud of the work we do for clients and treat the brands we work on as if they are our own. So when it comes to choosing which campaigns we put forward for awards it can be tough. This year we entered both the Alliance of Independent Agencies inaugural Wing Awards and the Oscars of the B2B world the B2B Marketing Awards. With bated breath we awaited the shortlist announcements of both and we are delighted to say that we made the grade with the both campaigns shortlisted for the categories entered, with…

Susan Wickes

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