We've Bean: Raising Awareness for Coeliac Awareness Week
Since 2006 I’ve been talking about the importance of catering for gluten intolerances on behalf of Almondy, Sweden’s great tasting gluten-free cakes, which recently celebrated its 10,000,000th cake sale here in the UK. In this time I’ve seen gluten-free grow from a niche market to exploding into the foodservice and retail sectors, thanks partly to celebrity endorsements, but also due to the hard work of amazing organisations such as Coeliac UK, which is educating people on the symptoms of what can be a serious and deadly disease.
Coeliac disease affects 1 in 100 people in the UK, and the UK gluten-free market is forecast to grow by 46% by 2017*. On top of this, 62% of people living with coeliac disease only eat out once a month or less due to lack of menu choices (survey by Coeliac UK). Therefore there is a huge demand for gluten-free dishes and as a leading foodservice agency, jellybeanhas been supporting several of its clients in tapping into the opportunity, showcasing how their products can put gluten-free options onto menus.
From social media campaigns, to consumer insight, infographics and recipe development, during this year’s Coeliac Awareness Week, jellybeandeveloped bespoke campaigns with Aviko, Tilda and Almondy that not only raised awareness for Coeliac UK and the week itself, but importantly delivered real results for the brands.
As well as inspiring chefs to consider more gluten-free options on menus, our activity generated 1,000 new followers for our clients’ Twitter accounts and 6,600,000 opportunities to see in just one week! Here’s a snap shot of what we’ve been up to for Coeliac Awareness Week 2015.
Tilda Seven Days of Gluten Free Giveaways
Tilda was looking to promote the gluten-free properties of its rice through the Tilda Foodservice Twitter account @TildaChef, giving bona fide UK chefs the chance to win a 5Kg bag of Tilda Easy Cook Basmati each day of the week. In addition our crack team of social media experts increased their Twitter activity to include a greater focus on gluten-free Tilda recipes, drove engagement with anagrams, as well as targeting those using the #CoeliacUKAwarenessWeek. During the week @TildaChef received over 400 new followers and generated a staggering 3 million opportunities to see!
Aviko Gluten-Free Heroes
With over 70 gluten-free products in its range and two dedicated gluten-free factories, Aviko was keen to highlight its potato sides to operators and help caterers become ‘Gluten-Free Heroes’ by swapping popular menu sides to more Coeliac friendly options. jellybeancarried out consumer research that highlighted the risks of serving hidden gluten to Coeliacs – and through deep drilling found that 60% of people don’t realise that not all chips are gluten-free – this gave us our hook!
Armed with hard-hitting stats to show the risk of serving hidden gluten, a high-impact infographic was developed to make the stats easy to share, and awareness on an important issue driven through PR and social media generating pick-up across the trade press. Recipes were also developed with the Craft Guild of Chefs’ Daniel Ayton – a Coeliac himself – to inspire caterers to take action on gluten and adapt their menus.
During Coeliac Awareness Week Twitter activity was ramped-up to highlight Aviko’s gluten free range. This included high-impact info-bites taken from the research and menu inspiration was offered via Coeliac friendly recipe cards. We also focused on highlighting the important work of Coeliac UK, supporting the charity with Aviko pledging to donate £2 for every follow and RT during the week, as well as the chance to win a personalised chef’s jacket and one of five Aviko and Coeliac UK goody bags. The week long activity generated an opportunity to see of 1.2M and raised £600 for an important cause.
Almondy #GFChocoHamper
Last year jellybeanworked with Almondy to help it launch four new cakes into foodservice and retail, including an indulgent new Cadbury cake topped with real Dairy Milk buttons. To continue building awareness of the cake with Almondy’s followers and promote Almondy’s 33 years of gluten-free credentials we used Twitter and a simple, yet effective follow and RT mechanic to win one of five Gluten-Free Cadbury Hampers through its #GFChocoHamper campaign. The giveaway generated a huge amount of engagement taking Almondy’s following to over 3,000 followers and reaching well over a 2 million people.
But our work around gluten-free and coeliac friendly menus doesn’t stop at Coeliac Awareness Week. With the introduction of the allergen legislation back in December, free-from and allergens are very much at the top of mind for caterers and we will do all we can to ensure our clients’ brands help chefs and caterers maximise the opportunity from this growing market. To find out more about Coeliac Awareness Week and Coeliac UK click here.
* F&D Innovation Network’s free-from conference, 2013
jellybean is a leading foodservice marketing agency and communications agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, foodservice marketing, digital and design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.
Britain’s Best Brigades
The team at jellybean have been working on an exciting project for our lovely client Essential Cuisine (aka the stock people) and we are really delighted with how it has resonated with chefs in our industry and the amazing response we have had to the idea.
Back in January, we launched an initiative for Essential called Britain’s Best Brigades, a competition designed to recognise and celebrate the fantastic chef teams we house in this great nation.
The first phase of the competition required chefs to take 10 mins from their hectic schedules to tell us in an inspiring way, and in less than 100 words why their brigade is one of Britain’s best! We had a fantastic response to the integrated PR and Marcomms campaign (something which we pride ourselves on here at Jellybean) targeting the foodservice market working in close partnership with the great team at Essential Cuisine!
The next phase involved whittling the entries down to a shortlist of just one per region, eight in total, and then each finalist brigade was required to bring their original submissions to life with a short snappy video that would then be put to the public vote to find the overall winner.
We’re pleased to say that the chefs have done us proud.
It was great getting the videos in from the finalist teams last week – there was genuine excitement and anticipation in the office. The campaign has clearly captured their imaginations and it’s clear to see how proud and engaged the brigades are with the idea of team recognition and how much creative effort the chefs have put into the video submissions.
We’re looking forward to crowning the winner on the 1st July!
Voting is open to everyone so go check them out and vote for your favourite brigade at www.bestbrigades.co.uk
Also, if you’re feeling social be sure to get involved in the action on Facebook and Twitter using #BestBrigades
jellybean is a leading foodservice marketing and communications agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, foodservice marketing, digital and design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.
We're officially Elite
We have always been very proud of our independent agency status. We are masters of our own fate and lords of all we survey (sort of). We’re a speed boat rather than a tanker and with our twenty four strong team we have been speeding along rather well for the last 28 years. Over this time we have built a reputation to be proud of and a much envied client list, so perhaps we shouldn’t really be surprised that we made it into The Drum Independent Agencies Elite table!
It’s only the second year we have entered and having done very respectably last year we were over the moon to find out we had managed to make it into the Elite Independent agencies list this year! It’s quite an achievement as only agencies that have featured highly on all three league tables (client feedback, peer votes and financials) make it into this esteemed list so we are very honoured. This year (for agencies with between 1 and 25 staff) we came 7th for the peer table, top 20 in the financial table and top 100 in the client table and thereby made it into the Elite Agencies (1-25 staff) table at no. 3.
Of course we wouldn’t be anywhere, let alone an ‘Elite Agency’ without our clients and the great comments they have posted on RAR and indeed all those who kindly voted for us in the peer poll. So we’d like to say a big thank you to all of you. Now it’s off to add an extension onto our trophy cabinet and open a bottle of fizz!
Read more on The Drum’s blog here.
jellybean is a leading foodservice pr agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, foodservice marketing, digital and design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.
Hospitality Action’s Great British Quiz raises a whopping £60k!
Last Friday evening a group of us Beans visited the lovely Park Plaza Westminster Bridge for Hospitality Action’s annual Great British Quiz. Hospitality Action are experts at hosting some very grand events – we often feel unworthy coming from our humble little foodservice design agency to the ballroom of another grand London hotel such as this, but we’re a long-term supporter of HA and are always on hand to do our bit.
This is an event that I personally really look forward to as I love a dose of healthy competition (I blame my Dad) and despite not being to up on our quiz game, we all had a whale of a time. We had a great group of people on our table including the lovely Contino family, the geniuses behind Sapori d’Italia, who were pretty hot on their sports – rather handy for us as sport isn’t our strong point. Food on the other hand…
The evening’s proceedings were led by the big man himself, Mark Labbett from the ITV game show The Chase. At 6ft 7, Mark managed to hold court in a room full of hospitality industry veterans that were buzzing with competition and rivalry!
The food and drink, served by the great front of house team at the Park Plaza, was truly delicious (big up to the back of house brigade). We had a lovely fillet of pork for main and, my favourite, caramel cheesecake for dessert (featured in the photo) which was divine!
We left the night with a new found bank of stats and facts to impress our mates, full bellies and a stuffed goodie bag – all signs of a great night! I was also rather chuffed the next day to discover the Mackie’s of Scotland honeycomb chocolate which was pretty mind blowing – thanks Mackie’s! Getting the sense that I have a bit of a sweet tooth!
The event itself raised a phenomenal £60,000 for HA, a fantastic achievement and a great cause. I was honoured to have been a part of it and I’m already looking forward to next year!
jellybean is a leading foodservice design agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, foodservice marketing, digital and design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.
National jellybeanDay
Each year we throw on our party hats and gather round a table of food and sweets to celebrate National jellybeanDay. This year, as the leading Foodservice Marketing, Foodservice Trends and PR agency, we wanted to do something bigger and better that involved more than just the ‘Jellybeans’.
We looked to industry leaders in research and statistics – Horizons and Allegra Foodservice as well as our own independent consumer research (Toluna panel 300 sample size) to pull together a thought-provoking and fun campaign.
So we had the facts, the numbers, the trends and predictions…then what?
Well, Junior Designer, Luca swapped his party hat for his creative one and produced what we like to call ‘Infobites’.
Infobites are bite-sized infographics that allow you to share individual snippets of information with a corresponding visual as opposed to essentially a full poster with multiple stats, facts and images.
As you may well know, infographics are playing an integral role in more and more digital marketing strategies. However if you’re late to the party and have yet to realise the infographic’s full potential, here are some facts for you:
- 90% of the information that comes to the brain is visual*
- 65% of your digital audience are visual learners**
- Visual data is processed 60,000 times faster by the brain than text**
- The words “infographic” and “infographics” are searched an average of 547,000 times per month in Google+
So, each day we tweeted and posted two infobites to our followers on both Twitter and Linkedin. Our jellybean themed infobites focused around stats on the out of home/foodservice market and consumers’ habits and mind-set out of home. See image on the right for examples. Can you spot the beans? 😉
To help spread the jellybean love, our creative-beans in the studio also produced ‘Happy National jellybeanDay’ jellybean bag toppers which were sent out as gifts to journalists, clients and prospects alike. Everyone loves a sweet treat after all!
And so, our social media campaign continued…
On the Wednesday, the official day of National jellybeanDay, we launched a promoted twitter account campaign targeting accounts with an interest in marketing, foodservice, hospitality and the like inviting them to follow us to win a personalised jellybean machine. The results over the three days were more than fruitful with Rebel Brewing Co. proud winners of their shiny new jellybeanmachine!
“It all sounds very nice, but where’s the business benefits?” I hear you ask… Well our week long campaign made a total of 4,831,858 impressions!!
So, if you’d like to know how infographics, infobites or even the moving infographic – ‘scroller’ – could work for your marketing campaign, get in touch today. We’d love to hear from you!
T: +44 (0)1372 227950
E: info@jellybeancreative.co.uk
Twitter: @jellybeanagency
LinkedIn: jellybean
*http://www.jeffbullas.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/9-Awesome-Reasons-to-Use-Infographics-in-your-Content-Marketing-v21.jpg
**https://blog.bufferapp.com/10-awesome-infographics-to-inform-your-marketing-plan-for-2014
+http://ansonalex.com/infographics/infographic-effectiveness-statistics-infographic/
jellybean is a leading foodservice pr agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, foodservice trends, digital and design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.
Bucket List
If it’s not already on your list and you haven’t already ticked it off, make sure you add ‘Run the London Marathon’ to the list of things to do before you die…having just completed my fourth London Marathon in ten years, I’m a big advocate in taking part in something amazing at least once in your life.
Nothing compares to running the streets of our beautiful capital on a spring day to the shouts and screams of the great London public, cheering you on every step of the way. It’s the nicest day in London by far – even as a spectator – London becomes a hive of friendliness with a sense of camaraderie, usually reserved for Cup Finals or the folk up North.
Unexpectedly, this year was my most successful marathon. I only had 10 proper weeks training after my arm came out of plaster, so I invested in a running coach, who introduced me to the merits of the run-walk strategy…basically I ran the whole marathon and did all my long training runs running 5 minutes and then speed-walking 1 minute and it worked a treat, I didn’t hit the wall and I didn’t stop once. The last five miles my 1 minute speed-walk got less speedy, but I kept smiling and finished in just over 5 hours. I enjoyed every minute and would encourage everyone to give it a go.
I was running to raise vital funds for DEBRA, a charity which helps EB sufferers and their families – If you’ve never heard of DEBRA, please take a look at the very good work they do here: http://www.debra.org.uk/real-life-stories/intro and if you’d like to donate some money for this worthy cause, you can still sponsor me https://www.justgiving.com/Sam-RookeVLM.
Running for a charity helps you cross that finish line, it gives you the determination to get up in the morning in the wind and the rain and run 15 miles while everyone else is tucked up in bed and it certainly puts a smile on your face when you collapse into bed on race day. So, run yourself a memory that will last a lifetime and help others less fortunate in the process.
jellybean is a leading foodservice marketing and communications agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, foodservice marketing, digital and design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.
A Hidden Gem in Surrey Hills
Described as ‘Surrey Hill’s best kept dining secret’ I was excited last weekend to be visiting Haywards at Hurtwood for dinner with a few friends.
Nestled in the charming village of Ewhurst on the Sussex/Surrey border, Haywards restaurant is situated on the beautiful grounds of Hurtwood Park Polo Club, which as an equestrian lover, I was particularly excited about!
With everything on the menu sounding delicious, it was hard to pick just one dish. I ended up opting for the ‘Pork Saltimbocca’ – and I was not disappointed. Tender pork medallions topped with sage, Parma ham and chorizo served on a haricot bean cassoulet, not to mention a generous portion of creamy dauphinoise potatoes and fresh vegetables, it was a culinary delight – my mouth is watering just thinking about it!
There was something to suit every taste, with other dishes including ‘Venison Bourguignon’, ‘Magret Duck Breast’ and ‘Fillet of Halibut’ as well as starters, light bites, vegetarian and children’s options and of course (and most importantly) desserts!
Not only was the food fantastic, but the service was superb and the lovely staff made our dining experience at Haywards thoroughly enjoyable.
If you’re looking for somewhere to enjoy delicious gourmet food combined with stunning surroundings, I would recommend a visit to Haywards.
I’m already looking forward to returning in the summer to sample more of the menu and to watch the polo with a glass of Pimms (or two)!
Website: www.haywards-restaurant.co.uk
Address: Hurtwood Park, Ewhurst, Surrey, GU6 7SW
Contact number: 01483 267321
Twitter: @HaywardsatPolo
Facebook: Haywards at Hurtwood
jellybean is a leading foodservice marketing and communications agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, foodservice marketing, digital and design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.
Beans take a Break
Last week fellow bean Jess and I decided to take a well deserved break to Grayshott Health Spa. Having browsed through numerous spa options online, we finally made up our minds and booked this sanctuary for three days…and what a delight it was!
After a mere one hour drive, we arrived at this haven in the Surrey countryside. Having never been away in England before it was a pleasant surprise not having to wake up at 4am to catch a plane! Luckily it was time for lunch when we arrived and we wasted no time getting stuck into the extensive buffet. The food was delicious, varied and all very healthy, although we couldn’t resist a glass of wine (we were on holiday after all!).
We managed to sunbathe the rest of the day, enjoying the unseasonably hot English weather and the beautiful grounds peppered with Spring flowers and shrubs until it was time for our exhilarating evening salt scrub before dinner. The treatment left us feeling revitalised and cleansed ready for our 3 course extravaganza of a duck starter, a wholemeal penne pasta in a sundried tomato sauce and a warm fruit crumble to end. Although the portions were small, we certainly left feeling full!
The following day, we decided to explore the local area, Grayshott is a beautiful town and make the most of the facilities in the spa and even had time for a spot of croquet in the evening…well making up our own version as we’d never played!
The dinner that evening, again was delectable and consisted of: quinoa with beetroot & prunes to start, aubergine melanzane for main (my favourite) and a raspberry parfait with a nut crumble.
On our last morning, we relished our final pampering session – a full body massage (couldn’t resist!). It was incredible. But, being the foodies we are we decided that we needed to eat something substantial to sustain us on the journey home (it was an hour after all) and so took a detour to the local pub, The Fox and Pelican. This was a real find and we must have left there a stone heavier than on arrival! The temptation of a burger and fries was definitely too much after eating like an athlete the previous two days.
We both left with a different outlook and better understanding of the foods we eat and a determination to think more about a healthy balance, I even purchased a book called Gut Gastronomy which was developed by Grayshott Spa, combining a health regime and recipe book, I can highly recommend it!
jellybean is a leading foodservice public relations agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, foodservice marketing, digital and design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.
Cocoa Adventures in Ghana
“There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.” Charles Dickens
I’m not alone in being a chocoholic – the worldwide consumption is predicted to hit 8.5 million tonnes in 2020* – but how many of us actually know how the sweet treat is produced?
As part of Callebaut’s For The Love of Chocolate campaign, two chefs won the trip-of-a-lifetime to visit cocoa plantations in Ghana, learning about the origins of chocolate, along with Lisa Jenkins from The Caterer. And I was lucky enough to be invited along with them!
Stepping off the plane we were hit with the vibrancy and colourfulness of Ghana, but also the heat! Although not the climate we in the UK are used to, it certainly works for cocoa – in fact, 70% of the world’s total number of cocoa beans originate in West Africa, with Ghana second only to the Ivory Coast in terms of crop numbers.
We spent the week travelling around the cocoa growing regions, visiting large plantations and small farms, discovering how the trees’ small white flowers grow to pods containing an average of 40 seeds/beans. As the pods don’t ripen at the same time, the trees must be constantly monitored before harvesting with machetes and then fermenting for around six days, often by covering with banana leaves – the smell is powerful! The final work of the plantation is to dry the beans for ten days before they are sold to purchasing agents and the licensed buying company.
Once away from the plantation the beans are taken through various quality control inspections before shipment. At this point we were struck by just how rigorous a process this is – each single bag of beans will be checked at least three times, labelled and sealed to ensure quality and traceability. The government strives to only export high-quality cocoa so the checks are done by hand, with the final tests evaluating samples of 100 beans per bag. All being well, these will then be shipped off around the world to continue the bean-to-bar journey.
Aside from cocoa, Ghana has so much to offer and history to share – we visited Kakum National Park for a walk above the rainforest canopy, as well as Elmina Slave Castle where we heard the horrific stories of slaves being held before they were sent to Europe.
It was also touching to visit the schools that Barry Callebaut Ghana support by building sanitary systems – only around 5% of schools in Ghana have these facilities – accommodation for teachers, I.T suites and libraries.
Working for a leading integrated foodservice agency, we’re often enjoying the finished product so to be able to travel to Ghana and learn where it all began was truly a privilege and a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
To see some of my pictures and videos from the trip, check out @lflew and @Jellybeanagency on Twitter.
*http://www.statista.com/statistics/238849/global-chocolate-consumption/
Time for (Unsung) Heroes
In the plump file named ‘things that foodservice does well’ – you’ll find, among myriad other examples, evidence of an industry like no other when it comes to honouring unsung heroes, be they young, up-and-coming chefs, charity workers, mentors or otherwise.
Last Thursday evening the tradition continued in some style with the annual Cost Sector Catering Awards – a chance to meet, eat, drink and marvel at some of the fine work done by in-house or contract caterers working in healthcare, schools, government departments, meals on wheels and welfare, prison catering, police, fire and MoD, as well as on-board travel catering.
The ceremony, organised by our friends at publishing house Dewberry Redpoint and held at the Hilton London Metropole, was packed to the rafters with the great and good of the industry, including a delegation of Jellybeans (actual collective noun) keen to mark the biggest night in the cost sector calendar.
With pre-dinner emceeing duties overseen by Dewberry Redpoint’s Andrew Archer, comedian Paul Sinha took the stage, following some fantastic food, to gee the room into an appreciative awards frenzy.
Headline moments came with Age UK chairman Dianne Jeffrey CBE, who has led both the Malnutrition Task Force and the Hospital Food Standards Panel in recent years, who was honoured with the Public Sector Lifetime Achievement Award (sponsored by our good friends at Hobart UK) while Geoffrey Harrison, the chairman and founder of Harrison Catering, received the equivalent Contract Catering gong.
All in all a fantastic night in which we were privileged to share. A night of unsung heroes. Well done to Dewberry Redpoint on another rather marvellous bunfight.
Follow this link for a full list of winners and a video from the night, click here.
jellybean is a leading foodservice pr agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, foodservice marketing, digital and design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.
jellybeanServes up Charity April Fool
A seven day ‘pop-up’ restaurant in East London, serving ‘pimped-up, Victorian-formula gruel’ was the recent subject of a charity April Fools’ Day prank by creative agency, Jellybean.
Borrowing heavily from the current trend for themed pop-up restaurants in the news, ‘Gruel Dudes’ and its fictional creator, Denton Fisk, took in elements of social media, digital and PR to fool readers, with £50 donated to industry charity, Hospitality Action, for every time a media outlet ran with the story.
In the end, two outlets – The Caterer and the Publican’s Morning Advertiser – printed the story in their ‘best of’ rundowns, with jellybeanplaced in a top five alongside efforts from big names including Greene King, Domino’s, Costa and The Fat Duck.
jellybeanManaging Director, Fiona Rickard, commented: “Getting involved with April Fools’ Day is not just fun, it also provides a fantastic showcase for our capacity to compel and create. Tapping into the trend for leftfield ‘pop-ups’ seemed like fair game from our end, and we’re delighted it was met in the same spirit as intended, with many of our journalist friends loving the premise and the way in which it was delivered. Introducing a charity element seemed the right thing to do and we’ll continue to support Hospitality Action whenever we can.”
For the ruse, a faux twitter account was established and populated in the lead up to the day, alongside a stylish landing page and standalone press release – the overriding conceit of which was to entice diners to a disused factory space in London’s Hackney Wick to feast on gruel with expensive ‘add-on’ toppings including chia seeds, kale shavings, quinoa, local honey and foraged berries.
The twitter site can be viewed at: www.twitter.com/coolgruel
The full press release can be found here.
jellybeanis a diverse collection of minds and talents from across the industry. The RAR (Recommended Agency Register) and MAA (Marketing Agencies Association) accredited agency was recently shortlisted for both B2B Marketing and Communications Agency of the Year as well as the 2014 B2B Awards and offers unrivalled services in integrated marketing, PR, consultancy, insight, digital, creative and social media. Those looking to find out more about how jellybeancan help your brand for real can call Susan Bolam on: 01372 227950.
jellybean is a leading food and drink pr agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, foodservice marketing, digital and design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.
‘Culinary Pirate’ to Launch London’s First-ever Gruel Pop-up, ‘Gruel Dudes’
A seven day ‘pop-up’ restaurant serving pimped-up, Victorian-formula gruel is to open at the very beginning of April at a disused factory space in Hackney, East London.
Gruel Dudes is the brainchild of an experiential collective of so-called ‘culinary pirates’, headed by newcomer Denton Fisk, and will feature a menu of basic gruel, made using a mix of hot water, oats and millet sourced from nearby Dalston, ‘pimped up’ with a variety of toppings including chia seeds, kale shavings, quinoa, local honey and foraged berries.
Individual bowls will start at £2.99, with toppings priced between £1 and £2.50.
Diners will also be able to choose from a small range of ethical coffee and tea, alongside an extensive flight of paired craft beer and wine, handpicked by Fisk himself.
On the new venture, Fisk opined: “Now feels like the right time to reimagine gruel for the 21st century. We’ve remembered how to brew our own beer again, we remembered that a beard can be a personal statement and not just a mark of laziness, but we forgot about gruel. It’s lucky that I remembered that we’d forgotten about it, otherwise this would never have happened.”
The 110 square metre factory space, just off Tredegar Road in trendy Hackney Wick, will be open from 9am-7pm for seven days from 1st to 7th April. The strictly-no-bookings site has capacity for 45 diners, including a bar area, and will include a vintage clothing store, tattooist, flea market and a resident DJ.
Fisk concluded: “We’re on a mission to ‘make gruel cool’ and after this, it surely will be. If it proves a success, then who knows, we could roll it out far and wide to places like Stoke Newington and Dalston and maybe next time make it 14 days. I really want to do something interesting with acorns, so who knows, the possibilities are endless!”
Tweet Denton Fisk at: @coolgruel
jellybean is a leading social media foodservice agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, foodservice marketing, digital and design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.
Landing Pages
More than ever, marketers are turning to the benefits of landing pages as a way to deliver real inbound results in their marketing campaigns.
But what exactly are landing pages, and how can you add them into your marketing mix?
Good questions.
Landing pages are usually single webpages hosted on the internet that are designed as landing pages for a specific push campaign, be it an e-marketing campaign, social campaign, or direct mail campaign. These landing pages, very often have data capture forms embedded in them and are designed to ‘convert’ or ‘qualify’ the visitor in the eyes of the business owner, expressing their interest in the product or service.
So far, so straightforward. So what is all the fuss about?
Well, in time-honoured fashion, here are the bullet-points.
1 EFFECTIVE. It’s been proven, across a great many markets that your conversion rate for a campaign is significantly improved if the user is taken through to a dedicated landing page that matches both the design of the campaign, but also the intention of the campaign. So rather than design a unique look and feel for an email and then take users through to a generic contact page on your website, match the look and feel of the email across the landing page.
2 QUICK. Typically the production time for an engaging landing page is far quicker than if you had to produce something within a corporate website.
3 FLEXIBLE. Prototyping stand-alone landing pages allows you design freedom as you are not tethered to the corporate website’s stylesheets and templates. Starting from scratch, or from a set of ready-made themes allows you to exercise creative freedom.
4 SALES ORIENTATED. Rather than focus on open rates, opportunities to see or click through rates, you are focusing your efforts on converting or qualifying recipients to receive follow-up information.
5. LOWER CUSTOMER ACQUISITION COSTS. Each improvement you make to your landing pages lowers your customer acquisition costs.
6. MEASURABLE. Both via Google Analytics, form submissions and form success rate you can easily measure the success of your landing pages.
Hopefully that goes some way to highlighting why landing pages are taking the marketing world by storm.
Get in touch and start to see the benefits stack up for your business.
jellybean is a leading food and drink pr agency. We help top brands with foodservice pr, foodservice marketing, digital and design. If you feel we could help you with your marcomms, strategy, public relations, creative or digital then drop us a line today.
Head over heels for The Dam!
Amsterdam is one of the greatest small cities in the world. This is how the Amsterdam tourist board describes it and I have to agree. Having visited for the first time this month, I have totally fallen in love. From the beautiful architecture, to the winding canals, to the uber friendly people, to the feel-good cycling, to the delicious food, it truly is a city that welcomes you and makes you feel at home almost instantly.
Having planned a three day break it was always going to be a busy couple of days, but within the first afternoon we had more or less explored the city by foot, accidentally coming across landmarks with surprised delight and pride – we almost felt like locals!
I could, and happily would, tell you about every part of my trip, but I would be here for days, so instead I want to tell you about a little gem that I discovered, again accidentally, but which I can highly recommend. This gem is called Trattoria Caprese.
Situated on Spuistraat, this Italian restaurant is a tranquil oasis compared to the hustle and bustle of the city outside. Greeted by the incredibly friendly and attentive waiters and shown to our table, we were presented with a menu that left us spoilt for choice!
Everything sounded mouth-watering, but after much deliberation we decided on tagliatelle con ragu di vitello e peperoni dolci (tagliatelle with veal ragout and sweet pepper) and polpette con salsa di pomodoro e pane di Altamura (meatballs in tomato sauce with Altamura bread) – both were nothing short of a culinary delight!
Of course, it would have been rude to have stopped at just a main, so we requested the dessert menu and the deliberations began yet again. Eventually it was the tortino caldo al cioccolato (warm chocolate pie) that won and it did not disappoint.
As the hours ticked by, there was not the slightest hint that they wanted us to move on to free up the table which made a refreshing change and as the restaurant filled up with a mixture of tourists, some of whom were happily dining on their own, it was the locals that had reserved tables which confirmed that we had in fact stumbled across a little gem.
Having only been back in the UK for a couple of days, I have already made plans to visit Amsterdam again, but this time I have a new to do list and sitting pride of place at the top will be a visit to Trattoria Caprese.
If you’re planning a trip to one of the greatest small cities in the world, then make sure Trattoria Caprese is on your list – I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.
http://www.restaurantcaprese.nl
https://www.facebook.com/restaurantcaprese?fref=ts
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