Staff shortages: A terrifying reality for the hospitality industry

“The hospitality industry is facing dire times”

pandemic hospitality

In the constantly evolving and unsteady world that we live in, it is very difficult for the economy to stay afloat. After nearly 18 months of the Covid-19 pandemic, hospitality businesses in the UK have been left out to dry. With Brexit also being a current reality, a lot is changing. Ultimately, the hospitality industry is facing dire times, presently accompanied by staff shortages and vacancies which have nearly tripled now that the sector is opening up again.

How have staff shortages come about?

Reports suggest that nearly 75% of London’s hospitality workers are primarily European. Now with Brexit, this figure is bound to change. 

Post-Brexit immigration laws have rendered many EU workers unable to stay and work in the UK. They have either chosen to quit their jobs and leave the country, or have been forced out due to rigorous new visa requirements.  

A new report states that around 90,000 workers have left the UK’s hospitality sector during the past year, which is a frightening statistic. This phenomenon, paired with training shortfalls and the uncertainty brought on by the pandemic, could very well put a halt on the industry’s ability to bounce back after being in lockdown for almost 18 months. 

The consequences of staff shortages

Studies published by The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) warn that staff shortages could continue for another two years. However, the consequences are prominent now. 

General Director of the CBI, Tony Danker, states that “The CBI has  heard from companies  actively cutting capacity  because they can’t meet demand,  like  the hoteliers limiting the number of bookable rooms because they don’t have enough housekeeping staff and can’t get linen laundered.” 

“Meanwhile some restaurant owners have had to choose between lunchtime and evening services when trying to make the most of summer.”

The staff crisis has not only affected businesses themselves, which are currently understaffed and cannot provide their usual quality and maximum output, but consumers and workers as well. 

staff shortages brexit

In some industries, shortages have severely contributed to businesses’ distribution issues and shops’ lack of stock with no one available to restock the shelves, leaving never-ending images of empty shelves in stores and hundreds of unsatisfied customers.

Moreover, hospitality workers have been forced to work longer hours under more stressful conditions to compensate for the under-staffed industry, leaving them at risk of burnout. 

Now, with the world opening up, this will remain a “growing constraint”, as characterised by the CBI, in an industry that wants to flourish like it did, pre-pandemic.

 

We are a team of experts committed to helping hospitality businesses thrive and reach their goals. If you believe your business is facing issues caused by the current economic crisis, do not hesitate to get in touch with Posh Cockney today. 


top influencer marketing agencies

DesignRush Lists Posh Cockney as Top 30 Influencer Marketing Agency

B2B marketplace, DesignRush, has ranked Posh Cockney among the Top 30 Influencer Marketing Agencies worldwide. 

DesignRush is a platform that works to help brands connect with top professional marketing and web design agencies, as well as technology companies, removing the laborious task of searching for these online. 

The marketplace lists the best agencies around the world, based on area of expertise, reviews, cost, and so on, generating qualified leads and projects for an extensive number of B2B companies. 

“We are delighted to have been recognised by DesignRush in the top influencer marketing agencies category. The last two years have been tough for the industry and we are sure this will be a great step towards us coming out of this, bigger and stronger than ever,” said Liam Norval, Posh Cockney CEO. 

Posh Cockney continually demonstrates a strong expertise in establishing and building influencer-brand relationships. Over the past few years, our database of contacts has grown immensely, enabling brands to connect with the right influencers for them. Influencer outreach continues to remain a vital part of Posh Cockney’s marketing strategy as we move forward with new and existing clients. 

influencer marketing agencies

Posh Cockney is a hospitality and lifestyle consultancy based in London, specialising in marketing, PR, event management and web development. We are a team of experts with passionate and creative minds, able to turn any brand’s vision into a reality. 

To learn more about how Posh Cockney can connect your brand with leading influencers, get in touch with us today. 


hospitality industry

How does the rise of staycations influence the hospitality industry?

What are staycations and why are they growing in popularity?

hospitality industry

We all know what a vacation is, but do you know what staycations are? ‘Staycation’ is a combination of the words, ‘stay’ and ‘vacation’, meaning a vacation that stays in your home country instead of abroad.

The staycation concept has experienced strong growth in popularity, not just nationally but in a lot of other countries, due to COVID-19 travel restrictions and consumers’ safety concerns over travelling abroad. According to research, a large number of UK individuals still do not feel comfortable traveling abroad under the current global climate, even with vaccination roll-out and lifted restrictions. As a result, Brits have decided to enjoy staycations within the UK. Research shows that 4 in 5 people are planning a 2021 staycation in the UK.

How does the growing demand for staycations affect the hospitality industry?

staycations hospitality

The global pandemic crisis has undoubtedly caused significant damage to the economy. With international travel restrictions and various lockdowns in the UK, hospitality businesses have experienced a tough time. They were forced to remain shut, and demand drastically decreased which led to sharp decrease in revenue and therefore profit.

The increasing demand for staycations helped boost the local hospitality industry, helping to aid its recovery from the loss caused by the pandemic. This was particularly true for businesses located in tourist hotspots, such as Cornwall, London and the Lake District.

Furthermore, research predicts that rise in demand for staycations will continue in the future, indicating that income generated by local consumers will increase and take up most of the income proportion. Building on this, it can be suggested that the main demographic for staycations will be UK consumers, until foreigners feel comfortable travelling to the UK.

How is the hospitality industry responding to the trend?

In response to the market demand, hospitality businesses and travel agencies have created increasing numbers of staycation deals and packages.

The trend has also indirectly indicated consumer concern regarding the COVID-19 pandemic; therefore, businesses have begun adopting flexible and transparent cancellation policies to maximise customers’ confidence in booking staycations.

City corporate hotels are also focusing more on aesthetic pleasure to compete with hospitality businesses which offer outstanding decoration or scenery.

 

Get in touch with Posh Cockney today for more advice on how to utilise the staycation trend and improve your business performance during these difficult times.


Instagrammable Restaurant

‘Instagrammable’ venues: Are they worth the hype?

‘Pics or it didn’t happen’

So many of us have become addicted to sharing every aspect of our lives on social media, whether that’s what we’re doing, wearing or, of course, eating. We’ve all been there: you’ve just sat down in a restaurant, ready to tuck into a meal, when your friend suddenly stops you for an ‘Instagrammable’ photo moment.

Just half a decade ago, this might have meant a ‘#foodporn’ post, displaying a beautifully arranged dish inspiring comments of heart-eye and mouth-drooling Emojis. Now, however, there is much less focus on the food, but rather on the venue itself.

The Birth of ‘Instagrammable’ Venues

Instagrammable Restaurant
Pez Playa, Majorca

Over time, businesses in the hospitality industry have become aware of the benefits resulting from this millennial habit. By uploading location-tagged images of venues on the app, customers are essentially providing free advertising for businesses, unprovoked.

So, why not take advantage of this? The past few years have seen hundreds of restaurants and cafes transform their venues into photogenic backdrops designed solely for Instagram feeds. It’s now hard to tell whether an influencer’s favourite bar is determined by its cocktail variety or collection of neon signs on display.

Some venues even go so far as asking their guests to post on the app, using specific hashtags to aid brand growth online. Take Pez Playa for example, one of Europe’s first Instagram-friendly restaurants. Based in Majorca, staff are trained to encourage use of the app in the venue, checking that customers have battery on their smartphones and offering freebies to customers who use the restaurant’s hashtag.

With photo-sharing intentions in mind, customers visit the restaurant for an aesthetically-pleasing experience. Waiters don’t just serve food, but present and carefully arrange dishes of artwork, adding to the endless list of photo opportunities on offer across the venue.

But what is it about the venue itself that appeals to the eyes (or tapping thumbs) of millennials and Gen-Z? What exactly makes a venue ‘Instagrammable’?

What makes a venue ‘Instagrammable’?

Much like any picture-worthy moment, customers need to be wow-ed by their surroundings before they are likely to open their smartphone camera. An Instagram story opportunity requires more than the average set of table and chairs.

Taking a look at some of London’s most popular, ‘Instagrammable’ venues, it’s easy to recognise patterns of features favoured by the app’s users. If you’re thinking of making your venue an Instagram-worthy spot or simply want more social media engagement, why not include:

  • Eye-catching neon signs – Create the perfect photo backdrop with a catchy slogan or quote highlighted in neon, like this one displayed in EL&N Café.

Instagrammable Neon Sign

  • A jungle of plants or trees – Appeal to the eco-conscious minds of young consumers by filling your venue with green plants or even trees amongst your tables and chairs.
  • Floral wall displays – Arguably, influencers’ favourite photo spots. Cover your walls from head-to-toe in beautiful artificial flowers.
  • Picture-perfect lighting – No photo is worthy for the ‘gram without good lighting – after all, you can’t take a ring-light everywhere! Illuminate your venue with beautiful lighting installations, such as this one in Circolo Popolare.

Instagrammable Venue Lighting

  • Millennial pink-everything – If all else fails, go for a millennial pink theme. Named colour of the year in 2016, the hue is featured across many interiors of popular London restaurants, such as the extremely popular, Sketch.
  • Novelty features – Nothing makes an Instagrammer get out their smartphone camera quicker than a novelty venue feature. Take this well-known, futuristic bathroom setup in Sketch, for example.

Instagrammable Novelty Futuristic Bathroom

  • Bathrooms perfect for mirror selfies – Everyone loves a bathroom mirror selfie, especially when the background looks presentable. Replace average toilet cubicles with a touch of luxury, as seen in these toilets at Brasserie of Light.

Instagrammable Bathroom Venue

How do businesses benefit?

Of course, it’s no doubt that a more visually attractive venue will entice more customers – it acts as good packaging. But how does being ‘Instagram-friendly’ in particular benefit a business?

Ultimately, ‘Instagrammable’ venues don’t just exist within the local community – they live online. Upon entering Sketch or EL&N Café, guests feel instantly inclined to share their lunch destination with their several-hundred or even several-thousand followers, scoring the business plenty of exposure.

Indeed, while a restaurant can gain good traction online from the general public, it can become a viral success from just one influencer share, with users of the app travelling from far and wide to enhance their Instagram-game.

A photogenic venue can also improve a business’ own Instagram-game. Having beautiful lighting and backdrops enables a company to present better quality social media posts, highlighting their venue as more appealing. This can significantly shape the way it is received online, increasing the brand’s engagement and therefore exposure.

Are ‘Instagrammable’ venues worth the hype?

Are they worth the hype

With so much thought put into a venue’s aesthetic appearance, we might question whether customers are still guaranteed a good quality dining experience in these well-known spots. Does the product itself match the quality of its packaging?

Alongside floral wall displays and neon signs, one feature that runs consistently throughout so many of these venues is a high price point. Venues like Saint Aymes and EL&N Café often receive mixed reviews for their ‘overpriced’ food, with several customers complaining that you pay for the photo opportunities.

On the other hand, restaurants like The Ivy Asia and Circolo Popolare have received consistently positive reviews which consider the venues’ dishes as worthwhile as their picturesque qualities.

Perhaps then, it’s a matter of doing your own research before committing to the sometimes dearer costs of an ‘Instagrammable’ dining experience.

From a business perspective, it’s vital that hospitality venues don’t lose touch with what they originally sought to do. Serving carefully made food and providing excellent service is just as important as gaining social media exposure. Achieving the right balance between the two is the best way to succeed in the hospitality industry.

 

If you would like to know more about how to gain exposure for your business on Instagram, get in touch with Posh Cockney today.


Sustainability in Business

The rapidly increasing growth of the importance of sustainability for businesses can be seen across all industries – with 62% of executives stating that to be competitive, businesses must adopt a sustainability strategy. On top of this, an extra 22% believe it will play an even greater role in future (Haanaes, 2016).

So, what does it mean to have sustainability in a business?

According to Alexandra Spiliakos from The Harvard Business School Online, sustainability practices are done so a company/brand/business can avoid a negative impact on the environment, community, or society in the long term (Spiliakos).

Notable examples of these business strategies can be seen in companies such as:

 

  • Nike – waste and footprint reduction
  • Unilever – waste and footprint reduction
  • IKEA – waste and footprint reduction, maximising material usage
  • BMW – reduction of pollution and increasing energy efficiency (Haanaes)

Windmills

But how can this be done for your business?

With sustainability, the specific approach taken by businesses is tailored by what effect the business has or wants to have on the environment or on society. Because there is such a broad list of elements to consider, each businesses’ sustainability approach needs to be made in response to its own internal goals and functionalities.

Therefore, certain sustainability strategies may take the form of:

  • Usage of sustainable materials in manufacturing/production 
  • Reduction of greenhouse gasses
  • Usage of renewable energy sources for power
  • Supporting the local community by dedicating sponsorship funds (Spiliakos)

Given that there is an obvious positive impact from adopting a sustainability approach on the environment and society (outwards), further positive impact can also affect the image and potential of a business (inwards). Commitment to sustainability causes business success (Gavin, 2018), whilst nowadays, a seemingly recurrent aspect of the investment process involves assessments of sections such as company carbon footprints, community development efforts and board diversity (Spiliakos). Therefore, if a business’s sustainability plan is strong enough to incite change in the outer world, it will draw back greater achievement for the business itself also.

Plastic Bottles

Two of Posh Cockney’s clients are following suit in dedicating their operations to greater sustainability. Concentrated on ethical fishing and minimising plastic waste, the Nipo-Brazilin fusion restaurant Temakinho believes sustainability is the key to the future. Meanwhile, the Mediterranean restaurant Olives N’ Meze is totally plastic-free, whilst the produce they serve is prepared and served entirely from scratch.

So, there you have it. As everyone knows, the dangers and awareness of climate change is an essential and unavoidable topic today. All businesses should want to enhance their appeal, growth, and impact on the market, but not just financially. 

As shown from the exponential growth of sustainable ideologies undertaken by companies today, it is undoubtedly clear that companies need to assess their own goals and ethics, and form that construct a custom business strategy dedicated to sustainability. This strategy should take into account the economic and/or social benefits it could be inciting, and work towards these benefits to contribute not only to the world around them but to their own productivity and success. 


The Rise of TikTok Marketing

What is TikTok?

Boasting over 800 million global active users, Chinese-born mobile app TikTok has experienced exponential growth since its initial launch in 2016. Advertised as a video-sharing platform for user-generated content, TikTok allows users to create short-form videos, ranging from fifteen seconds to three minutes, which combine clips with popular music, filters and text. 

On average, users spend roughly an hour a day rapidly consuming content via their ‘For You Page’, the app’s personalised feed which caters to users’ viewing desires.

Is it just for Teenagers?

Indeed, while the name ‘TikTok’ may initially prompt thoughts of dancing teenagers and lip-syncing videos, it has now become the hub of a much wider range of entertaining content, not far from stealing YouTube’s crown as the superior video-sharing platform. Popular video topics on the app include comedy, fitness, fashion, DIY and pranks, targeting a diverse variety of audiences.

Millions of TikTok users take advantage of the platform’s potential for virality, displaying their talents or skills in hope of achieving stardom. So, why shouldn’t businesses do the same? 

Having been labelled the fastest growing social media platform of all time, marketers are attracted to TikTok for its ability to reach and engage huge audiences of potential consumers. However, while the app is still relatively young, many business owners remain apprehensive about posting content on the platform. 

 

So, why market your business on TikTok?

  • It holds the potential to go viral. Creating viral content on TikTok can be the most effective way of keeping your brand at the forefront of consumers’ minds. Thanks to TikTok’s smart algorithm, users with zero followers on the app can skyrocket to fame over night after posting just one video. Unsurprisingly, the same goes for brands. As long as your content is carefully planned to appeal to your audience, there is no reason why it shouldn’t spread like wildfire. TikTok is built for virality, with formats like hashtag challenges constantly promoting new waves of trends. Many companies have achieved record-breaking engagement levels on the app by generating their own branded hashtag challenges and reaching out to well-known “TikTokers” to participate. 

 

  • It is extremely influential. Ever heard of Old Town Road by Lil Nas X? Or Driver’s Licence by Olivia Rodrigo? You most likely have because both songs were huge hits, charting at number one for significant periods of time. Why? TikTok popularised them through trends and challenges, leading to a more mainstream, cultural impact. Big trends on TikTok rarely linger within the periphery of the app, with most social media memes now originating on one’s For You Page. If your branded hashtag challenge goes viral on TikTok, it is likely to catch the attention of consumers on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, exposing an even larger audience to your brand.

 

  • It can humanise your brand. While channels like Instagram might show off the flashier side of your business, TikTok’s humorous, creative environment enables consumers to witness your brand’s more human side. Participating in viral trends and challenges while also exhibiting humorous qualities can effortlessly highlight your brand’s personality and voice, rather than leaving this masked by its corporate identity. Your brand simply needs to weave itself into TikTok’s online culture, defined by fellow creators.

 

  • It’s accessible. Expensive cameras, studio lighting and a glam team are unheard of among viral creators on TikTok. In fact, some of the most viewed TikToks have been filmed in creators’ bedrooms, back gardens, or city centres, all using a smartphone. For businesses aiming to adapt to this landscape, they must follow suit, as encouraged by TikTok itself: ‘Don’t make ads, make TikToks’. Rather than ‘thinking like advertisers’, brands are persuaded to ‘behave like creators’, taking a step back from more expensive marketing tactics. Essentially, the only ingredients for achieving TikTok success are creativity and imagination. 

 

Which brands are doing it best?

Samsung – @samsung

Samsung saw record-breaking numbers with their #VideoSnapChallenge earlier this year. With videos including a promotional collaboration with K-Pop superstars, BTS, and contributions from well-known creators, the challenge accumulated 33 billion views across the app. How’s that for exposure?

Samsung tiktok

ASOS – @asos

Online fashion retailer, ASOS, know their way best around influencer collaborations on TikTok. Coining the hashtag, #asostiktakeover, the brand have been able to expand their audience significantly by working with well-known TikTok creators, such as @abbyroberts and @the.navarose (pictured below). This well-performed strategy has enhanced the brand’s presence across TikTok, as well as in the minds of Gen-Z. 

Asos tiktok

 

Ryanair – @ryanair 

Ryanair offers a perfect example of TikTok’s unrivalled ability to humanise a brand. Prompted by the prevailing effects of the pandemic, the airline flew to TikTok in an attempt to maintain their brand awareness during the travel ban. Since then, Ryanair have achieved staggering numbers on the app through its engagement with Gen-Z humour and trending memes. The airline is no longer just a large corporation but has become a well-loved personality among young people. 

Ryan air tiktok

 

If you would like more information about how Posh Cockney can help your brand break into the world of TikTok, get in touch today.


Posh Cockney News

It’s been an exciting few weeks here at Posh Cockney, with client venue openings, press events and a new set of Future Stars starting as well as some exciting new client signings. 

New Venue Openings

Our new venue openings kicked off last week with Array in Essex. This was a star studded event in the beautiful new restaurant, opened by Love Island’s Kem Cetinay. Take a look at some of the incredible press coverage of the event here.

eggoland interior

This week is the soft launch of EGGOLAND, a new egg-based restaurant in Fitzrovia. The team are looking forward to attending the press launch later this week and continuing to grow this fantastic brand. This week alone, owner Sohail Ahmad has been interviewed live on Sky News breakfast with Kay Burley, as well as by The Telegraph. Everyone’s talking about Eggoland!

We wrap things up at the end of the month in St John’s Wood with the launch party for Ritu. The restaurant opened its doors to the public last weekend to incredible reviews.  If you love Indian food and stunning decor, this is the place for you!

 


Posh Cockney has provided full PR management to all of the above venues, as well as social media management, website design and creation and graphic design. 

Our Future Stars

The future star programme has been a huge success here at Posh Cockney. We have been blown away by the talent and are so proud to be able to offer many of our interns jobs at the end of their placements. 

The Future Star Programme allows young people to gain real life experience in PR and Marketing, with the constant support and guidance of the Posh Cockney team. Find out more about the programme here

HAPPYest Customer

Our client, Happy London, has launched a competition to find London’s HAPPYest customer. The winner will win free meals at Happy for a whole year! For more information on this, head to their website.

New Clients

We are delighted to have signed two very exciting clients this month, Olives and Mezze and Em Sherif. Keep your eyes peeled for more exciting updates coming very soon!

If you’re a hospitality or lifestyle brand that would like help with Marketing, PR, Web Development or Content Creation, get in touch with us today to find out more about how you can join the Posh Cockney Family.

 


Ivy Asia - What we can learn as Hospitality Comms Professionals

Over the weekend, Ivy Asia has been outed across social media, and today in the national press, for its insensitive promotional content shared across its platforms.

The video, which has now been removed by Ivy Asia, showed two Asian women in geisha costume going through what has been described by many as a ‘Little Britain style sketch’ whilst traveling to the Ivy Asia Chelsea.

The pair then arrive at the restaurant, where all of the guests are notably white and shocked at the arrival of the women. 

Restaurant critic Jay Rayner tweeted “It’s the grotesque racist stereotyping of an entire set of cultures being used to sell that food.” 

The main outcry across social media has been ‘who signed this off and why!?’

No Such Thing as Bad Press?

Many people may argue that there is no such thing as bad press, and with the Ivy Asia now being spoken about in almost every national newspaper, brand awareness is certainly high.

However, in an age where ‘cancel culture’ is booming and society is pulling together to make a stand against racism, it is very hard to find the positivity in this story for the brand. 

Ivy Asia has now apologised in a statement across their social media pages saying “It was wrong. It was done naively and it was totally inappropriate and culturally insensitive.”
But is this enough? 

 

A promotional campaign like this goes through many levels of checks. From ideation to client sign-off at every level. Which is where the question arises, how did this campaign make it as far as the social media page of one of the UK’s biggest restaurant groups?

What can we learn?

As comms professionals, we need to take stock of this and make sure that we take action to ensure a mistake like this isn’t made on our watch. 

Communication is key. Many companies have taken steps to ensure their teams are more diverse, but are we listening? I am sure there were multiple people who questioned this video, but perhaps didn’t feel like their voice was strong enough to stand up in a room against the decision makers. Your voice is always important. If you are the decision maker or the manager, it’s your responsibility to ensure everyone feels like their voice and their opinion is valid and heard.

If your brand or target audience is from a different cultural background to you, take the time to immerse yourself in that culture and learn from it. London is full of diversity, and full of people who are happy to share their knowledge and experiences. 

“We had a complete ignorance of understanding.” is the statement made by Ivy Asia. As PR and Comms professionals, we cannot afford to have an ignorance of understanding. Our eyes and ears need to be open at all times, absorbing, learning and understanding what is going on in the world around us. 

For more information on the PR services that Posh Cockney offer and how we can help your brand to communicate, get in touch with us today. 


Pret Express - Great tech or a PR Stunt?

Over the past year, we’ve seen Pret A Manger making big moves to their business model in attempts to overcome the many struggles the pandemic has thrown at high street coffee chains. With the recent announcement that Pret is to expand their services by introducing vending and dispensing machines as well as increase their ‘Pret Perks’, Pret is once again making headlines.

Plans to innovate and diversify amongst coffee chain giants to set themselves apart from their competition are by no means new. We’ve all seen the thousands of Costa self-serving coffee machines dotted across the UK in service stations. Not long ago, we heard of Carluccio’s plans to launch their self-serving coffee machines in Budgens stores. However, have we seen vending machines like this before?

Pandemic Pret

With Covid setting Pret’s sales ten years back and various forced closures, the coffee chain has been widely recognized as a token of the financial struggle encountered by high-street businesses due to the pandemic. Nonetheless, Pret is a prime example of a business reacting to the heavy impact of Covid while simultaneously recognizing the need to diversify more than ever in this new hospitality market. 

In September 2020, Pret established a subscription scheme in response to a fall in customers visiting their shops during lockdown. Free for the first month and twenty pounds thereafter, the subscription covered a range of beverages from coffees to smoothies. Although other coffee chains like Costa and Starbucks operate point schemes, Pret’s subscription scheme was a first of its kind, enhancing the chain’s USP. 

Following the success of Pret’s loyalty scheme, May saw Pret and Tesco strike a deal. The move to offer Pret products in selected Tesco stores was “to adjust to a new way of living and working”. 

 

All aboard the Pret Express

Pret’s push to trademark ‘Pret Express’ and grow their ‘Pret Perks’ is just another instance of the coffee chain responding uniquely to the changing hospitality landscape. Despite the UK opening up since the 19th of July, many Pret stores have permanently shut while a scarcity of office workers in the city remains as many continue to work from home. 300 of Pret’s 400 stores are based in the country’s capital and heavily rely on office workers and commuters. 

The idea behind bringing out vending and dispensing machines is a solution to a shortage of trained baristas and a decrease in Pret’s footfall as a result of Covid. 

However, it is also a notable marketing and PR strategy demonstrating Pret as a leading multi-channel and technology-led business. 

Pret Exterior

Pret Express as a marketing and PR tool

It is no doubt that Pret’s newest development will bring extensive marketing and PR benefits. With already lots of coverage on ‘Pret Express’ by multiple publications and social media channels, the coffee chain can expect a boom in its SEO strategies. 

Along with choosing the correct keywords to ensure a brand appears at the top of a search, PR is an alternative way of aiding a brand’s SEO by generating links from external sites, which directs traffic towards the brand’s website. Therefore, features about Pret’s latest move in press releases and news articles will enable google to interpret these as endorsements for Pret, increasing Pret’s ranking in web searches. 

Want to know how successful PR can improve your brand’s authority and hence SEO? Get in touch with us today.


Olympic Athletes

What can businesses learn from Olympians?

It’s time! The long-awaited 2020 Olympics officially began on July 23rd in Tokyo, Japan after it had been postponed following the Coronavirus pandemic. Within the first week, the athletes have had an impressive start, with the Japanese team winning 15 gold medals, closely followed by China and the USA with 14 and 13 gold medals – respectively. Great Britain are not far behind – claiming 5 gold medals in swimming, diving and MTB. While the games have just begun, it is evident that the hard work and dedication these athletes have put in over the last year will pay off over these next few weeks. 

 

Olympic Cyclist

 

Research by The National Lottery reveals that – on average, Olympians will spend at least 10,000 hours training leading up to the games. With British athletes training at least six hours a day, six days a week which vary depending on the sport. For instance, Michael Phelps mentions to CNN that he swims at least three to six hours a day, with extra training on dry land four to five times a week. On the other hand, athletes training for the Paralympics such as the GB Wheelchair basketball team, go through 100 tyres a year which are specifically designed for the games. 

Olympians and Branding

A 2008 Forbes article mentions it is common for athletes to train at least four to eight years to hone their craft before making an Olympic team. Not only do they spend hours training, but dedicate their entire lives to winning an Olympic gold medal for their country. Their hard work and dedication to championing their sport and representing their country is admirable, and presents a valuable lesson not only for athletes but for businesses as well. Alongside their training, Olympic athletes are meant to uphold a professional image – similar to how businesses have their own brand image and identity.

Olympic Athletes

According to Kotler, a brand’s image is the set of beliefs, ideas and impressions that a person holds regarding an object. In simpler terms, it is a customers’ perception of the brand based on their interactions and experiences with the business. However, as perceptions are subjective – people will have different experiences and interpretations of the brand. Therefore, it is essential for organisations to establish a consistent image upon their foundation as it can provide them with long-term benefits such as:

  1. Distinct personality to differentiate themselves from the competition – which is especially advantageous in a highly saturated market
  2. Increased brand recognition to facilitate ease in introducing new products
  3. Increased confidence of existing customers which encourages customer retention
    • The chance of repurchasing from a business which customers can easily recall or recognise is higher than purchasing from a brand they are unfamiliar with
  4. Increased brand awareness which attracts new customers and promotes brand recall
  5. In the event of any reputational threats, a strong brand image and awareness amongst existing customers can buffer significant brand damage 

But how can businesses achieve this?

Much like Olympic athletes, this entails establishing a strong brand identity over a long period of time and a great deal of internal effort. By definition, a brand’s identity is how a brand wants to be perceived by its customers. This is crucial for the long-term success of a business as it is the embodiment of everything a business is and does. 

If you are in the process of establishing your brand, or currently run a business, we have provided key design elements to inform your strategy moving forward:

  1. Determine your brand purpose and brand proposition
    • This answer the questions: 
      • What are you offering?
      • Why are you offering it? 
      • How can consumers benefit from your product or service?
  2. Undergo extensive market research on your target audience and the competition
    • Frameworks such as a PESTLE or SWOT analysis can provide insight into the macro-environment of a business and up-to date information on the market’s attitudes and behaviours
  3. Curate your brand personality
    • This is what your audience can relate to
    • There are 5 main types, namely: “excitement”, “sincerity”, “ruggedness”, “competence”, and “sophistication”
  4. Create a memorable logo, typography, on-brand graphics with an attractive colour palette to compliment your image
    • Humans are visual creatures and rely heavily on visual cues which can inform attitudes and behaviours
  5. Maintain a consistent brand identity throughout your marketing strategies and campaigns. 

Building a brand is more than identifying and determining the visual brand components. Achieving a successful brand entails maintaining a consistent brand identity throughout your marketing strategies and campaigns. However, this is not limited to the paid and owned media your business uses. These efforts – especially if you are on a budget, can be maximised to generate earned media which can increase credibility and create unforgettable customer experiences. If you would like to know more about how you can elevate your brand – whether you are a new business or have been operating for years now, Posh Cockney is here to help you.