As I move into handling Digital Marketing at SHINE, I wanted to look back at some moments and lessons from the past year and how they have contributed to my new role and shaped me into where I am now.

Solidarity 

This year has furthered my understanding of business integrity and togetherness. Not only has solidarity been key to keep morale up within our team but I have noticed that it has become a significant value to many clients that I have dealt with, especially during a year such as this. solidarity has outshone many other business pursuals and that has been both refreshing and enlightening to learn this so early on in my career.

Mistakes are a necessity 

Making a mistake and having the breathing space to do so can only ever be seen as a positive, as long as you use it wisely.

There are many instances in life when you will make a mistake which cannot be undone, but when in a position of learning these mistakes will end up making you who you are, especially in marketing, when the world can see your mistakes.

Being given the opportunity to learn from a mess-up has taught me not only self-patience but also self-correction which has proved to be a key trait to me.

Coffee. Is. Everything.

The fact I received a Pret-A-Manger Voucher for Christmas from Craig, really says it all.

Digital Marketing is my passion

After perusing many different areas of the marketing industry, it was clear from when I started to take an interest in developing strategies and monitoring campaigns that the digital life was for me.

There is nothing quite like developing an online presence with a client and watching it grow in line with their goals!

Never underestimate the power of words

As we are now conducting meetings miles apart from each other, the ability to read a room, to take in the atmosphere and develop a ‘vibe’ is lost amongst the airwaves of yet another zoom call.

This leaves only your voice and the power words to communicate which has been both difficult yet a blessing.

It has taught me to think about how I direct myself and how to convey my messages clearer and more directly to the person I am pitching to because you are fighting to keep attention between the group as you are all screen to screen not face to face.

Trains, Buses, Subways (Pre-Pandemic)

I think I travelled more on public transport between meetings, work and projects in the first 3 months of this job than in my entire life…

Passion

Each day I see the team develop something they are truly passionate about and I am beyond lucky to get to see this happen daily whether that be an outstanding branding development or a website that boasts beauty, seeing this passion has solidified my want and need to grow and stay within this industry.

The next steps…

This new role is an exciting one for me because it is new, fresh and full of potential. I cannot wait to take on more projects with old and new clients and collaborate on some exciting new ideas that challenge myself and give me new things to learn along the way.

We have come up with 5 trends for 2021 that we think will be coming into play and will affect us more than ever.

1. User-Generated Content

Apps and interfaces such as Tik Tok and Instagram reels made their biggest boom in 2020 and they don’t look like they are slowing down anytime soon as their user demographic gradually starts to get older with Tik Tok already obtaining 3.7 million active users in the UK.

These apps’ primary force comes from its users creating the content for other users and whether a video has the potential to go viral comes down to a little push from Tik Tok’s algorithm but mostly from user engagement.

This spike in user content has lead to the sharpest influx in influencers. Many companies have caught onto this and targeted these new influencers for product placement and brand promotion whilst also utilising Tik Tok’s paid ad platform.

Although the opportunity to promote is abundant on Tik Tok, the criteria to create successful leads is extremely niche. The content must appeal to the young demographic of the app, it must be 60 seconds and it must contain some rare USP whether that be humour or dramatic landscape to stand a chance of going ‘viral’.

For example, if we at SHINE were to promote some of our hospitality clients on the app, there is a strong chance we would gain a strong viewer rate due to some of the unique landscapes we could utilise, but the chances of turning those viewers into successful conversions is very low due to the price point of our client and the demographic of the viewers.

2. ‘Comfort Content’

We as a society have never been more vulnerable than we are now. As social media reaches its peak bringing with it fake news, unachievable beauty standards and depreciating communication skills it is coupled with a global pandemic that has shaken the world and left us distrusting companies, governments and brands more than ever.

This has resulted in the creation of what we call ‘Needy Nations’. We are left seeking comfort and reassurance from whatever is put in front of us to be able to function freely.

Companies and brands fully understand this and are tweaking their promotions in favour of ‘Comfort Content’ to reduce backlash and to try and be more appealing than the next company.

Many brands are adapting their wording and promotion to include the 4 C’S –

• Community 
• Contactless 
• Cleanliness
• Compassion

Using the 4 C’s can keep you on track to building a sustainable and trusting consumer database who you can then convert into reliable leads.

This is something we at Shine have already started to implement into our own clients’ Social Media whether that be through soft promotion or highlighting cleanliness.

3. Social Commerce

E-commerce and social media will become more seamless in the upcoming year. With companies like Etsy, eBay and Amazon trying to take advantage of social media platforms, digital shopping is getting a whole new life. In 2021, we will see more Instagram storefronts and tailored platform ads. Social media data will be used to personalise ads, making them all the harder to ignore.

Overall, there is a lot of innovative social media features to get excited about in the coming year. We will see a more personalised experience thanks to increases in technology, but at a cost. With more machine learning running behind the scenes to figure out our tastes, we run into issues of privacy, legality and credibility. In the future, we will have to figure out how to balance all the new technology with our basic desires to feel in control.

We will be shown more and more products that relate to our specific tastes and it is almost getting the point where when a product is shown to us that is too similar to what we need, it might actually put us off because we are scared of what data companies hold on us. It could reach a point where brands are forced to cut back on targeted ad’s as the detail of them are actually having the opposite effect.

4. The continued rise of disinformation

Covid-19 isn’t the only virus we are having to deal with at the moment, there is a new and very real virus that has the power to affect us in many more ways than just a high-temperature.

If the last two years have taught us anything, it is that ‘Digital Disinformation’ is real and is not going away. It can range from menial fake news such as “Cocaine kills Covid’ up to the disinformation that Russia deployed during the USA 2016 elections.

Disinformation can easily be compared to a virus due to how it replicates. In a recent research project by Stanford University, they have identified the movements of fake news can scarily mimic that of a virus.

The researchers have adapted a model for understanding diseases that can infect a person more than once. It looks at how many people are “susceptible” to the disease – or in this case, likely to believe a piece of fake news. It also looks at how many have been exposed to it, and how many are actually “infected” and believe the story; and how many people are likely to spread a piece of fake news.

“Much like a virus, the researchers say that over time being exposed to multiple strains of fake news can wear down a person’s resistance and make them increasingly susceptible. The more times a person is exposed to a piece of fake news, especially if it comes from an influential source, the more likely they are to become persuaded or infected.”

5. Conversational Marketing

As our information regarding social media grows and we begin to release the power big corporations and business have in-regards to data and knowledge there is a unanimous feeling of fear among the general public towards social media and the complete ambiguity of it.

In light of this, Businesses need to acknowledge that now more than ever they need to be more accessible and bring down any ‘virtual wall’ that may lie in-between their business and consumer and must appear to be at one with their customer.

Smart businesses will understand that being transparent, authentic, and even vulnerable is smart marketing in 2021. Building a connecting between people is now essential to promote longevity and solid frameworks of marketing. This means the brand should be personified in a way that reveals who they stand for and what they stand for.

This particular ‘transparency’ will see the rise in conversational marketing such as chatbots, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp for Business in an effort to build relationships through personalised one-to-one content.

This will more than likely be accompanied with a rise in ‘human-voice’ social media presence that adopts a more conversational tone through the potential use of humour and relatability for example

In short, Social Media is both at its strongest and scariest with so much potential for growth into areas that we don’t know exist yet. Although some aspects of Social Media can be scary, we try and harness the best of it and use it to promote organic growth and stimulate businesses.

As an agency who deal with clients’ Social Media directly, we are constantly looking out for juicy new trends to latch onto and are constantly trying to learn and progress to make our social management some of the best out there!

If you are interested in how we can adapt your social strategy to get you miles ahead of your competition.

This can involve everything from customer satisfaction, emotional connection, personality and goals. 

Branding is not just a logo, but something that encompasses your ideals, personality and values in a range of sensory products.

A brand tells a story that builds a relationship between a customer and a product. This includes:

• Positioning

• Benefit for customers

• Personality

• Aspiration

• An emotional connection

One brand that has excelled in developing a unique and instantly recognisable offering is Netflix.

Netflix’s device is clear, concise and direct that flows naturally throughout their entire offering. Although from when they initially started, technology has advanced leaps and bounds in ways no one ever expected, their brand structure has remained solid and relatively unchanged in terms of ideals.

Netflix is now known as the most popular ‘on demand’ video streaming service in the world. 

To give you some context, during lockdown alone, Netflix gained 20 million new subscribers within the first month of quarantining! These numbers just highlight the huge powers and influence globalisation can have and has had for industries such as those in entertainment to be able to reach audiences that just weren’t accessible 15 years ago.

But before they introduced the streaming concept, Netflix first started off as a Movie and TV Show Rental Service since it’s beginnings in 1997.

Originally founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph, who were two software engineers who left the company they were working for to take a risk and develop a company that embellished both of their unique skills and interests.

Randolph who had an interest in the internet wanted to start an internet business but didn’t know what type of product to sell and Hastings who saw how retailers were charging people for renting movies, was disgusted by their practices and wanted to make renting more consumer-friendly. This lead to Netflix being born.

The Logo

The First Design

Netflix’s presence at the very start screams ‘computer generated’. Starting off with a very generic and over-used black text that was split by a circle spiral in the shape of a reel of film. The brand had very little character to say the least.

The ‘90s was a time when branding and marketing were really becoming hot. There was a huge competition to build meaningful brands that stood out in the ‘branding boom’. People really started to associate themselves with brands and buy into their whole brand, rather than just their logo.

Netflix quickly outgrew their first logo as it didn’t capture their values and ideals. It’s possible a logo such as this took influence from other logos such as Nike’s infamous swoosh, that paved the way for other brands to incorporate a simple shape or design that was instantly recognisable. Netflix did not make the right choice in how they developed their original logo and was far too similar to brands from the early ’90s and wasn’t until their rebrand in the 2000s that their brand really caught on.

The Second Design

This brings us onto their second design which you will instantly recognise. This is when Netflix really came into its own with their branding, developing a typographic logo that flowed naturally through the products and services that they offered.

Utilising a semi-circle curve at the bottom of the typography brought a second 3-dimensional aspect to the already 3D type. The letters were arched in a way to cleverly look like an old projected curve, and that only continues in the shadowing behind the white letters, making the entire title of Netflix to look like a projected movie on a screen.

The device is utilised a bold red as the background, the same iconic colour of traditional theatre curtains that were prominent across America for years.

Although at first glance the brand appears simple, once analysed the logo embellishes some of the most iconic and profound nods to movies and theatre of decades gone by.

The Third Design

The third phase for Netflix’s device, saw the simplification of the projected letters and the background replaced, whilst the arch and deep red have been kept.

We have just said that Netflix’s previous logo was working well, so why the need to change?

The rise of Millennials.

The turn of the decade in 2010, brought with it a new era of consumers. The Millennials. They are a generation who grew up alongside the advances in technology and were raised on data and information being at their fingertips, as they turned into adults they brought with them a new wave of consumerism.

What fits perfectly with a generation that has extremely low patience due to having been drip-fed and nurtured on having access to information, high-speed internet, online shopping and instantaneous communications within seconds? An on-demand streaming service!

Netflix began to adapt their brand to fit their newly developed browsing system. They still adopt their Hollywoodesque arch and colour but have embraced simplicity by dropping the 3D effect. This simple change promotes ease of use in application across the board. The brand is recognisable and performs well at a variety of scales made for digital media and does so consistently at all times. The application of the brand itself takes inspiration from their forever expanding collection of film, tv and a sense of almost unlimited choice at your fingertips. Which you’ll understand from countless hours of scrolling through the ‘stacks’ trying to find something to watch!

“The new identity for Netflix revolves around the ‘stack,’ which is best imagined as a stack of cards all printed with some element of the entertainment company’s brand, like a character from one of its series or part of the red logo. A conceptual and visual thread to unify every touchpoint.”

The Netflix brand has grown and evolved with technology. The way we consume film and tv is very different now to how it was when Netflix began but this can also be said about the way we consume brands. We live in a time where content is king and we want it as fast as we can get it. Now it’s true to say within the app the brand becomes secondary to the image cards we now instantly recognise but this has been earned by building the brand over years. Constantly refining, fine tuning and keeping up with the times has ensured that the Netflix brand will be a mainstay in our lives for years to come.

Sometimes businesses need to rebrand for various reasons. Whether your brand needs to communicate it’s message and positioning clearer or if it is simply just a visual refresh, we can help work with you to bring your brand to life.

We hope we have inspired you with this blog! However, if you would like to work with us on improving your own branding, get in touch!

Check out our Instagram and give us a follow for updates on life at Shine – https://www.instagram.com/theshineagency/

You may be thinking why would my business benefit from being on a photography lead app, created for socialising? Although this was the original roots of Instagram, it has grown and transformed into a huge and fundamental marketing tool for both B2B and B2C functions. It is much more than just socialising, here’s why.

Engagement 

Instagram is a visually led tool that works in your favour. Its layout is simple and isn’t cluttered like Facebook and Twitter with copious amounts of wording, its low word-count aesthetic is visually appealing and in turn, keeps the focal point to the picture and drives engagement. 

However, to harness maximum engagement, your picture must stand out in a busy newsfeed. Using quality photography that has a clear focus will be sure to gain attention. This doesn’t mean you need to have professional photography to get traction, but a clear, in-focus photo that showcases a product, team member or service will be sure to get noticed.

Landing Page 

Instagram’s visually-lead landing page immediately gives viewers and potential customers the feel and personality of your business.

Without even having to read a single word, viewers can make snap judgements on whether they are interested in your product or service based on the colour scheme, layout and overall impression of your Instagram homepage.

The homepage should act as an eye-piece into your business and reflect your ideals and values alongside the product you offer in a way that flows smoothly.

You can achieve this by using a mix of branding and photography, for example, in a grid that follows a continuous pattern or perhaps using consistent photographic direction and style. 

Your main aim is to try and reduce the bounce rate of your landing page. By creating something that is attractive to potential customers and makes them stick around, they could eventually be lead through to your website.

Ad Platform

Instagram uses one of the most complex and detailed targeting platforms in marketing. With the ability to preset who you would like to see your ad’s down to the age, gender, social habits and location it is now easier than ever before to reach your ideal customers. 

Your Instagram ad can be 40x more effective than traditional marketing as there is now a powerful targeting process that can lead customers to checkout or contact information within a matter of clicks.

There is also the possibility to retarget people who have visited your website and can turn them from a cold lead into a warm one by capturing product interest when is it fresh.

Brand Loyalty

Once a customer has purchased a product or service from you and have followed you on Instagram, it increases the possibility of follow up purchases.

This is where customer engagement is key. Those who follow you can potentially be notified of every new product release or announcement you make. They then engage with this creating another potential lead.

This not only drives engagement and interaction for your posts but reduces the barrier between buyer and seller, meaning the buyer has now begun to build a relationship with your brand.

We hope we have inspired you to get your business on Instagram and how to use it efficiently! However, if you would like to work with us on improving your social strategy, get in touch!

Check out our Instagram and give us a follow for updates on life at Shine – https://www.instagram.com/theshineagency/

To answer the question, design for me means communication, progression and trying to make things better along the way. It means never standing still, there’s always something new to learn, someone new to meet and most importantly new problems to solve.

We are having to deal with two viruses at once – COVID-19 and Social Media which acts as a catalyst for fake news and panic promotion.

As a worldwide population, it is unlikely we have ever experienced something this wide-spread before or will ever experience again. So how can businesses be using social media effectively and positively, when there are no rule books on how to do so?

Here are some Top Tips to keep up appearances positively on Social Media!

1.Escapism

As people are confined to the realms of their own home without much access to the outdoors it is important to break up their newsfeed from news articles, with pictures and articles that can transport them away. This can include landscape shots, peoples faces, top tips and videos that provide a certain escape to the viewer.

This is a soft approach but at the same time promotes your businesses ideals and services without coming across as promotional.

2. Avoiding Humour

Although there is a lot of doom and gloom on our newsfeeds currently, filling it with humour at a time like this, especially from a business angle, can be easily scrutinised by the public and media. Although you may see it as harmless, on the other end of a screen someone could perceive it as being insensitive. Keep your jokes until after the Health Crisis and focus on some positivity instead!

3. No Politics

Unless your business is involved with politics, keep away from sharing your views on the current situation. A business should not be seen to be taking sides or promoting a news story, you never know what could be real or fake news! Even on your personal accounts, if you have your company listed in your bio, posting controversial comments can come back to bite you!

4. Be social on social

Let’s use social media for its desired intention – to be social. Communicate with your followers, share constant updates on your progress and be interactive. People need reassurance at the moment so if you are in events for example and don’t know whether a certain event is going be cancelled be transparent and share your knowledge with your followers so they feel in the loop. As long as people that are interested in your business feel they are being talked to, they will more than likely feel reassured and stay loyal.

5. Avoid the present tense

When creating content, either dig back into the archives and post a throwback or talk hypothetically about the future, talking about the present at the moment can also be deemed insensitive and come off as promotional. This allows you to still share relevant and positive content without causing a stir!

We hope these tips will prove useful to you and your business and can help you keep up a presence on Social Media!

So how do you stand out?

When we work with any business, we strive to develop not only their brand but enhance and build upon their story with the goals and targets of the business in mind.

This has proved vitally important when developing a gin brand. With a saturated marketplace and a savvy customer base, potential consumers want to know the story behind the brand with unique ingredients and sustainability being two widely sought-after factors. From our research, we discovered that bottle shapes along with label finishes were also key in the decision-making process of the buyer.

Utilising bespoke assets including photography, in-bar and in-store marketing play a massive role alongside the brand to help shine through a busy marketplace. This is key to drive sales and push brand awareness.

The challenge when developing a gin brand is to make it both recognisable and identifiable on the shelf and yet distanced from prime competitors in the ever-expanding gin industry. With a plethora of amazing gins out there it was important that we studied the craft gin market to identify a visual gap in the market.   

We wanted to create a brand that sold the Arcturus story with the first impression. We combined hand-drawn illustration techniques with beautiful typography to capture the brand message of a ‘foraged and handcrafted luxury gin’.

An initial brand workshop played a major part in understanding the values of the client and their brand. Establishing these brand values and ensuring they are communicated through the final product allows consumers to identify with your brand, building loyalty and familiarity.

Within the Arcturus logo, as mentioned above there are nods to the location and ingredients of the gin coupled with a touch of the client’s own story.

Brand continuity also proves essential when developing the digital side of the product. The brand story needs to flow equally between product and website. We achieve this by using high-quality, brand photography that highlights the USP’s of the product such as location or history guiding the user from discovery through to purchase.

In an ever-expanding drinks industry, it is important to consider where in the market you are trying to place yourself.

Premiumization is huge at the moment as brands compete to achieve luxury status. You have to highlight the premium nature of the drink you are selling but maintain the personality and relatability you are trying to portray. Attention to detail is key.

This can mean using crafted typography combined with tactile finishes that look and feel premium. On the other hand, now more than ever qualities such as sustainability and authenticity go hand in hand with the luxury perception.

This is down to the fact that old luxury ideals of bling and glam are being driven out by the force of millennials who now demand assurance that their product has a backstory that they can buy into and shows signs of being sustainable, which is now a requirement for any new brand that plans on making an impact in the market.

The Gin and Drinks industry is a fast-paced and everchanging environment that is constantly bringing up new challenges, and we can’t wait to see where our next drinks venture takes us!

Do you have ideas to set up a gin or perhaps take your current gin to the next level?

If you think we could work together in the future, get in touch!

As technology advances, it has become apparent that online users are increasingly impatient with day to day activities. This comes down to technology speeding up almost every aspect of our lives from self-checkout machines to being able to purchase something online and have it delivered to your door in under 24-hours. 

Although this advance in tech is groundbreaking and provides us with never before experienced access, it is forming a population who are more idealistic, more socially-conscious and more experience-oriented than any of their preceding generations, which isn’t necessarily a problem, but businesses need to be aware of this change to be able to cater for it.

So how do we as a design and digital agency focus ourselves to provide an experience that fits this new-wave of consumer?

By analysing rising trends and carrying out intensive user testing we are able to stay ahead of the curve and consistently deliver a unique design and digital experience for our Hospitality clients that allow them to manage their own guests’ expectations and offer them a smooth customer journey from the first click on the website until check-out.

Importance of Hotel Branding

When we discuss branding, this does not mean just your logo. It is the sensory experience that a client initiates when coming into contact with your brand, and in turn, becomes your most important asset as a business. It helps tell your story whilst allowing your potential customers an insight into your offering and values. Your brand will be one of the first things a guest may interact with and could play a pivotal role in their decision to delve further into your offering and book. It is then key that your brand reflects your price range and proposed target audience. 

Brand Consistency

Brand continuity in look, feel, offering and message should run coherently through everything you do. Although the visual aspect is very important it is probably the easiest to get right. Your brand values and offering are the reason why people book and return to your business and it is, therefore, key that staff members align to the brand values allowing consistent delivery of service across the board. 

Importance of Signage

Following on from consistency, the quality of your brand should be reflected through well thought out signage and wayfinding across hotel interior, exterior and grounds. Signage is an opportunity to reinforce your brand message through the choice of materials and finishes. 

One of the key factors when developing a hotel website is making sure that the user experience is focused on the route to a booking. It is vitally important that the book now button is clear and easy to see on the site. On mobile, it is also good practice to have it visible at all times as a higher percentage of people will access a hotel site via mobile. If possible allowing the user to enter their potential arrival dates on the site is good so that when they get to the booking section they are presented with the correct rooms and prices for that date range.

Importance of Engaging Media

Through user testing, we were able to determine what makes the most interactive and engaging home page on a website. Comparing professional and poor photography allowed us to see the significance each one had on bounce rates and engagement, proving poor photography directly lowers your chances of a booking on your site and similarly out of date or poorly lit images can give a bad impression of the hotel and can turn a user off instantly, so we focus on creating engaging, high-quality gallery pages or include a video as these proved most popular during user testing. This reduces the bounce rate by allowing the viewer to get a quick, detailed overview of what exactly the product on offer is, without having to spend time hunting for details.

After securing a high-end Design & Digital experience it is essential that the experience flows equally through the social presence.

So, this year more than ever it is pivotal to expand and promote your Social standing and allow it to demonstrate truthfully the product you offer.

One of the first things people do when looking up a new hotel, apart from visiting the website, is looking at their Instagram. 

By working closely with our clients and paying regular visits to build your content we allow your platform to be seen as transparent and authentic whilst still portraying the high-level you offer, this is achieved by balancing a range of different posts that include staff, rooms, food, and location taken both professionally and live on site.

We use a range of techniques to build a profile that not only sells your business but will have a direct increase in successful bookings, this is down to how we attract consumers attentions by building a realistic aesthetic and from there create a short and simple journey redirection through to the booking page in a matter of clicks.

If you think we could work together in the future, Get in touch!