Brand Wars

This week we're talking sport with the brilliant Elliot Smith, Social Media Manager at JD Sports. We kick off by revisting the NFL playoffs and Superbowl but then we do get on to what it takes to work 24/7 in social in sport and Elliot's career highlight shooting a christmas ad with Aitch, Maya Jama and KSI in the middle of the night in Oldham! Someone's got to do it!

Deliveroo needs no introduction! We chat to the brilliant Beth Thomas who has been their Social Media Manager for the past two years. We cover Topshop (RIP), brands getting involved in trending topics, feeding sushi to penguins and our problem with helicopters!

WARNING: This was recorded at 4pm on a Friday afternoon so there are above-average levels of idle chat but hope you enjoy nonetheless!

The rise in popularity of dairy alternatives has sparked a true brand war among a category of feisty, quirky challenger brands and one that we've covered before on the podcast (Nespresso vs. Oatly) but a new challenger has entered: Minor Figures. 

Minor Figures describes itself as an unlikely mob of painters, jazz musicians, basketball players and barbers, brought together by a love of specialty coffee and all of the creative cultures in its orbit. Minor Figures makes plant-based, 100% vegan products to lift your coffee and your mind. So we're really excited to welcome our special guest this week - Marketing Director "AKA the real skimmed shady" John McManus. 

Enjoy.

This week we are lucky to have Steve Dool, who is Head of Brand Partnerships at Depop. Now, if you're over 30 like me, you may be wondering what is Depop and I can tell you it's a marketplace to buy and sell, or mostly re-sell fashion items. It has upwards of 30 million users, most of which are under 25.

Lets find out more!

Welcome to Season 3 of Brand Wars - we're back with bigger interviews with some amazing guests lined up from some amazing brands. The main focus of this season is to learn about brands from many businesses who are, ultimately, still trying to build theirs, the start-ups and fast growing companies!

We have a brilliant guest for episode one in the shape of Alex Latham who is the Co-founder & Chief Marketing Officer at Chip and crutially, was featured in the Forbes 30 Under 30 last year. Chip is a personal finance app that gives it's users access to the best savings accounts and investment funds.

Chip has 400,000 users and has one of fintech’s biggest investor communities, with over 23,000 shareholders.

Have we peaked too early?

Welcome to a belated edition of Brand Wars and sadly, the last one for a little while. We recorded this one back in the summer but it's taken a LONG time to get approved and uploaded...

This episode's guest is the brilliant Grace Fung. Grace has been working at the global beauty titan Coty for 12 years but her current role is the Influencer Marketing & Comms Lead for the luxury division, working on brands including Gucci, Calvin Klein, Burberry, Hugo Boss and more!

We ask the big philosophical question, what is luxury? How can brands use social without spoiling their premiumness? Can beauty brands use Twitch? and how much random stuff can you order to a table from the Wetherspoons app? Like I said, luxury!

Thanks for listening and we'll be back soon.

Welcome to this edition of Brand Wars - a gaming special!

This weeks guest is the Sheri Kryeziu. Sheri has recently moved from London to Warsaw in Poland to become the Influencer Marketing Lead for Techland - a video game developer and publisher - most well known for Dead Island and Dying Light

We chat to Sheri about how he is approaching the upcoming release of Dying Light 2, why do gamers have the most engaged following, are brands over-investing in esports, is Riot Games the best brand in the World but first Sheri and myself go all Michael Portillo on the travel spots of Warsaw.

Thanks for listening and hope you enjoy!

This weeks guest is the king of peer-to-peer shopping having made his name as the Head of Digital Marketing at Depop before moving on to sneaker marketplace 'Laced' and now in his newest role as VP of Marketing at Twig.

Twig is a neo bank that allows you to upload items, get a valuation and convert your things into cash.

Now I should point out that Twig used to be called DIEM and this rebrand took place after the episode was recorded a few weeks ago. So wherever you here us mention DIEM, autocorrect it in your mind to Twig. If you want to find out more about what the heck I'm going on about - go to twigcard.com!

Let's get on with the episode...

Benvenuto! This week we are very lucky to welcome the brilliant Finn Lagun - Co-Founder and CMO of Pasta Evangelists.

Since Pasta Evangelists was born in a basement in Notting Hill in 2016, it's appeared on Dragons' Den, launched it's first retail concession in Harrods, devloped it's e-commerce offering through Ocado, M&S and Deliveroo and earlier this year, Barilla, the world's biggest pasta company, purchased a majority stake. 

Finn's passion transports us to farest corners of Italy as he shares his experience and knowledge of the history, the culture and the food of Italy as well as the fascinating story of Pasta Evangelists from "Pasta La Disaster" to "Pasta de résistance!"

Enjoy!

This week we're delighted to welcome Richard Cook, Social Media Manager at Monzo for a good old chit-chat. If you didn't already know, Monzo Bank launched in 2015 as one of the first neo or digital-only banks, offering a mobile-first experience and coral-coloured debit cards. It became the darling of crowdfunding when it raised a record-breaking £1 million in just 96 seconds.

We chat to Richard about the early days of Monzo, why did it become a cult brand amongst North London tech types and how does he get people engaged in conversations about finance? 

We really enjoyed this one so hope you do too!

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