Month: December 2021

Looking back on 2021 is an interesting one. It wasn’t as eventful as 2019 or 2020 for myself and the business and it’s felt almost like we were on a new upward journey.

I think the words ‘Give me a break please’ were frequently muttered under my breath and in my head. Bittersweetly, I think it makes us more resilient and the tests are there to help strengthen yourself, your business or your role.

We’ve adjusted like most businesses and re-built parts of everything from systems to the structure of our team. The sound of Teams ringing all day long and the daily schedule of Zoom or Teams invitations is the new norm. The labour has certainly been arduous and tiring yet very rewarding when you look back at how much has been achieved by everyone. We’re one in millions of businesses who have had to take stock and reshape, and if I’m honest I there are many things I don’t like at the moment (or perhaps it’s just getting used to them). Many things still need to change and sometimes it takes much longer than anticipated which can feel so frustrating.

That aside, there have been some great highlights after the turbulence.  Welcoming new talented colleagues into the CMe Media team has been one of them. The team exude passion and they have huge experience which is a necessity when you pride yourselves on delivering the excellent service that we expect.

As I’ve mentioned before in many social posts or on our website, we are fortunate to work hand in hand with growing and expanding businesses. Despite the pandemic, we’ve seen some fantastic growth stories. From new stores/branches/dealerships to those advancing into new territories to grow market share.

We were proud to be a part of launching the very first British Motor Show in years after 2 years of waiting. The hurdles the events industry have been faced with and the true resilience of Andy Entwistle whom, I’m sure at times was being tested to his limits with whether they could hold an event or not at the 11^th hour. What a show. The footfall for an event at such a strange period of our time was incredible and we were delighted to be their media buying agency.

We are looking forward to many more exciting campaigns, projects and developments next year. I’m sure we are no different from everyone in saying that we’d like to see the back of COVID and move forward with our plans.

I want to thank our clients for their valued support and we wish them and their teams a happy Christmas and New Year.

Charisse x

Do you ever think about Santa and what he does to fill the rest of the year? The way I see it – sure, he’s got a tremendously stressful 48 hours across that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. But the truth is, old Saint Nick feels rather… Redundant for the rest of the year. And don’t buy the hype that he’s checking those lists once and then another time for good measure (he’s got some admin Elves for that) Nope. Santa has plans to take up a new business in 2022 and you guessed it, we’re doing the advertising.

When Santa first came to us with his idea of branching into swimwear, we were sceptical. We’d never imagined that we’d be sitting in a board meeting with him in the first place. But now, here he was showing us his range – from bikinis to swimming shorts to a rather alarming pair of budgie smugglers.

“Santa’s Swimwear” will be available in May 2022 and to gear up towards the launch we discussed the perfect ideas that would get his brand at the top of consumers’ minds. The brand is aimed primarily at 21-35 year olds and he openly said, “I want everyone wearing this swimwear in Summer 2022, is there any way we can get a pair of the pants sent to Wayne Lineker?” Hmmm leave it with us.

First of all, we knew that we had to set aside a plan of his digital marketing. No business is fit for consumption without a website, so we secured his domain straight away and worked with our graphic designers and web developers to create him a spanking new website fit with the ‘Coming Soon’ slogan dripped across the homepage.

Now before we can implement SEO and PPC campaigns (something we will begin to drive at the start of Spring next week) we began to build brand awareness where we know the 21-23 year old audiences are present. Here’s what we proposed:

TV Campaign – Sky Adsmart & ITV Sponsorship

Our vision is to have a campaign where we introduce models of all shapes and sizes to show that Santa’s Swimwear is a cool, diverse and open brand that anyone, everywhere (naughty or nice) can feel comfortable to wear this brand. Santa himself was very open about this, “Everyone knows that I’m a ‘bigger’ guy and for many years I felt like I couldn’t be seen around the heated pools at Lapland without my full Santa kit on. I want to break the stigma when it comes to having the perfect beach ready body for summer. This swimwear says have the mince pies, be yourself and you can feel great doing just that.”

With that in mind, we’ll be shooting the video to encompass that vision and we’re working with our partners at Sky Adsmart to bring Santa a very targeted campaign. We’ll be targeting the 21-35 year old audience, potential holiday makers and tracking whether they’re placing an order after being served our audiences.

Not only that, but we’ve teamed up with ITV and secured the sponsorship of the summer. You guessed it. Love Island! Across linear TV and ITV Hub, we will be securing Santa’s Swimwear as the lead sponsor.

Audio – Radio, Digital Streaming & Podcasts

Were you aware that Santa is a massive Kiss FM fan? Yeah, us either. Apparently he blasts this from his sleigh when doing the rounds on Christmas Eve and it would appear all the reindeer, most of all Rudolph – absolutely love it. I’m still curious as to how he doesn’t wake us up….

Anyway, we know that given the Santa Swimwear audience we should be tapping into the audiences that hail from the likes of Kiss FM, Capital FM and Capital XTRA.

We also proposed digital audio advertising platforms such as the Octave and DAX platforms where we’ll be able to offer further insights into the listener habits after hearing an advert. These platforms also allow us to be more granular in our geographical targeting and much like Sky Adsmart – we would be able to tap into key data points of the potential customers of Santa Swimwear.

Outdoor

We have fantastic relationships with our Outdoor advertising providers and we know that we need to get Santa Swimwear on the map in multiple key locations around the UK. We want the country to know that Santa has changed his image and what better way to showcase this on those D48’s UK wide? On the run up to their release date, we will be using some teaser artwork to get ready for the swimwear drop and once live we’ll be sending viewers of the outdoor to the website to find out more.

TikTok & Instagram

No campaign of this nature is complete without diving into the world of social media and putting Santa Swimwear the top of mind to its consumers. Across your social media platforms, expect to see Influencers getting involved with the brand because we’ll be working with a variety of TikTokers and Instagrammers to bring Santa’s vision to life.

Santa did talk to us about doing some Tik-Tok dances he’s recently finessed with some of the Gen-Z elves that work in the workshop. When we asked some of the elves for comment on what these routines were like and if Santa was any good at the actual dancing itself – they refused to comment.

In the TikTok and Instagram space we can also create bespoke ads to live within the timelines of the Santa Swimwear customer. The idea being we will target this as an national campaign, tapping into the age profiles that are relevant for each platforms and pinning some variations of our TV campaign into this space.

We can’t lie, we’re over the moon to be the provider of Santa’s next venture and once we got over the initial shock of it being a swimwear brand – we’ve warmed to the idea of sunning ourselves next summer in Santa’s Swimwear with a bottle of beer in our hands.