Interviews, insight & analysis on digital media & marketing

NDA Agency News: HypeFactory, Spark Foundry, Billion Dollar Boy and more

HypeFactory, the global influencer marketing agency that drives measurable results for marketing campaigns, whilst ensuring transparency of influencers’ online activities, has announced the official launch of its Talent Management Service. Building forth on recent industry developments HypeFactory is addressing a critical gap in the influencer marketing ecosystem – establishing mutually beneficial partnerships. Talent Management offers full support to influencers, content creators, online personalities, and companies who are looking to establish meaningful brand partnerships. This initiative supports several social media networks Instagram, TikTok, Twitch and YouTube, covering multiple industries such as GameDev, E-commerce, Retail, Services/APP, FoodTech, and FMCG. Talent Management provides centralized tools and resources for influencer identification, outreach, communication, and performance tracking. This offers brands the possibility of securing enhanced talent collaborations, resulting in better campaign outcomes, as well as promoting the possibility of collaborating with the same talent again in future. Building meaningful relationships between influencers and brands is critical for long-term success in influencer marketing. By establishing these relationships, HypeFactory is supporting brands to reach their audiences more effectively through collaborations with the right influencer on a recurring basis.

Spark Foundry, the UK Acceleration agency, part of Publicis Media, has used a mix of agency insight tools to discover current trends in consumer spending online. Using Social Sparks (social listening), Intent-Based Planning (semantic analysis) and The Street (external panel), Spark Foundry’s ‘Insights Accelerated’ report looks at the trends in consumer spending habits when it comes to sustainability, social commerce, and gaming and tech. This third iteration looks at trends from Q4: October – December 2022. All findings with insights and implications for each topic can be accessed in Spark Foundry’s Insights Accelerated report here.

Spark Foundry UK has also been appointed as the media agency for Dream Games, a leading mobile gaming company founded in 2019, and well-known for Royal Match, a top 4 grossing game in both the US and UK. The business will be led out of the UK to target local audiences alongside the US and other international markets. Spark Foundry will look after all offline media, including TV, Radio, OOH and sponsorship – resulting in £5m in billings. The agency has been brought on board to help grow the brand’s audience reach and drive new players, starting with launching Dream Games’ first ever UK TV campaign this month.

Drinks brand, Lipton Ice Tea, has announced the launch of #PassTheSunshine, its biggest ever creator-led campaign in Australia in partnership with global influencer agency, Billion Dollar Boy, to refresh Melburnians with some sunny and uplifting content. Fuelled by research showing the benefits of helping others, the #PassTheSunshine campaign strategy is designed to generate talkability, promote positive brand sentiment and grow awareness of the Lipton Ice Tea brand – driven by the creators with a combined potential 40 million organic impressions. The 14-day campaign features a diverse range of eleven of Australia’s biggest creator talents in a combined digital out-of-home (DOOH), social media and experiential activation to raise brand awareness and to encourage acts of kindness. The campaign begins on 15th February 2023 in Bourke Street, Melbourne – one of Australia’s largest and busiest shopping districts – and will be executed in three stages; DOOH, social media and experiential. Content creator and viral sensation, Matt Storer, known for his comedic paradies and musical skits on TikTok, launches the campaign, appearing on the 28-metre-tall Bourke Street Mall billboard – Australia’s biggest full motion, high-resolution digital billboard. The social media activation is live for the duration of the two-week campaign, replicating the DOOH advert on Lipton Ice Tea’s social channels. The DOOH content is also adapted by the supporting creators across TikTok in duet and remix performances of ‘Pass The Sunshine’, designed to encourage their audiences to create unique versions of the song and spread the campaign message. Successful participants will have the potential to feature on the digital billboard alongside Australia’s top TikTok talent. Lipton Ice Tea is also hosting an in-person pop-up at the Bourke Street mall billboard location on the 22nd and 23rd of February. The visiting public will be offered free samples of Lipton Ice Tea ‘No Sugar’ and the opportunity to film with a production crew on-site from 8:30-15:30 AEDT to also be in with a chance of featuring on the nation’s largest digital billboard. The campaign represents the start of a new partnership between Lipton and Billion Dollar Boy, who will also operate as the drinks brand’s exclusive global social media partner for reactive creator-led content.

Leeds-based agency consultancy Be Reyt has celebrated its first 12 months of business by securing nine new clients on a long-term consulting basis and coaching and mentoring engagements with a further 15 agency owners, since launching in February 2022. Be Reyt aims to support digital, creative, and marketing agencies in effectively delivering their strategic goals. Launched by Freia Muehlenbein, an agency professional with over 13 years of experience in operational and strategic agency roles, Freia saw a gap in the market to support businesses from a strategic perspective. Freia works with agencies UK-wide and internationally but has a strong affinity for the North of England. Notable clients in the North include Search Laboratory, 21 Degrees Digital, and Modo25. Since launching, Be Reyt has worked with a diverse range of clients, offering consultancy services on a long-term or project basis. Services ranged from delivering agency strategies, improving operational efficiencies, optimizing pitch close rates, and providing ongoing accountability. Additionally, Be Reyt offers coaching and mentoring services to business owners looking to overcome specific challenges. Freia has also secured a partnership with Liverpool-based consultancy FORM, where she serves as a growth consultant delivering six-month growth programmes for ambitious creative, marketing, and tech businesses. Freia is also an associate guide for Agency Local, a community for agency owners focused on helping them improve, grow, or scale their businesses. 

The Digital Voice™ has started 2023 with a host of new client wins, as growing numbers of martech firms sign with the boutique B2B adtech PR agency to grow their brands globally. Joining The Digital Voice™ is marketing technology platform Automated Creative, which unites creativity with automation to supercharge media performance. Automated Creative scales high-quality creative to any audience, on all major ad servers, using a blend of creative media expertise and automation. Its goal is to take the guesswork out of paid advertising and its partnership with The Digital Voice™ will seek to take that message to the market through PR, communications, social, marketing and events. The Digital Voice™’s 28-strong global team will also be supporting innovative Swedish streaming specialist SeenThis to build its profile and deliver PR and communications across the UK, Europe, APAC and the US. At a time when adaptive streaming holds the potential to transform the distribution and climate impact of digital content, SeenThis is driving a higher return on ad spend in a more sustainable way than alternative solutions. Working across seven offices globally, SeenThis is working to create a high-speed and energy-efficient internet and its PR partnership with The Digital Voice™ aims to drive exposure and traction globally. The Digital Voice™ celebrated its 10th anniversary last year, with a 151% increase in turnover and 270% growth in terms of team size. It works for 15 innovative and forward-thinking clients including Adnami, Automated Creative, Brand Metrics, Bubbl, Exit Bee, GumGum, impact.com, Lumen Research, multilocal, Nectar360, Optable, Playground XYZ, SeenThis, Preciso and VeraViews by Verasity.

Whittard of Chelsea, a specialist in tea, coffee, and hot chocolate, has launched their first-ever TV commercial ahead of Mother’s Day, filmed with Team ITG. Video and photography teams from Team ITG, the technology-led, multichannel marketing activation business, produced the advert on location, while also capturing a suite of lifestyle and product photography to be used across in-store POS, e-commerce and social media for the Mother’s Day campaign, as well as future Whittard projects both in the UK and internationally. Despite being established in 1886, it is Whittard’s first-ever TV commercial, which Team ITG helped to produce in under seven weeks for rollout in the lead-up to Mother’s Day, to encourage customer activity around gift-giving. The commercial will be launched to Sky customers via AdSmart, themed around the mantra “a gift as unique as them.” Localised executions of the advert will be featured across Manchester, Oxford, and Glasgow, where Whittard have prominent stores, increasing their brand awareness and in-store footfall as they aim to encourage customers to buy gifts ahead of Mother’s Day.