Insights & Findings.

In the fast-paced world of social media, staying relevant is essential, but how can brands jump on the latest trends without losing sight of their core values? At Spin, we understand the importance of maintaining brand integrity while navigating the ever-changing social media landscape. Here’s how your brand can strike that balance effectively.

‍Trying Something New
Brands sometimes need to step out of their comfort zones to stay relevant. One of our clients, Ann Summers, faced this challenge when they decided to experiment with the ‘Breaking Dishes’ trend. While this approach was a departure from their usual content, we recognised that the trend had the potential to reach a new audience segment.

The decision-making process involved a thorough evaluation of how the trend could be tailored to reflect the brand’s values. We asked critical questions: How can this trend be adapted to reflect our brand’s voice? Is the trend consistent with our long-term brand strategy? The result was a video that successfully captured the trend’s momentum without compromising the brand’s identity.

The video achieved 87k organic views when their content normally averages around 2-4k.

‍Key Considerations for Brands
‍For brands looking to engage with social media trends while staying true to their values, here are a few considerations:

1. Not every trend will suit your brand. Assess whether the trend aligns with your brand’s message and audience expectations.

2. Modify the trend to fit your brand’s voice and aesthetic. It’s about integrating trends into your brand’s narrative, not just mimicking them.

3. Will this trend enhance your brand’s reputation, or could it potentially dilute your core message? Consider the long-term implications of participating in a trend.

4. If you’re uncertain, start with a small-scale test. Gauge audience reaction and adjust your strategy accordingly.

‍Be Brave, Thoughtful & Authentic?
Jumping on social media trends can be a powerful way to stay relevant, but it’s essential to do so in a way that remains true to your brand. By carefully evaluating trends and adapting them to fit your brand’s values, you can engage your audience meaningfully and maintain brand integrity. At Spin, we’re here to guide you through this process, helping you stay both current and authentic in the ever-evolving world of social media.

Phew. 

So here we are, another Cannes down. The biggest one yet? Perhaps not, but for Spin, no doubt. 

We were fortunate enough to take down a big team to get stuck in and see what it’s all about. It was 5 days of an exhausting schedule, digging deep and fully immersing ourselves into everything Cannes has to offer. 

✅ All the clichés are truth. 

✅ Everyone wears linen. 

✅ There are a lot of events on yachts. 

✅ Rosé starts early (for a work event). 

✅ The activations are next level. Shout out Stagwell, Meta, Pinterest this year. 

✅ Getting into Spotify is harder than breaking into Fort Knox.

✅ Celebrities are around every corner and some very big ones. 

✅ At 4AM, it’s surprisingly busy out. 

But here are a couple of observations and new things we learned this year:

1️. Our industry is in a very good place. It is a hive of activity, so much is changing, but under all of it - there is an industry that is thriving with opportunities everywhere. 

2️. You can’t just look at ‘Trends’. You have to recognise the difference between Fast Trends, Short-Term Trends & Long-Term trends. 

3️. You need a combination of Best Practice, Experimentation & Creativity to succeed. As TikTok said, “Use best practice to raise the floor, use test & learn to find your ceiling”. 

4️. Things we’ve known and seen for years and now being discussed at the mainstream level, namely, how the shift to creator-led content leads to greater authenticity BUT it has to perform well. 

5️. We should all be asking ourselves, “how can I be creative, in a data-driven way”. 

6️. According to Meta, 50% of time on Instagram is now spent on Reels and 75% of those reels are with sound-on. 

7️. Some KPIs you may not be tracking that you should - Share-To-View Ratio, Saves, View-Through 30 Seconds. 

8️. As Toto Wolff said, “You don’t want to go from Great to Good. You have to be constantly asking yourself and your team, ‘Are you still the best you can be’”?

9️. As Gary Vee says, modern marketing is all about finding under-valued attention and then exploding it - a lot of that under-valued attention right now is in women’s sports. 

10. We should all be looking towards micro-communities within social to find insights that drive creative ideas. 

That’s a wrap for 2024. 

🇫🇷 Cannes, Merci. 

👫 Spin team, it was a pleasure. 

🫂 To new friends, see you soon. 

Au revoir. 

A year is a long old time in the marketing landscape, especially us lucky lot that get to call social home. In the last year alone we’ve seen Metaverse’s come and go, new platforms (hi Threads 👋), entire name changes (I’m still not over typing “formerly Twitter'' to every conversation X is mentioned), and new features galore.

But the most impactful of these changes to brands is the advancement of AI to power media platforms algorithms. Paid social media buyers usually see extremes on either end of the spectrum when it comes to creative output - brands investing into big campaign ideas and moments, with social being one of many battlegrounds, and brands neglecting creative entirely, focussed instead on growth driving paid media tactics. But with this change in how social algorithms operate, being on either end of this spectrum will be leaving you exposed to plummeting performance.

The very nature of how creative is used on social media advertising has changed. It’s not about turning up in the right place, at the right time with outstanding creative that wins hearts and minds. Today the creative asset itself determines where, who and how you show up at all. And because so much of a good paid social strategy is dependent on the content itself, your approach has to be formulaic enough to measure its performance, without compromising on that creative edge that makes a user actually care to stop from scrolling. Content is hard to measure, but paid social is built to be measured, so identifying a way of combining the two can drive real, insightful learnings that unlock incredible potential. 

A formulaic framework:
For brands that are starting out on this journey, step one is to apply a formulaic framework for creative testing to establish a foundation of learnings to build from. When working with video, applying a modular approach to creation can yield great analysis on paid media creative. Slicing the components of your overall messaging down into segments - whether it’s pain points/desires, social proofing, the proposition as the solution, scarcity - and then building multiple asset variations with each section's orders mixed up.

Measuring their performance from your primary KPIs, and additional storytelling metrics like hook and hold rates help you learn about messaging hierarchy, who your ideal customer is and what motivates them. The same theory can be applied to other ad formats, although storytelling metrics are less rich, so isolating each testing variable is doubly important for learnings. (There’s even ways to give your catalogues a boost through creative learning taken from your strategy, but stay tuned for part 2 to learn more on that…)

Creative diversity: 
Step 2 involves applying the knowledge you gain in step 1 about your community and their behaviours a level further. Using the insights gained to inform new creative styles, formats and innovations that unlock and engage new audiences, without needing to change anything else in your media strategies. Remembering that ad content signals the algorithm and determines how it’s used, so neglecting step 2 and leaning too far into formula and rules and data, i.e. “statics talking about pain point 1 worked well, let’s brief more of those” can actually lead to negative results, shrink your audience pool down and stop you from being able to effectively scale performance. Ultimately, creative has to be creative in order to retain relevance, authenticity and excitement to the human on the other end. That shouldn’t be compromised in the endeavour to gather data and influence performance. 

In summary, creative is not just the key; but the entire vehicle to success. Marketers who fail to embrace this idea, and continue to rely too heavily on their strategic media buying smarts, risk being left behind in a rapidly evolving landscape. So too do marketers and brands who fail to approach creative strategically, with a long term and dynamic lens. Paid social is a unique medium that can teach us so much about our customers; how to capture their attention, engage them, convert them, retain them and make them lifelong fans, on and offline. When used correctly, the opportunity for brands to succeed is endless. 

We're thrilled to announce that Spin has won the Best Charity/Non-Profit Campaign award at this year's Global Social Media Awards for work with UICC.

Our campaign was celebrated for its innovative use of video strategy, which the judges described as "exceptionally clever." By integrating creativity uniquely and effectively, we crafted a campaign that not only captivated audiences but also drove substantial engagement and support for a vital cause. The judges were particularly impressed by our approach to the brief, highlighting our "strong creative idea and insightful execution."

One of the key challenges we faced was operating within strict budget constraints. However, this limitation only fuelled our creativity, pushing us to think outside the box and maximise every resource at our disposal. The result was a campaign that not only achieved its goals but did so with flair and efficiency, proving that creativity thrives under pressure.

Max Whicher and Alex Bodini, co-founders of Spin, shared their excitement about the win: "We are immensely proud of our team for their hard work and creativity. This award reflects our commitment to supporting charitable causes through powerful social media storytelling. It's a privilege to see our efforts recognised on such a prestigious platform."

This victory at the Global Social Media Awards is not just a win for Spin but a win for creativity and social good. We look forward to continuing to break barriers and create impactful campaigns that resonate widely and deeply.

To learn more about our award-winning approach and how we can help your organisation make a significant impact, please get in touch with us below.

Thank you to the Global Social Media Awards for this incredible honour and to everyone who continues to support our journey. Here's to more creativity, more impact, and more wins in the future!

April Fools is that time of year when brands get to have a little fun, and social-first fun is definitely our sweet spot.

This year we were incredibly proud to have had three of our client’s April Fools campaigns recognised as some of the best in 2024. Our Marmite x Ann Summers collab was crowned 'Top April Fool's Prank of 2024' and our work with Princes and Napolina were also featured in The Grocer's 'Best Foodie Pranks' list.

The key to any successful, humour-led marketing campaign is getting the tone right and capturing the mood of the audience. So how do you create a campaign that builds momentum and gets your brand noticed?

When ideating across our clients, we ask ourselves a few key questions to spark those big ideas:

What are the biggest consumer trends right now?
The biggest trends often have the most impact because of that magic word: relevance. Think Pet Subscription Boxes from Gusto or CBD Hash Browns from Iceland.

What's too good to be true—the things your consumers dream of becoming a reality?
The cookie dough paint from Dulux sounds like something we'd love on our walls!

What's awkwardly close to possibility but, at the same time, downright mental?
Think Guinness Cologne or The Sainsbury’s Double Decker Trolley (though we're less sure about its practicality here!)
‍
What's the most weird and wonderful collaboration we could possibly think of to stun your community?
AldiAir was one to remember!

After doing some blue-sky thinking, you want to focus on relevance. Is the idea relevant to your audience and is it aligned with your brand strategy? If the answer is yes, you might have your winning idea!

To get your creative juices flowing, here’s some insight into what Spin did this April Fool’s:

Our Ann Summers Marmite collaboration made no sense but was the epic result of two glorious British brands partnering together. It was a truly weird and wonderful collaboration that got our communities buzzing—and believe it or not, it fit our "too good to be true" category too, with our followers dying to try this unique lube concoction! (For better or worse!)

For Princes and their tuna drink, we tapped into trends of 'nutrition' and the recent broth phenomenon, we thought our audience would LOVE a tuna drink packed with protein and the good stuff! Filming it in that classic American infomercial style, we thought we could highlight just how great this drink is. Although people seemed more interested in a sunflower tuna drink 👀.

Every year, the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity brings together the brightest minds in advertising. This year, I had the incredible opportunity to be part of that energy, reviewing over 50 entries from the UK Young Lions.

As a judge, it was inspiring to see the next generation of creative firepower. But it wasn't just about spotting the "next big thing." The insights gleaned from these entries hold valuable lessons for established agencies and brands alike. Here's what stood out:

The Power of Fresh Perspectives:
‍Big agencies are known for their frameworks and processes. While these ensure consistency, some entries felt a bit…uninspired.  In contrast, the most exciting ideas often came from the most junior creatives. This is a powerful reminder that fresh perspectives can breathe new life into established brands.

Brand Brilliance:
‍The talent on the brand side was phenomenal.  It made me wonder: are these brilliant minds being fully utilised in-house?  There's a goldmine of creativity waiting to be tapped into.  Agencies and brands should work together to create an environment where brand voices can truly shine.

The Extra Mile Makes the Difference:
‍The entries that went the extra mile truly shined. This isn't about bells and whistles, but about a genuine commitment to the idea. Don't be afraid to push the boundaries and invest the time and energy to bring your vision to life. It shows.

Standing Out from the Crowd:
Unique ideas are rare gems. There were a few entries with near-identical concepts.  Breakthrough creativity requires taking risks and challenging the status quo. Don't settle for "good enough."  Strive to be truly remarkable.

Less is More:
Killer presentations are clear and concise.  Ditch the word clutter and focus on crafting a compelling narrative that showcases your idea's potential.

The Dream Team:
The true magic happens when exceptional copywriting meets eye-catching visuals.  Brands that can foster strong collaboration between their creative teams will be the ones that stand out.

The Future is Bright:
Being a Cannes Lions judge was a humbling experience.  The talent pool is overflowing with potential.  It's an exciting time for the advertising industry, and I can't wait to connect with these Young Lions in June with the Spin team.

What does this mean for your brand?
The insights from the Young Lions competition offer valuable takeaways for established brands:

• Embrace fresh perspectives: Don't be afraid to tap into the creativity of your younger team members or partner with agencies that encourage out-of-the-box thinking.
• Empower your brand team: Your brand ambassadors have a deep understanding of your audience and a unique voice. Give them the space to contribute meaningfully to your marketing strategy.
• Invest in your ideas: Don't settle for mediocre. Give your team the resources and support they need to bring their big ideas to life.
• Seek out unique solutions: Challenge the status quo and don't be afraid to take risks. Stand out from the crowd with truly remarkable campaigns.
• Foster collaboration: The best creative results come from strong partnerships between copywriters, designers, and brand strategists.

By embracing these lessons, you can unlock the full potential of your brand's creative spirit and achieve Cannes-worthy results, even without entering the competition.

Spin recently had the pleasure of sponsoring LEAD 2024, an event hosted by the AA, IPA and ISBA. It brought together the worlds of politics and advertising in a dialogue that was both timely and necessary. The event certainly surpassed our expectations, so I thought I’d share the ten key takeaways from the day:

1. 2024 is a critical year. Over 2 billion people will be voting in elections this year, which has huge ramifications for the future of democracy.
2. The UK isn’t in the best light at the moment, despite a 0.8% growth forecast, 90% of UK firms feel that the UK is a negative place to invest. Yes - you read that right.
3. We are, however, the second-largest exporter of services in the world - something which I think often gets overlooked when we look at our key industries.
4. Immigration, when viewed through a commercial rather than political lens, is a big issue - and many businesses are very worried about the new salary thresholds coming in April.
5. The UK is one of the most ‘highly intense’ advertising markets in the world - very competitive and arguably over-saturated.
6. “If you can’t charge a premium, you don’t have a brand” is a good way of summarising why advertising and brand matters, with point 5 in mind.
7. Advertising, despite some negative impressions, is an essential cog in the free market to keep prices down (when all other prices are going up), allowing us access to news, content, and journalism.
8. The UK ad market grew by 6% last year - worth noting in a time when it felt like budgets were being cut across the board. 
9. Gordon Brown, a man who I thought was dour, and to be honest, depressing politician, was probably the best public speaker I have ever seen in my life. Practice makes perfect.
10. Creative industries are growing at twice the rate of the rest of the economy - so let’s give them more credit.

Reflecting on LEAD 2024, it's clear that this year marks a significant moment for the advertising industry. The discussions underscored the importance of not only driving economic prosperity but doing so in a manner that is trusted, inclusive, and sustainable.

As Spin, we're proud to have been part of such a forward-thinking event. Our commitment has always been to ensure that we contribute positively to the industry's evolution. Here’s to a year of embracing change, driving innovation, and building a future where advertising is a cornerstone of a prosperous, equitable society.

London (9th January 2024): Spin, the leading social media agency, has appointed two seasoned directors having lured them from current industry leader and competitor,
We Are Social. Lee Murray joins as the new Finance Director, and Alyssa Drysdale steps into the role of Client Services Director.

Lee Murray boasts an impressive tenure of over a decade at We Are Social, where he most recently held the position of Commercial Controller. On the other hand, Alyssa Drysdale brings to the table 8 years of expertise from We Are Social, with her most recent role being Business Director, and a previous stint at Fieldworks as Head of Social Media.

Both Murray and Drysdale cited Spin's remarkable growth, and the strength of its talent, culture, and client roster as their main reasons for making the switch. Their extensive experience is expected to be a significant asset to Spin, further solidifying its position in the industry.

Alex Bodini, CEO of Spin, expressed his excitement about the new appointments, stating, “Bringing Lee and Alyssa into our fold marks a significant milestone for Spin. Their exceptional track record, leadership skills and industry expertise are exactly what we need as we embark on our next phase of growth. This is a testament to the strength of our agency, and it’s a clear signal that the tide is shifting in the industry." 

Lee Murray shared his enthusiasm, saying, “I am thrilled to be joining Spin at such a pivotal time. The agency’s momentum is undeniable, and I am eager to contribute to its continued success.” 

Alyssa Drysdale also commented, “Spin has a unique and forward-thinking approach to social and marketing which I'm incredibly excited to build out further alongside the fantastic team. There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits all in social, and now more than ever, clients need truly reactive and social-first thinking, which is something that already sits at the heart of the agency. I look forward to working closely with our clients to apply this thinking and ensure they reach their full potential through social.”

These strategic hires represent a significant coup for Spin, as it successfully positions itself as a formidable player in the social media marketing arena. Both Murray and Drysdale will play a critical role in the leadership team, steering Spin through its ambitious growth trajectory.