After GDPR - Here’s how to build your customer base. A recent survey by W8 concluded that GDPR will make 75% of UK marketing data obsolete. “Data” is a dirty word. We have all been probably, shocked and surprised by just how many companies have our information on their databases, as the flurry of “Don’t Leave Us” emails hit our inboxes. Many customers have a nagging feeling that there is something sinister about all this data mining that routinely takes place when we shop online. Companies have shared and made money from our data for years. GDPR if anything has forced business to look at the key relationship factor with their customers – TRUST.

  Gone are the days of sitting in front of your friendly bank manager asking him to lend you the standard 3 and a half times your income to secure a mortgage on your dream home. Now the whole mortgage process is going digital and probably the best of the bunch is Habito. Habito was founded by Daniel Hegarty, an early employee at Wonga, who had a masterplan to take away the hassle of applying for a mortgage. Habito say they analyse over 11,000 mortgage products across 70 lenders in real-time. The entire process takes place via the Habito app on your smartphone or on their website and crucially it’s free, Ending the fees that many traditional mortgage brokers charge. In the same way Rightmove revolutionised the house buying and selling process, Habito puts the consumer in touch with more mortgage offers to suit their needs. The lack of a need for credit checks at the initial search stages will reassure potential customers who just want to get a feel of what’s out there.   The early feedback on Trustpilot, the consumer review site, is extremely positive and people seem to like the experience and the customer service they receive. At Toast we always love digital innovators who make life easier for their customers. With mortgages being the biggest financial commitment many of us make in our lifetimes then more choice can never be a bad thing. So Habito are our challenger brand of the month.  

Oatly make the milk substitute drink from of course oats. To be more precise, Swedish organic oats. Swedish oats they claim are amongst the best they grow healthily in the Nordic climate and crucially a lot of the evil pesticides that are used on oats in the rest of Europe are banned in Sweden. We like the company because they are irreverent in their advertising and they have strong ethical values mixed with cool science! Oatly’s patented enzyme technology mirrors nature’s own natural process and turns fibre rich oats into a very nutritious liquid food that is good for you and good for the environment. The company operates out of the southern region of Sweden with Headquarters in Malmö. The Oatly brand is available in more than 20 countries throughout Europe and Asia. Oatly is keen on being a people brand. Setting up the world’s first non-dairy coffee festival, selling t-shirts with head-turning messaging like “Post Milk Generation” and recently, put out unbranded products with the title of “Not Milk”. It’s this out of-the-box thinking which puts Oatly ahead of their more boring and traditional competitors. And they are already sowing oats that are financial fruitful with a revenue of over 40 million dollars last year. We like our oats at Toast, they're part of a healthy breakfast. Oatly are our challenger brand of the month.

The Brand Safety issue is a big subject in the media right now and doesn’t look like it’s going away soon. For brands and organisations, it’s a reputational nightmare. You make some entertaining and informative video content and suddenly you get calls asking why your video is linked to or surrounded by other content that is extremist, offensive, pornographic, or at its simplest just contrary to your own brand’s ethics and values. For example, you are a family brand selling healthy cereal and you find yourself linked with a very explicit lyrics and imagery from the band Cradle Of Filth, famous for their songs that are violent, sexist, and overtly sexual. That’s a PR disaster that is none of your doing but the problem is you are now in damage limitation mode.

Birdsong is a wonderful London-based online fashion store with a genuine promise of “no sweatshops and no photoshop!” A brand who believe in keeping it real and keeping it fair. Birdsong’s simple mission is to revolutionise the way women dress. Making sure their clothes are made with care and skill and at the same time giving help to local women’s organisations. “From migrant seamstresses, knitting grannies to all our customers, we unite women.” Many women workers are exploited for the sake of fashion. Birdsong reject that philosophy. They just want a fun way to do fashion that doesn’t make women feel ashamed about their size and shape.

The dangers of bringing your agencies in-house. I suppose there was a sense of schadenfreude amongst a lot of agencies when they watched the PR car car-crash that piled up around the Pepsi Kendall Jenner ad campaign. It was supposed to be an example of good advertising crafted by an in-house creative powerhouse. In the driving seat that fateful day was Kristin Patrick, senior VP-global brand development. Mr Jakeman, President of PepsiCo Global Beverage Group had praised the ad on Twitter on Tuesday morning shortly after it was released, saying he was "super proud of the @PepsiCo #CreatorsLeague for producing this," but the tweet has since been deleted. Another danger of deleting your soon-regretted statements of support is that news of your deletion also goes viral! Only adding to the sense of incompetence.

“To create a delicious ‘all natural’ milk drink without using refined sugar, artificial preservatives and colourings and serve it in a container that didn’t look like a domestic cleaning product.’

Looking for then latest health drink? Want to live a champagne lifestyle without piling on the pounds? Well we may just have the fizz for you…   Thomson & Scott's 'Skinny' prosecco contains only 67 calories per glass. Even health-fanatic Ellie Goulding is a big fan, with an Instagram message of support saying 'I'LL TAKE IT'.

Far from traditional fixtures of pies and jellied things you’d wish stayed at sea, London is bewildering in it’s levels of culinary creativity. A gourmet crisp shack, pop up potato joint and grilled cheese sandwich shop all exist within 100 metres of the Toast TV towers. New hire Harry Harryman was quick to point this out and jumped to work immediately, capitalising on this booming trend. Partly transforming our video production shop into an aerial street food delivery service. Toast TV introduces a new wave, artisanal breakfast slice. A pinch of tradition with a punch of modernity. Toast by drone. For a closer look at Harry and his work process check out the video below. [padding top="30px" right="0" bottom="30px" left="0"] Each slice is being sold for £7.99 which includes a butter, one topping and includes drone delivery within Soho. This fascinating new segment for London’s foodie history will lift off on National Toast Day, 23rd February 8am-11am purchasable through the ToastTV app. With our expertise in programmable drones and Harry’s extensive knowledge of cheap supermarket foods we invented a new experience we think Soho will be enjoying for decades to come. EDIT 11:36 23/2/17 Toast delivery service has been suspended for the foreseeable future due to safety concern involving a minor and the aerial delivery system. We apologise for the inconvenience to those who did not receive their orders. We are not looking to reimburse you at this time or in the future. Thank you very much for your understanding. The Toast Team. [/padding]

[full_col] So, you have a great product or service. Maybe you’re a new-to-market challenger brand wanting to take on the big boys and win? You do your research and everyone in marketing with any intelligence is telling you to setup a brand video production. Because more people engage with brands and share video than any other form of content. If content is king, then video is God.  

What the heck? Here’s our challenger brand of the month.   Heck are a small family brand. Quite simply they create great sausages, burgers, meatballs and veggie variations. They pride themselves on locally sourced high quality ingredients and at Toast we love the idea behind their family food.

Who wouldn’t enjoy the promise of the perfect night’s sleep?   Well, that promise, from challenger brand mattress company Simba, seems to be backed up by the stellar reviews their innovative mattress designs get from their satisfied customers. From developing their own top layer latex “Simbatex” that didn’t trap in heat to extensively testing their mattresses with the respected “Sleep To Live Institute” whose research profiled more than 10 million people and included 180 million body profile data points. And then there’s the revolutionary springs – Simba created springs with one of the world's leading spring manufacturers to design a unique spring to complement a rolled mattress. The conical pocket spring Simba developed was the missing ingredient - it meant they solved the secret of the perfect night's sleep. Simba go the extra mile to create the world’s most advanced mattress.

A few years ago, two brothers, Charlie and Harry Thuillier, went windsurfing in the wilderness of Brazil. They survived on foods naturally sourced on the wild coastline, including coconuts and wild super-fruits. Not only were they super healthy and nutritious, but they tasted wonderful too. On returning home, the boys became fascinated with the idea of using healthy natural ingredients to make indulgent food; nutritious without sacrificing taste.  Just like the food they loved so much on their trip.  

This is the first in a monthly series where here at Toast we look at Challenger brands and bring you the ones we believe are cool, interesting and innovative. Who knows – they could be the next Innocent Smoothies.

This month we look at Brighton Gin: Playful and fiercely independent.

Photocredit: Natasha Bidgood

You're a market challenger, there’s a buzz building on social media, you may even be the next big thing in your sector. Three cheers for you!  But how do you capitalise on this initial interest and stay relevant for the long term? It’s a problem a lot of new brands have.  Gaining long term consumer trust and awareness.

New to Advertising? Why Not Run A Test TV Ad?

So you have a great product or service and you want the best way to let people all about it. Then TV advertising is the best choice and will certainly outperform your online marketing in terms of trust, target audience and crucially the bottom line.

And right now making your first TV advert and getting it on air on the right channels for the right audience has never been more affordable, simple and effective in terms of ROI. In fact we have a unique offer that allows you to Test the water with your first TV Ad and measure its effectiveness.

The Brand

- If you're like startup Tootle, a new challenger and you want to drive traffic to your website where do you start? They aim to disrupt the £45 billion UK used car market. Tootle matches private sellers to dealers wanting to source specific cars directly from the public. By streamlining the sales process and removing middlemen, they aim to drive better prices and a smoother experience for both sellers and dealers.

With the advent of Netflix, HBO, Amazon and other VOD sites some say we are in a golden age of premium content choices. Inspired by the growing numbers of subscribers to Netflix and Amazon, brands have realised that they too must become publishers of owned, and highly original content. Not just advertising around it, or sponsoring it, but creating it from scratch.

What are the advantages of TV advertising?

TV advertising is effective because research shows it reaches viewers when they're at their most attentive. One of the main advantages of TV advertising is being one brand message at a time unlike the blizzard of banners, ads, pre rolls, and click-bait articles that clamour for your attention on any given webpage. The growing number of terrestrial, cable and satellite channels have made TV advertising much more affordable for brands. Crucially this proliferation of channels means you are able to promote your offer to ever more relevant audiences.

Promoting Challenger Brands

The power of advertising can turn around a brand in a short timeframe, but there are some big players that have done this more obviously than others. Innocent are one brand who, with help from a 30 second clip, became a challenger brand and grew their business across the last 6 years to unimaginable heights, highlighting the power that TV advertising holds when done right.

Now iOS 9 is out in the wild, advertisers are kicking and screaming in panic about the ad blocking support and functionality it brings. Advertisements bring forth huge chunks of revenue, $27.5 billion in the US (for the first half of 2015). Blocking ads hurts an age old model of revenue, but the ad blockers aren’t going to topple the $60+ billion online advertising industry in one fell swoop. The industry is vast, too important and touches too many.

Keep an eye on this area for updates and news.