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Ed East, Billion Dollar Boy CEO

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Ed East, Billion Dollar Boy CEO

Ed East saw the huge potential of influencer marketing early in the game. Photo: Billion Dollar Boy

Ed East is global CEO and co-founder of Billion Dollar Boy (BDB), the UK’s fastest-growing influencer agency.

BDB has grown the influencer marketing industry by 62%, helping the business to clinch a spot in the Financial Times’s list of the 1000 fastest growing companies in Europe – the first and only influencer marketing agency featured.

Founded in 2014 with staff of around 150 across the business, BDB forecast $70m revenue for 2023.

My career hasn’t been long but I was finding it hard to find a job after leaving university in the US. I applied to companies like Google in digital marketing-related jobs and kept getting through to the last rounds of the graduate trainee schemes but not progressing.

I met for a drink with a family friend called Oliver Pawle, who had an idea to set up a charitable organisation that would support young entrepreneurs in their journey and give them all the essential elements needed to set up a business. I found it fascinating.

Read More: My first boss: Martin Warner, ‘UK’s Elon Musk’

Previously an investment banker Oliver is now chairman at executive recruiters Korn Ferry. I joined Oliver as an intern, with the hope of perhaps joining his scheme in its inception.

In the meantime, there were so many things I learned.

Oliver simply had an idea, with a great cause supporting young individuals. Since 2011 New Entrepreneurs Foundation has now had 350 alumni. It has since merged with the Centre for Entrepreneurs. Further, 170 businesses have been set up, with over 5,000 jobs created with a combined value of £620m.

The first lesson I took away was always take action and drive it into reality, otherwise it will never become something. Three weeks after our drink, he had hired me as a junior and we were up and running, the first programme launching that autumn.

The BDB founders: Thomas Walters (Europe CEO), Permele Doyle (USA president) and Ed East . Photo: Paul Morse Photography

The BDB founders: Thomas Walters (Europe CEO), Permele Doyle (USA president) and Ed East, right. Photo: Paul Morse Photography

Oliver is always energetic and optimistic which gives off energy to others. He also took time to be interested and listen. I take the same positive energy approach at BDB – even when giving potentially bad news, I try to give a positive spin.

Over his career, he also built a valuable network and that’s one of the reasons he is now in executive search. It was clear to me that the network was the only way the foundation would succeed. We had to go out to businesses who had never heard anything like this before.

“You need to treat people with the utmost respect when you’re on the way up, as who knows what will happen on the way back down”, he once said. In 2011, I joined the programme and shadowed at a big digital marketing agency as its new entrepreneur.

Having seen Oliver and his drive to action, I was inspired. In my spare time I worked on a database connecting blogs – an incarnation of influencer marketing today – to brands. Having moved to Los Angeles and seen YouTubers and Instagrammers, I realised it was this market which needed to be connected all together to brands.

In 2014, Billion Dollar Boy was born. We wrote a long business plan in order to pay us a salary. The genesis of influencer marketing has not changed, but the route has consistently taken us in different directions.

Billion Dollar Boy has grown to become one of the fastest-growing full-service influencer led advertising agencies in the world. Photo: Tom Miles

Billion Dollar Boy has grown to become one of the fastest-growing full-service influencer led advertising agencies in the world. Photo: Tom Miles

As we are a bigger business, it’s much harder to have an idea and follow that as there are so many people and stakeholders involved. We are much less entrepreneurial while the last few years we have honed in and perfected what we are good at, as opposed to trying lots of new things.

There are always new platforms and creators emerging. Influencers have democratised this creation of content, can publish via their owned platform on social media and it has changed the way brands can talk to audiences.

While we have done mass scale influencer marketing over the last nine years, creator advertising is now coming to the fore, one where we want to double down over the next few years. We are taking the asset influencers make and using it for many different forms of advertising. For example, we recently had the biggest billboard in Australia, in Melbourne, where the content is made by influencers.

Read More: Sally Walker, Britain’s spy chief on her first boss

The creator economy term has now been coined over the last 18 months in building businesses with influencers, leveraging the audiences and the communities they’ve built to create new products and services. It takes us out of the agency model and enables us to co-invest and redefine the way businesses are being built.

Oliver probably had faith in seeing me start something and it’s probably why he pushed and supported me. He may be a bit surprised at where I’ve got to, but he will undoubtedly be happy about it.

Watch: Is it financially worth going to university?

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Snap On How It Empowered Women’s With AR Storytellling

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Snap On How It Empowered Women’s With AR Storytellling

Snapchat has won the AR/VR category at The Drum Awards for Creativity. Here is the award-winning case study.

In France, like many western countries, public space lacks monuments honouring women. What about empowering Women’s Legacy through Augmented Reality? As a storytelling company, Snap knows that stories have the power to change hearts, minds, and behaviors. Stories create empathy, which can inspire behavior change across Snap and the broader industry. And although our industry is data-driven, we understand numbers are not a substitute for lived experience. The differing lived experience of underrepresented groups can reduce feelings of belonging, which in turn reduces opportunity to realize potential. Snap’s goal in inspiring empathy is to create a shared culture of belonging for all.

To celebrate International Women’s Day, March 8, 2023, Snap’s AR Studio has been honouring 8 emblematic women in 8 major French cities (Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Lille, Strasbourg, Metz and Nantes) through a unique augmented reality experience: “March 8, 8 women”. “March 8, 8 women” has been a unique opportunity to demonstrate Augmented Reality’s impact in supporting Great National Cause (French president Emmanuel Macron has declared Equity a priority for 2023), while showcasing Snap’s creative and technologic leadership in AR.

While as many women as men have marked the course of history, the vast majority of sculptures in the urban space in France (squares, gardens and streets) honour male characters. Snap’s AR Studio has thus imagined augmented reality statues of women who have left their mark on history in the fields of politics, arts and letters or resistance. These augmented reality statues are installed next to the physical statues of their male counterparts – hence creating a silent dialogue between two historical figures, a male & a female, a physical & a virtual, both having lived in the same era, walked similar fields, achieved close successes.

Each of these 8 virtual statues honours the achievements of the following 8 great women in history and helps to commemorate their contributions to French society:

Simone Veil: Champion of women’s rights, emblem of the 1975 law that legalized abortion, and the first female president of the European Parliament. Her augmented reality statue will be positioned next to the physical one of General Charles de Gaulle on the Champs-Elysées roundabout in Paris.

Simone de Beauvoir: An acclaimed writer and philosopher of the existentialist movement. As an anti-conformist, she advocated for the emancipation of women in her writings, such as her 1949 book The Second Sex, and became one of the pioneers of French feminism in the 20th century. Her augmented reality statue will be placed next to the physical one of 20th century poet and writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, at Place Bellecour in Lyon.

Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun: Admitted to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1783 and the official painter to Marie Antoinette, she achieved critical and popular success in the artistic world despite the many obstacles facing female artists of her time. Her augmented reality statue will be placed next to the physical one of 18th century artist Pierre Puget, in the Parc Borély in Marseille.

Françoise de Graffigny: One of the most emblematic female figures of 18th century French literature, best known for her philosophical essay Letters from a Peruvian Woman published in 1747. Her augmented reality statue will be positioned next to the physical one of renown philosopher Montesquieu, at Place des Quinconces in Bordeaux.

Manon Tardon: Figure of the French Resistance and Free France, she was present on May 8, 1945, in Berlin when the surrender of Nazi Germany was signed. Her augmented reality statue will be positioned next to the physical one of World War 2 hero Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque, at Square Amiral Halgan in Nantes.

Josephine Baker: An American-born singer, actress, feminist, showgirl, and French resistance fighter, Josephine Baker was a spy for the Free French Forces, an emblem of the Paris of the Roaring Twenties, and an influential figure in the fight against racial segregation. Her augmented reality statue will be placed next to the physical one of resistant fighter Jean Moulin, at Gare Centrale in Metz.

Olympe de Gouges: Principal author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Citizen published in 1791, she is considered one of the French pioneers of feminism. Her augmented reality statue will be positioned next to the physical one of French Revolution leader Jean-Baptiste Kléber, at Place Kléber in Strasbourg.

Hubertine Auclert: Journalist, feminist activist, and founder of the society Le droit des femmes in 1876, she advocated for women’s economic independence, the right to education, and equality in marriage and divorce. Her augmented reality statue will be positioned next to the physical one of early 20th-century activist Léon Trulin, at Place du Théâtre (not far from the Lille Opera).

“Through this innovative experience installed in 8 cities in France, we want to pay tribute to 8 women who have changed French history and society through their actions, their writings, or their positions. Thanks to Snap’s augmented reality technologies, we were able to celebrate those 8 women by building their statues in the public space by placing them alongside statues of men. By establishing a silent dialogue between these historical figures, our wish is to raise public awareness of the fight for women’s rights.” — Donatien Bozon, AR Studio Director.

To design this outstanding augmented reality experience, AR Studio Paris teamed up with French Women’s Rights advocate and influencer Aude Gogny-Goubert, drew inspiration from academic essays (Women & cities, Presses universitaires François-Rabelais, 2004), and requested the patronage of SnapWomen EMEA, a Snap’s Employee Representative Group supporting Equity. An all-female panel vetted the 8 female historical figures (and their male counterpart), from more than twenty curated candidates.

It took AR Studio Paris and its partners a total of 3 months, from ideation to launch, to create true virtual monument as close to physical ones as possible. 3D artists and producers scrutinized the physical statues in order to develop a virtual counterpart replicating sculpting techniques and materials. AR engineers exploited Snap Inc. proprietary technologies (Location AR, Environment mapping, Surface Tracking…) to bring this augmented reality experience to life.

The AR experience “March 8, 8 Women” has been available since March 8, 2023, sharing, with Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Bordeaux, Lille, Strasbourg, Metz and Nantes citizen and visitors, 8 permanent virtual monument exclusively available on Snapchat… thus building momentum to advocate Equity across France.

Snap believes that augmented reality—digital content overlaid over the real world—represents the next major shift in computing. Like ephemeral messaging and vertical video, Snap also pioneered augmented reality. Today Snap is leading in AR, from a technology, scale, and creator perspective. Snap’s vision for AR is rooted in innovation and stems from our desire to solve problems for our community in a creative way through human-centric design, and the desire to create a more positive reality rather than escape the problems our society faces. As it turns out, Snapchatters love the world around them and the friends and family they share it with, so why not use technology to enhance it for the better?

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An Overview of the Evolving Data Landscape Powering AI, VR, and More [Infographic]

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An Overview of the Evolving Data Landscape Powering AI, VR, and More [Infographic]

While AI and large language models (LLMs) become more commonplace, it’s worth considering the amount of computational power, and data storage, that these systems require to operate. 

Demand for high-grade GPUs, for example, is still exceeding demand, as more tech companies and investors look to muscle in, while the big players continue to build on their data center capacity, in order to beat smaller systems out of the market.

That, inevitably, means that control over many of these new processes will eventually fall to those with the most money, and even if you have concerns about next-level computational power being governed by CEOs and corporations, there’s not a heap that you can do about it, as they need an established holding to even get in.

Well, unless a government steps in and seeks to build its own infrastructure in order to facilitate AI development, though that seems unlikely.

And it’s not just AI, with crypto processes, complex analysis, and advanced scientific discovery now largely reliant on a few key providers that have available capacity.

It’s a concern, but essentially, you can expect to see a lot more investment in big data centers and processing facilities over the coming years.

This new overview from Visual Capitalist (for Hive Digital) provides some additional context. Here, the VC team have broken down the current data center landscape, and what we’re going to need to facilitate next-level AI, VR, the metaverse, and more.

It’s an eye-opening summary. You can check out Visual Capitalists’ full overview here.

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30 Quick Ways to Increase Your Website’s Conversion Rate [Infographic]

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30 Quick Ways to Increase Your Website’s Conversion Rate [Infographic]

Looking to drive more direct conversions from your website listings this holiday season?

The team from Red Website Design share 30 ways to improve your website conversion rate in this infographic.

Here’s the top five from the list:

  • Include as few fields as possible on forms
  • Use testimonials
  • Clearly state product/service benefits
  • Include subscriber and social media follower counts
  • Write clear, compelling copy

Check out the infographic for more detail.

A version of this post was first published on the Red Website Design blog.

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