Barns Bulletin #3

It’s finally here… after a long month of waiting and debating, it is now socially acceptable to play Christmas music in the office! Bring on the Bublé! We got up to a lot in November here at Freestyle, so grab a mince pie, and mull (🍷) over what’s been going on at the barns in the last few weeks:

Tonic - Talk. Listen. Mix 

We kicked off the month with the launch of Tonic, the first in a series of events run by Freestyle where industry leaders can come together and learn from each other. It was a great night with fab talks from Andrew Freeman at CRM Technologies and Jeroen van de Kamp at Samskip, full of insightful questions from the audience, all hosted by Freestyle Owner and Founder Alan Cooper. We heard a lot about maturing technologies, got insights into the roadmap approach to marketing ops and marketing inbound tactics. We learned about 10 keys to the successful implementations of digital solutions and got real-life examples and scenarios of when Business and IT became 'Business vs IT'. Stay tuned for updates on the next instalment, Tonic 02: Content: Brilliant basics or beyond compare?

D-Day - The next generation of digital

Next up, Freestylers Amy and Jake had the opportunity to spend a day at Solihull School for the British Interactive Media Association’s Digital Day, which links industry professionals with schools across the UK to raise awareness of the fantastic opportunities for young people in digital. The day consisted of discussing everything digital with a class of year 10 IT students, from websites to augmented reality games. The students were then tasked with creating an advertising campaign that would take advantage of digital technologies and inject some life back into high street shops. There were some amazing ideas and one group has been selected to enter the nationwide D-Day competition, with their idea of an augmented reality food delivery and cookery app.

2 Days of B2B Online and Great Coffee

Armed with bags of coffee from our favourite local supplier, a bunch of us headed over to Amsterdam for the annual B2B Online conference for manufacturers and distributors. We had great conversations, fantastic presentations and insightful roundtables. 

“Speak to customers, discover pain points, come up with solutions.” Peter Bruhn @ TAKKT 👏🏻 - that’s our proposition right there 🎯#b2bonline

— Freestyle Agency (@freestyleint) November 28, 2018

Challenges in a traditional manufacturing business @kellykellymw at @KingspanIns_UK - ‘innovation’ a more acceptable term than ‘digital’ for the business to work with #B2BOnline

— alancooper (@alancooper) November 28, 2018

“B2B is fundamentally relationship-driven, and it always will be””culture eats strategy for lunch” - great Day 2 opening keynote from @IBM’s @rscherwin #b2bonline

— Freestyle Agency (@freestyleint) November 29, 2018

Going for Gold…

It wouldn’t be a Freestyle bulletin without an Award win, and this one came from the International B2B Marketing Awards, where our team won Gold as the agency with the Best Use of Content Marketing for our work with SAXOPRINT. Great job from the whole team! If you want to find out more about the work we did to win this, check out the case study here.

Talent, Technology, Business Expectations and Leadership

Another event we attended in November was the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) annual conference, with an amazing line up of speakers, including Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn. Although there were several contenders, the talk that got through to us the most was given by Caroline Fairbairn, CBI Director General, where she covered everything from China to Brexit and explained why we are never going to progress without coming together and creating new partnerships. In her conclusion she was optimistic about the future and relating to Brexit, she had this to say: “We can use this as a moment for new possibilities, new solutions to old problems. But it must be about getting beyond the divisions and working together”.

Re-deSIGNing our workspace…

Also this week, we have been sprucing up the office, including a whole new batch of Freestyle merchandise and even putting up a brand new illuminated sign on the roundabout, rumour has it you can see the glow from space. There has also been the addition of an exercise bike right in the middle of the office, the reason for which will become clear further down…

Santa Claus here we come…

As we are coming into the beginning of December, everyone (minus a few scrooges) has been getting into the Christmas spirit at the barns. This year we have decided to organise a fundraising event for Myton Hospice, wherein we will, collectively as an office, take part in the ‘Race to Lapland’. This is where we bring the stationary bike into the picture. As a team, we are taking turns to cycle legs of the 2187.5km journey to Lapland. We have set up a fundraising page (below) and would appreciate anything you are able to donate to help Myton Hospice continue the great work they do, enhancing life when cure is no longer an option. Last year they supported more than 1,800 people and their families, in three hospices, via patient & family support services, and in the community through Myton at Home.

Thats all for November, be sure to follow us on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram for all our Christmas updates. See you in the New Year! 🎉