Creative agency, Loaf, has been appointed by two new clients; Lancashire Constabulary, and innovative kiteboarding, technology company, WOO Sports.

The new client wins follow a realigned focus for Loaf – branding, marketing and advertising remain core offerings, but a new focus on the ’brand experience’ across their clients’ businesses has been developed and now includes a consultancy arm to allow a more efficient and personal approach.

The agency has evolved its offer following a change in their client’s activity and the ever-changing needs of both brands and consumer behaviour over recent months. With this new proposition, Loaf aims to support the core business model, growth and expansion of their client offerings.

Dave Mullen, Co-founder and Creative Director at Loaf, said: “Over the last few years we’ve strengthened our strategic offering and business understanding, so we can fully support the needs and goals of our clients. Combined with our skills in brand building and advertising, we’re now adding value to a wide array of business decisions to help our clients build better teams, communications and products.”

“The need to deliver a relevant, meaningful brand experience across all touchpoints has meant that we’ve been helping clients solve problems, plan and deliver ideas beyond marketing. The dramatically changing landscape has added even more focus on what brands need to do to remain relevant and inspiring.”

Loaf’s work for Lancashire Constabulary involves establishing an internal strategy to improve and align values with positive actions within the force, and will drive a number of different campaigns and deliverables.

For WOO Sports — a tech company providing gaming products for watersports, in particular Kiteboarding — Loaf will help develop a new PRO Membership offering. It will also see Loaf work on the brand architecture and market the new offering to build on membership numbers.

Alan Houghton, Co-founder and Managing Director at Loaf, added: “Ultimately we’re here to help businesses grow. Whether that’s helping owners in developing the business model, uncovering new opportunities, or helping create stronger strategies and deliver more effective engagement internally and externally.

“These new client wins are testament to the expansion of our offering and the need for organisations to really engage with clients at every stage. We’re excited to be working with Lancashire Constabulary and WOO Sports to support their growth through all aspects of their business.”

KOMI Social – the content production, content distribution and social media management division of Manchester based KOMI group – has created and launched a vox pop marketing and social media campaign called ‘Aloha Asks the Nation’ for Detonators – the chilli infused pineapple chunks product that was created by spirit drink Aloha 65.

Detonators are alcohol free and are the perfect combination of sweet, savoury and chilli. They are perfect for pimping up everything from pizzas and burgers to kebabs and cheese. They are also ideal for making each sip of Aloha 65 even more refreshing. Detonators are sold exclusively on Aloha65.com and Amazon.

Aloha 65 is an all-natural, vegan spirit drink that is infused with fresh pineapple, lemon, ginger, scotch-bonnet chillies and carefully selected herbs and spices.

The brief, which was won via a non-competitive pitch, saw the KOMI team hit the high street and ask the Great British public a series of simple questions, the most divisive being: Pineapple on pizza, Yes or No? The result was a resounding YES with 69% of the vote.

As well trying to get the bottom of this much debated, and often controversial dilemma, participants were also offered the chance to sample a Detonator. KOMI’s in-house production team recorded every reaction with the best (and funniest) being included in a two to three-minute original piece of video content that is being used across all social platforms, including the KOMI owned It’s Gone Viral page.

James Manaley – Head of Partnerships at KOMI group – said: “Aloha 65 is a growing brand so we wanted to come up with a unique campaign for Detonators that will be engaging, have a comedic feel, build on its ethos of living life to the full and create real engagement on social media.”

Nick Hassall – executive chairman at Aloha 65 – added: “KOMI understood our brand and what we are all about right from our initial conversation. ‘Aloha Asks the Nation’ is set to get people debating one of the key issues of our time and hopefully create some laughs along the way, which is something we all need right now.”

Under the KOMI group umbrella is: KOMI Media, which creates and builds bespoke social channels; KOMI Social; and Ark Media – its licensing arm. The firm, which recently rebranded from It’s Gone Viral, was founded in 2016 and is led by Andrew Trotman and Ryan Williams. Over the past four years, its team of content creators, analysts and video producers have made and then distributed video content and viral campaign adverts for international brands such as BBC Films, O2, Universal, Bud Light and Disney.

Content has been shared across its Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram and LinkedIn accounts including the main page, which is dedicated to relatable, informative and educational content; as well as Go Fetch, a platform for dog lovers to connect with one another; Happiest, which focusses on bringing the most entertaining and uplifting content and real life stories; and Ultimate DIY which is all about sharing fascinating and clever DIY, crafts and hacks followers can do at home.

The last six months has seen the company reach other various milestones including delivering over six billion across its portfolio of pages, relocating its HQ to Beehive Mill in Ancoats, reporting its highest ever NewsWhip results, acquiring social media brand Happiest Media Ltd and appointing Urban Splash’s Sam Lenehan as its new non-exec director.

Today, Lee Thawley & Vicky Pritchard, formerly part of the senior team at Sorted and AO.com, announce the launch of MuddyWellies, a new brand & culture agency.

Their aim – to create customers committed to buying from their clients, and people motivated to work for them.

Having spent the last month focusing on building out their model and approach, MuddyWellies is a powerful new agency on the North West scene with a very clear goal – to create destination brands for customers and employees alike. By putting brand & people at the forefront of everything, the North West based team believes they can ultimately bind, guide and attract people, business and partners.

With an already impressive track record, the new agency is set up to create cutting-edge experiences for clients, producing bespoke plans and building enviable initiatives that make a real difference to businesses, inside and out.

The new agency is co-founded by Lee Thawley & Vicky Pritchard, both formerly of Sorted and AO.com. Between them, they have experience working with some of the UK’s biggest brands across a variety of sectors including, Halfords, Green Flag, Mercedes-Benz, Authentic Food Company, and Royal Bank of Scotland.

Thawley & Pritchard met eight years ago on a project that would see Appliances Online relaunch as superbrand AO.com. Their paths continued to cross, and in 2017, they reunited at Sorted, with Pritchard as People Director and Thawley as Head of Brand. There, they built a powerful culture with purpose, through brand-driven experiences & initiatives.

Their new company aims to help businesses big or small, with the one stipulation that the senior leadership team must understand, or at least be prepared to understand, how brand and people combined is the key to a company’s success.

Thawley & Pritchard both believe that bringing brand and culture together is the key to engaged people and customers, and they will work together to create strong company cultures for each of their clients, putting this right at the core of each unique business plan.

This proves important for organisations of all shapes and sizes, from the well-established to the fledgling start-up, and can be achieved at any stage in a business’ journey.

While well-established organisations may need to review their position or vision, and start-ups may need to create a brand that can grow with them, MuddyWellies will work with businesses to bring people & purpose together. They will achieve this by bringing clarity & consistency to each & every business they work with; aligning employees, increasing internal efficiency, and therefore external outputs.

As well as re-engaging internal teams, and powering up both the employee & customer experience, MuddyWellies will help businesses to attract top talent & partners by building brand advocates.

Thawley & Pritchard describe themselves each as a welly, Thawley the reliable, tough left boot – a little bit of what you really need, & Pritchard the high gloss right, bringing the energy & sparkle.

Pritchard said “It’s hard work keeping everyone engaged within a business, it’s tough finding that point of differentiation, or the core purpose to our being and avoiding values being just words on a wall. But, when you get it right, it can create such great stories and memories – and deliver such a great business return.

Well, that’s where we come in. We dig deep, we get muddy, we focus on getting the wellies on the right feet – and your business going in the right direction.”

Thawley added “What you do internally, runs parallel to what you demonstrate externally. And that’s where the power lies. The greatest businesses – big or small – are built with brand and people at the heart of everything they do. So, we want to help more companies to build their perfect pair.

We want to create talkability. As we say on our site and our creds we don’t do dull, we create destination brands that stand out.”

The duo feel there’s a particular need to remember the importance of culture as many businesses go through a period of change due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Pritchard commented “There is so much noise & opinion around returning to work, remote working, the ‘new normal’ at the moment but to be quite frank nobody really knows what is right or wrong.”

“Not only is every business different, but the people within the teams are too, and this will create new challenges as we reintroduce the return to the office. Getting it right will be driven by leaders who ensure that the purpose and people are still at the core of the business – it will actually require more investment and more concerted initiatives to actually work differently”

MuddyWellies launches today, with full details on the team & their services available on their website – www.wearemuddywellies.com