Pixel Kicks, the Manchester based full-service digital agency, has been appointment by Sefton Park Palm House Preservation Trust to design and develop a brand-new website which is expected to launch in time for summer 2021 when, hopefully, lockdown restrictions will be eased and the attraction will once again be able to welcome visitors and take bookings.
The project was won via a competitive pitch and over the next few months the Pixel Kicks team will create a responsive website that will showcase the Palm House’s complete offering, including highlights from its collection, events, tickets and booking information, as well as its history and heritage.

Sefton Park Palm House Preservation Trust is a registered which was charity set up in 1996 to manage Sefton Park Palm House. The Trust raises all its own income and also makes an annual contribution to Liverpool City Council which goes towards building maintenance and supports an extensive programme of community events. It is also used for private and corporate events, including weddings.

Sefton Park Palm House was built in 1896 and is a Grade ll* listed building. The botanical collection housed there boasts over 200 plants from five continents, including rare species and one that is extinct in the wild.

Matt Hartley – principal sales and account manager at Pixel Kicks – said: ““Sefton Park Palm House is the jewel of Liverpool’s Sefton Park and is an iconic Victorian glasshouse which is much loved by the community and by people from across the region. We want to build on that profile so visitors can really appreciate what this unique venue has to offer, and why it deserves a place on wedding venue shortlists.”

Roy Boardman – director at Sefton Park Palm House Preservation Trust – added: “We want to partner with an agency that has proven experience in the venue sector and that understands what we stand for and what we want to achieve. Pixel Kicks is the ideal fit, so we are now looking forward to developing the site and launching it later this year.”

The Insights People the global leader in kids and parents market intelligence have today launched their Media Mix Compass a revolutionary media planning tool to assist brands and agencies in their planning, monitoring and evaluate their media campaigns across the 13 countries which they operate in.

The new tool is based on data collected by surveying more than 5,000 different kids, tweens and teens (between the ages of 3-18) every week. Developed in close collaboration with a number of their clients, including global agencies, it will help marketers and planners increase the effectiveness of their campaigns by reviewing 11 different types of media. The tool which updates in real-time is GDPR and COPPA compliant and is designed to help brands who are having to adjust to the rapidly changing media ecosystem that children now live in.

The Media Mix Compass provides a 360 view of kids, tweens, and teens ecosystems. Brands can segment the data not only as a global view, but by country, region, gender, age, persona and by their specific attitudes, behaviours and consumptions. The Kids Insights Media Mix Score (MMS) will show the power of each media type for your defined target audience, considering the preference, time spent and reach for each media type and platform.

Developed by The Insights People in-house team The Media Mix Compass provides an independent account of kids’ media consumption which will help improve brands decision making, in an increasingly fragmented ecosystem. It will provide decision makers with more clarity and confidence as they increasingly look to consider new more innovative forms of engagement such as in-game advertising.

Former Head of Digital at Forward Media, and Fullsix Media agencies within Havas Media Group and founder of Thirty Twenty, Steven Mijovski believes:

“The lack of data on kids is a significant challenge. The Kids Insights Media Mix Compass will provide brands with such a comprehensive data tool which covers such a diverse range of media channels considered – quite simply no other tool goes into this level of depth and detail”
The tool which has been built into The Insights People’s award-winning portal, which is used by clients such as Amazon, BIC, Formula 1, Kraft, LEGO, Pokémon, T-Mobile and Warner Bros. Future developments for the platform will utilise the latest data science and machine learning technologies to build a predicted media mix score for up to 12 months in advance.

Former MediaCom Associate Director, and The Insights People Research & Trends Director, Claire Garner adds,

“With the kids advertising industry worth nearly $5bn a year, there has been an inherent lack of tools to help in the planning, measurement and evaluation of media spend. With this generation of kids having far greater privacy protection and their worlds becoming more fragmented we have made it our mission to help brands understand the full picture and ultimately improve their ROI across their business”

Nick Richardson, Founder & CEO, The Insights People adds:

“We are very proud at what we have developed, and we would like to thank all of our clients who have worked with us to scope, develop and test a solution which was required by the industry, as for the first time, they now have the ability to compare a linear TV channel vs Fortnite or TikTok”.

Online and Social Video Specialists Coolbox have had their most successful quarter to date. Despite ongoing turmoil that the pandemic has brought, the production house based at M-One Studios in Manchester has been able to navigate the choppy waters of covid uncertainty, to secure several high profile clients.

Director and Founder of Coolbox Marc Grundy commented on how the pandemic has affected the business over the past 12 months.

‘It’s been an unimaginably difficult year for people all across the UK, and businesses in the creative sector have been hit hard. The same goes for the food, beverage and hospitality industry, who happen to be Coolbox’s primary client base.’

‘We identified pretty early into the first lockdown that if we wanted to survive (and thrive), we needed to pivot, and adapt our offering. Luckily we managed to avoid furloughing any of our staff for long, and made good use of any ‘downtime’ with training, learning new techniques and experimenting with new filmmaking equipment – enabling us to offer a plethora of new services when our clients felt safe (and were allowed) to go back to work.’

Pivoting the business’s offering opened the door for Coolbox to begin working with customers outside their usual client base, namely infection control specialists InfectProtect and Google Shopping machine learning technologists Bidnamic. The video creators also partnered with their long-time collaborators Luma Marketing to help launch two new start-ups, Rebelleon and Rise Futures.

But Coolbox hadn’t forgotten about their core customers; after all some sectors of the food and drink industry were thriving. In response to the cancellation of most live events, Whisky Magazine appointed the video production company to help create their Whisky Live At Home online events. Head of Content & Marketing at Paragraph, Christopher Coates said.

‘Working with Coolbox has allowed our business to pivot into delivering high-quality video content, in spite of the challenging circumstances presented by the pandemic.’

The client wins continued into 2021 for the video company, with Coolbox being appointed as video production supplier for Peak District beer producers Buxton Brewery, and the University of Leeds.

Marc Grundy added. ‘In spite of the current situation, we wanted to step it up a gear this year, and we weren’t going to let the pandemic slow us down. It was great to see all our hard work pay off as we were awarded the contract to be one of the University of Leeds’ video suppliers for the next four years. It’s a fantastic opportunity, and we can’t wait to start working with the University’.

Coolbox’s good fortune didn’t end there either; with their Producer/Director Cain Jennings being nominated for Marketing and Creative Professional of the Year at the Made in Manchester Awards.