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Planet & Sustainability

Part of The Marble Group

In my role as Marketing Executive, I implement the planning and execution of The Marble Group&#8217;s marketing strategy, ensuring brand consistency across our channels and creating engaging content that delivers tangible results for each of our agencies. I began my career at Marble and the rest is history.
Out of the office, you&#8217;ll find me exploring London&#8217;s food and drink spots, cooking or with my head in a good book.

What I Do

Member of the Culture Club & Team Green

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Molly Presly

This time last year, British heritage brand and LFW headliner Burberry caused quite a commotion with their fashion week campaign. Collaborating with another London icon, Transport for London, Bond Street station (the redesigned flagship store’s nearest tube stop) was transformed into Burberry Street. Throughout the station, the signage was transformed to match one of the brand’s new colours, Knight Blue and emblazoned with its updated name. Created alongside a partnership with North London’s Norman’s, a modern and playful take on the traditional greasy spoon, the campaign playfully tapped into its core DNA: a London brand through and through. The tube stop element may have received criticism for confusing tourists and commercialising public space, but the activation succeeded on its main aim: getting people talking. Google searches were up, it made a splash on TikTok and spawned a whole conversation online. While making over a whole tube station might be out of reach for most brands, Burberry’s tongue-in-cheek approach can provide inspiration across the board. Leaning into the playful and pushing boundaries often pays off.

Burberry’s Burberry Street

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Anya Hindmarch’s playful approach can be seen across her accessory and lifestyle products and she is known for her innovative marketing strategies. We all remember her chubby hearts campaign across London back in 2019. In recent years, Hindmarch’s retail concept, The Village, has been the centre of the brand’s events. The collection of five stores all sit under the Anya Hindmarch umbrella but span beyond the core product offering and include add ons like the Anya Cafe. Naturally, Hindmarch’s Love and Antioxidants collection demanded a new store, Anya’s Fruit &amp; Veg. Promoting the new collection and village in one, the pop-up shop functioned as a greengrocer but with a Hindmarch twist. Stickers on the fruit were collectable, there was limited-edition merchandise bearing the Fruit &amp; Veg logo and the stores hosted fruit carving classes for children and adults. An excellent example of engaging with new and existing customers in an accessible way and something that could be easily replicated on a smaller scale and without an entire pop-up shop. Running with a collection theme and creating affordable adjacent merchandise that is both covetable and collectable is a great way to build brand loyalty.

Anya Hindmarch’s Greengrocers

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When Covid lockdowns put a stop to the normal proceedings of the LFW men’s shows in June 2020, designers had to think outside the box about how to approach the event in a digital only way. LFW created a Netflix style platform for designers to share virtual content of their new collections but some, like London-based menswear design Nicholas Daley, used this as a moment to do something a little different. Daley, who was already known for his use of music in his catwalk shows, produced a playlist instead of his clothing collection. Showcased on the platform alongside sketches and fabric samples from the collection, Daley described it as an “interactive moodboard” in a New York Times interview. A great example of how to create a buzz and keep the conversation going without having to participate in a traditional way that at the time wasn’t feasible.

Nicholas Daley’s What Does Fashion Sound Like Playlist

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The iconic London department street is synonymous with yellow and plays heavily on the colour through all marketing activity. Naturally, partnering with Yell.com to give the classic directory, the Yellow Pages, a fresh new look was a smart move and the two partnered to produce <a href="https://online.flippingbook.com/view/122135748/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">‘Yellow Pages, Directory of Now’</a>. The 72 page magazine was available in all stores for a three month period kicking off with fashion week and contained culture focused articles, fashion tips and recommendations of where to visit in London, Manchester, and Birmingham. Creating editorial content that is both practical and useful is always a smart way to engage with consumers whether you invest in a print magazine or go for a more stripped back approach on social media platforms. The directory was a great springboard to partner with Vogue World who created a pop-up in Selfridges. The in store kiosks &#8211; which were similar to newsstands in New York &#8211; offered both the directory and copies of the latest Vogue alongside coffee to create a nostalgic and fun collaborative partnership.

Selfridges’ Yellow Pages Vogue Kiosk

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Sustainability is at the heart of everything we do here at Marble so we always have our eye on environmentally-led event ideas. Naturally, we were excited when Fenwick’s former Bond Street department store was transformed into a preloved fashion emporium for two weeks over the February fashion period. The Charity Super.Mkt brought together five charities including Shelter, Traid, Shaw Trust and Havens Hospices to sell second-hand items alongside in-store events and live DJs. As awareness of the positive impact of buying second hand grows, it was the perfect moment to create a positive event on London’s most prestigious shopping street and amidst the excitement of fashion week itself. Hot on the heels of this, resale giant eBay recently announced the launch of a Pre-Loved Fashion Week. In partnership with both LFW and NYFW, they will present live shoppable catwalks made up of pre-owned designer looks &#8211; we can’t wait to see what they come up with.

Fenwick’s The Charity Super.Mkt

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Looking back at LFW: The most memorable recent brand activations

TikTok has become an obvious tool in promoting events for a number of reasons. Firstly, TikTok’s video format showcases events in a captivating and convincing style. Whether it’s teaser videos, behind-the-scenes action or IRL audience reactions, TikTok is arguably the best app for showing this content in a dynamic way. TikTok is often seen as the more ‘real’ social media platform, especially in comparison to the shiny highlights reel of Instagram, which provides a platform to promote events more authentically, whether answering follower questions or providing real-time updates. By building audiences more organically, brands can foster closer connections which can lead to more engagement and subsequently event attendance and sales.
Secondly, TikTok can be used by brands big and small to promote their events successfully. With TikTok’s algorithm based on the success of individual posts not overall follower count, any content that resonates can go far. This sentiment feels even more pressing with discussions around engagement on Instagram dropping amidst claims more than half of content viewed is recommended by AI. Thirdly, the other big factor is TikTok’s audience, which is largely a youthful user base who are often the ones that event organisers are looking to target.

Capturing Authenticity

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When it comes to <a href="https://marblecreative.co.uk/marketing-content" target="_blank" rel="noopener">event promotion</a>, for any brand wanting to target younger millennials or Gen Z, TikTok can’t be skipped. By using TikTok as a promotion tool for events, brands can tap into ready made communities such as #booktok #mentalhealthtok or #sustainabilitytok. While it may sometimes seem counterintuitive to sing the praises of the offline world in an online space, TikTok helps brands reach digital native audiences who are keen for opportunities to form community IRL born out of connections formed online.
TikTok’s role as a sales platform for events was given a boost earlier this summer when global self-service ticketing platform Eventbrite announced a new partnership. The collaboration makes the process of promoting Eventbrite events on TikTok a seamless one with TikTok users able to add event links to posts. For users, it’s easier than ever to buy tickets without leaving the app. This new function comes shortly after the introduction of Eventbrite’s Share on Social feature, where creators can post directly to TikTok from Eventbrite. As these platforms become increasingly integrated, we are likely to see more cross-promotion and TikTok becoming even more popular for event hosts as a means of marketing successfully.

Transforming Communities & Event Accessibility

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Beyond the ticket sales themselves, businesses are also increasingly using TikTok in an ongoing way to showcase their events amidst a wider brand-building strategy. This was most evident at the Paris Olympics this summer which was dubbed the first TikTok Olympics. While the games have long relied on being seen on TV, this time around both the Olympic organising committee itself and brands targeting Olympic viewers had to think about how to market on TikTok. Across the board, many adopted this strategy reaffirming TikTok’s importance. For example, Team Great Britain appointed TikTok as an official partner to help their athletes to connect with new audiences and grow their fanbase while Team Canada and brand partner Lululemon chose to first drop their Paris 2024 kits on the platform.
The design of events themselves is also shifting to take into consideration how it will end up on TikTok. We all remember when in the early days of Instagram, brands started creating &#8216;grammable&#8217; backdrops to snap a photo in front or photogenic cakes to document for upcoming posts. It’s a trend that has never really died but one that has evolved with the changing demands of social media. With video-led TikTok, brands have to always think about how their events will translate into video and with that, create enticing video-ready opportunities that TikTok users will want to capture.

Showcasing the Extraordinary

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How TikTok is Changing the Event Space

If you were drawing up a list of people most likely to give a keynote speech at the Booker Prize ceremony, Dua Lipa might not be the first person that came to mind. However, it’s now something the singer can add to her growing CV after her book club Service95 put her love of reading into the spotlight. She is not alone though and joins an ever growing list of celebrities running their own book clubs. Reese Witherspoon, Natalie Portman, Kaia Gerber, Emma Roberts, Florence Welch, Dakota Johnson are all at it. Move over Richard and Judy indeed. 
It’s hardly surprising really considering how books have become cultural cachet in recent years. Whether it’s a fashion accessory, a home styling prop or political statement, books have taken on a new role in our visually-driven social media world. While celebrities once posed with dogs or designer bags, these days they want to be spotted reading the latest ‘it’ novel or exiting an independent book shop. 
With e-readers forcing physical books to up their cover game style wise and the huge rise in popularity of reading amongst Gen Z on Tiktok (there’s 35.7M posts on BookTok), books are having a moment across the board. It’s hardly surprising then that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/apr/17/uk-publishing-industry-reports-record-breaking-year-in-2022" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the UK publishing industry had a record-breaking year in 2022</a>, with a total income of £6.9bn, the highest on record. 
Reading has become a new way for celebrities to engage with their fans, create community and, of course, grow an additional revenue stream. Naturally brands want in on the action too &#8211; especially in the fashion world. This April, Italian fashion house Miu Miu launched its inaugural Literary Club, Writing Life. The two-day event with panel discussions and performances hosted at Circolo Filologico Milanese, a library and cultural centre in Milan, revisited the work of Italian writers Sibilla Aleramo and Alba De Céspedes and focussed on women’s position in society. This was preceded by a Summer Reads initiative with pop-up Miu Miu stands in London, New York, Tokyo, Milan and Paris for two days in June where members of the public were gifted free books from the April Literary Club.

The rise of celebrity book clubs: how reading has become a new cultural cachet

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Similarly, Alaïa partnered with Paris bookshop Rare Books to display collectable fashion and art books in its Paris and London boutiques while Saint Laurent launched a new Paris bookshop, Saint Laurent Babylone, with a diverse collection of books curated by creative director Anthony Vaccarello. On the flip side, some brands are tapping authors as their muses. Take writer Ottessa Moshfegh of My Year of Rest and Relaxation fame who launched her novel Lapvona at a 2023 Proenza Schouler show and wrote a series of diary entries to go alongside the show notes. 
It’s a natural collaboration for businesses in the luxury space that want to be aligned with craftsmanship, creativity and slowing down, the ultimate antidote to fast fashion. However, unlike other forms of culture &#8211; for example fine art &#8211; books are truly accessible to all. Consumers pay the same price for a Danielle Steele as the latest literary work published by Fitzcarraldo Editions. A smart move amidst the cost of living crisis as many luxury brands struggle to stay relevant. 
Across the market, brands are seeing the appeal though. LA-based sustainable brand Reformation partnered with journalist and podcaster Pandora Sykes on an author interview series dubbed ‘Ref Reads’ at their London stores. These public ticketed events are a good example of how to create an offline community, something that increasingly appeals to the younger, experience-led generation. However, at the same time they translate back onto social media well, propelled by the authors themselves, many who are now influencers in their own right (think Coco Mellors or Yomi Adeyoke). 
While in the beauty world, The Body Shop created their Self Love Book Club, a monthly online series speaking to a range of celebrities, campaigners, authors and activists to find out what reading means to them, and the books they couldn’t live without. As brands increasingly position hair, skin and makeup rituals as self-care, expanding this world to incorporate other introspective and slowing down activities makes total sense.