A little life update.

For the past five years I’ve lived and breathed startups. These startups have ranged from small ventures with myself and a few others renting hot desks in a South London coworking space, to Series B hyper-growth companies growing from tens of employees to a several hundred. One small caveat, when I say the past five years, I’m really speaking about the majority of my professional career. I’ve been shaped by my experiences at these companies and when I think back, it’s been a journey defined by one word ‘acceleration.’ Learning, launching and shipping at an incredibly fast rate with few resources but also few constraints.

The thread that explains my willingness to embark on these experiences is a desire to build something useful for the world and being able to create something from almost nothing. Most startups give you an immense amount of autonomy and mix a healthy amount of risk with creativity which can lead to magical, serendipitous moments where what you build, clicks. I love that feeling and I’ll always want to retain it, but more than that I want to build.

I recently reached a crossroad, where I had to decide what to do next — a crossroad which every other time I’ve visited in the past five years, I’ve taken a hard left towards Shiny New Startup. This time though, I paused a little longer. Instead of just turning left, I started exploring the option of applying all I have learned in startups to something larger. Maybe I could look for organisations tackling problems who already have a foothold and already have momentum; momentum which would allow my work to reach a much larger audience, faster. When starting this journey, I consulted heavily. I reached out to my friends, peers, investors and former colleagues. I was not so much seeking a direction, but advice.

The most formative piece of advice I received, wasn’t advice at all — it was a question. A YC partner asked me to think back to a time where I was most fulfilled at work, where that flow state occurred frequently. He then asked me if I knew what it was about that time, or that place which had made it so. We talked through this, and it became clear that there were three themes linking the times I was able to do my best work.

1. I cared deeply about what I was working on and truly believed it was beneficial for the world, whether that be individuals or businesses.
2. I was surrounded by kind, smart and incredibly talented colleagues where learning from one another was an everyday occurrence.
3. I was challenged, solving difficult problems and challenging the status quo; low repetition, minimal copying of others and high calibre execution.

In order to find the above, I had to first break it down. Point number one is somewhat more manageable to come by, partly due to the sheer scale of opportunities available and also, unfortunately, due to the insurmountable number of problems that need to be solved. Interestingly a lot of problems that are seemingly small for one group of people can be significant for another. I was less concerned about finding a new opportunity with a compelling problem; larger companies are typically solving the most prevalent issues we face today. Be it internet connectivity, communication, fair and equitable access to education, simple healthcare insurance etc. The list goes on.

The second point I believe is harder to satisfy. Product people, particularly designers can be hypersensitive to the overarching driver of an organisation. Some designers are acutely aware of how companies operate internally and how their discipline is viewed throughout the organisation. Poor representation or care for the design discipline may result in low upward mobility, low job satisfaction and the lack of a critical voice in key product decisions. It’s therefore important for designers to choose wisely. We look at cues in order to determine how an organisation fairs on this front, with the best signal being a fair and unbiased review from someone who already works there. Outward communications are also helpful; organisational structures are interesting and unique and clues are everywhere from headcount to the ratio of heads in design to engineering. Not every company is product led— I wouldn’t necessarily expect it. If you can’t find an AirBnB type, at least find a decent, creative environment within which to thrive.

The final point is in some ways a question to one’s self. It’s asking, “Do I find this challenging?” Or, “If I were tasked with solving this problem as the only designer available, could I do it?” Or, “In three-months, could my contributions make a meaningful difference to this problem?” These are interesting questions to ask, if you find yourself being unchallenged by the problem at hand or the mission the company is attempting to achieve, then you’re probably not headed to the right place.

Looking at the above, my options were most certainly narrowed down. Here’s the tl;dr. I was looking for a product or engineering-driven culture, solving a large, complex problem with an incredible team of talented people from all over the world. When it came to reaching out to individuals within these companies, I was fortunate enough to have several referrers, which alongside providing me with the introduction to these teams, gave me their fair reviews.

I won’t get into the interview processes in detail, suffice to say they were long, tough and extremely varied. I can write a seperate post about PD interview best practice if anyone is interested! I ended up with several options, each pretty unique with some representing not only a new chapter in my career, but a new country to call home. After thought and consideration, I chose to accept an offer to join Facebook.

Disclaimer — as I am not a representative or spokesperson of Facebook, the following will be brief!

First and foremost, of the offers I was lucky enough to receive, my choice satisfied the criteria I set out above. To me, Facebook represents a mission, an environment and a challenge which combine to form an opportunity which thoroughly encompasses what I want from the next chapter of my working life.

Marketing guru + NYU professor Scott Galloway talks about the big four tech companies of our generation as the following: Google is god; Apple is sex; Amazon is the consumptive gut and Facebook is the heart. If you haven’t read his book on this, I’d highly recommend it! Galloway’s analysis here is poignant and in our current situation, timely; ‘The heart,’ is the people you love, it’s your friends and colleagues and it’s making new connections in the world around you. I not only resonate deeply with this mission as a person, but as a designer, I am also impressed and humbled by the incredible products that Facebook builds for the billions of people who use them around the world every day.

I’m incredibly excited to start this next chapter — in fact I ‘formally’ started a few weeks ago, slow on the uptake! Thank you to the friends, family, connections and advisors who have helped me to navigate my next chapter. In particular, the YC community and alumni have been an invaluable resource over the past year. I’m also grateful for all those I was able to meet in the startup community (between London, Denver and SF), it’s been the most exciting and adventurous start to a working life that I could have asked for.

Thanks for reading! You can find me on Twitter Fifi Kara

Best startup bank accounts in the UK — 2020 Edition

As a start-up founder, it’s important to manage your admin from day one. It saves you time in the long run and gets you back to focusing on what’s important — building a business.

We’re a startup ourselves and have first-hand experience in choosing tools and services. We thought it’d be helpful to put together a list of the best start-up bank accounts in the UK. So that you can make a quick decision and get back to building your business.

Here are our top recommended banks for a few different categories:

• If you’re looking for a challenger bank with a great app, fantastic product features and a high street presence isn’t a priority to you — we’d recommend Starling Bank.
• If you’re looking for a modern bank with high-street branches and someone you can speak to face-to-face with, then our pick is MetroBank.
• Lastly, when thinking about a great option for a startup doing business internationally — making and receiving payments in multiple currencies, we’d say Transferwise.

Here’s the full list — tailored for startups.

Best Start-up Bank Accounts in the UK (The shortlist)

Starling Bank

The highlights:

• Open the account in minutes, no paperwork required.
• Link your account to your accounting software, e.g. QuickBooks
• Multi-director accounts
• Easy to use overdraft

Starling’s business banking offering is quite promising. When getting down to the nitty-gritty, it offers zero monthly fees, zero fees on domestic transfers, as well as 24/7 support and instant switching via the switching service. It’s aimed at the owners of limited companies and the self-employed.

Business Score suggestion: Starling bank is a fantastic option that covers your needs if you’re a sole trader, the owner of a small business or a small early-stage startup.

What to watch out for: Not the best option if you’re a startup that works internationally, there are no special perks for using your card abroad.

Metro Bank

The highlights:

• Branches open with good hours, 8 am — 8 pm
• Free if you have over £5k in the account and have under 45 transactions, only £5/month otherwise!
• For a high-street bank, the account setup is somewhat better, known to take a few hours but requires physical paperwork

As far as high-street banks go, Metro Bank is one of the fresher faces on the scene. Known for excellent customer service and a somewhat novel approach to their branches. They have several locations across the country, mostly in the South — with great opening hours so you can speak to someone face to face, before or after work. It supports smaller businesses with turnover under £2 million and the fees are simple to understand.

Business Score suggestion: As far as traditional banks go, with high street branches and real people you can speak to, Metro Bank is at the top!

What to watch out for: If you’re just getting started, the fees might be inconvenient and you’re better off with a free business bank.

Barclays

The highlights:

• 4.8 stars (982k reviews) on the App Store
• Free for 12 months
• Customer support telephone lines open until 8 pm

Barclays offers two pricing plans, they’re designed around how your business makes and receives payments. It varies whether or not you use cash or cheques or mostly get paid or pay for things online. You’re charged per transaction which as a startup can be a little surprising. For example, if you’re on the ‘mixed-payments’ plan, which means you receive or send both cash, cheques and electronic payments, you’re charged £0.35 per transaction.

Business Score suggestion: Fantastic choice if you want a great mobile app experience from a legacy bank, shame about the fees!

What to watch out for: Free for the first 12 months, then you might feel the charges.

Natwest

The highlights:

• Free accounting software & receipt tool
• Dedicated ‘start-up’ package
• 18 months free business banking
• 4.4 stars (22k reviews) on the App Store

Natwest’s start-up business account is available for businesses that have been trading for less than a year and have a projected or existing annual turnover of under £1 million. The start-up business account also allows access to accounting tool FreeAgent and their own receipt management software. Pretty nice. Natwest also has a range of additional products, as expected — business loans, business credit cards and insurance.

Business Score suggestion: With some interesting additional perks, it feels as though Natwest understands what startups are looking for. Their app might be the stand-out offering they have, other than that the rest is similar.

What to watch out for: Charges after 18 months might be noticeable if you make a lot of transactions a month.

Tide

The highlights:

• Card usage at home and overseas is free
• No monthly or annual fees, pay as you use approach
• A complete digital offering, mobile and web access

Tide is a digital business bank offering, solely app-based. It’s targeted at small businesses, freelancers and sole traders. Business owners can do their accounting for free, and get a contactless MasterCard plus up to 35 cards. Iwoca is also fully integrated into Tide, so users can apply for business funding and get a decision without leaving Tide.

Business Score suggestion: You can count on great user experience with Tide as the offering is purely mobile and web-based, if you have high expectations on a seamless banking experience, Tide could be the one for you.

What to watch out for: Some forums mention that Tide’s ‘faster’ payments tend to be a little slow.

Mettle

The highlights:

• Apply in minutes
• Owned by Natwest so controlled by a legacy bank
• Create and send invoices directly from your mobile phone (with your logo!)

Mettle is pretty new. It’s an offering from established player Natwest but it’s in its infancy so there still seems to be some wrinkles to iron out and there’s a noticeable lack of features and offerings. However, if you’re looking for something simple and straightforward without any bells and whistles, it could be for you. On a more positive note, with Mettle, you can apply in minutes, lock and unlock your card, see how your balance changes over time and categorise payments for bookkeeping.

Business Score suggestion: Small business owner with not many requirements from their bank, such as additional services — this could work well for you.

What to watch out for: No current account switching service from Mettle and no overdraft facilities.

HSBC

The highlights:

• Make domestic and international payments of up to £100,000 per day
• Get telephone support from a dedicated helpdesk — 7 days a week from 8 am to 10 pm
• Set up multiple users

HSBC customers can make cash deposits, withdrawals or submit balance enquiries at any Post Office branch with their debit card. When the free business banking period finishes, a fixed price of £6.50 a month for the following 12 months will be levied. Customers can deposit up to £3,000 in cash per month during this time. If they exceed this limit, the fee for further cash transactions is 0.50% of the value deposited.

Business Score suggestion: Following the free business banking period the fees are pretty low with HSBC.

What to watch out for: 0.50% fee for cash deposits over £3,000 so might not be ideal for you, depending on your type of business.

Revolut

The highlights:

• Issue an unlimited number of physical and virtual multi-currency corporate cards that you can add to Apple Pay
• Easily manage employee expenses and set monthly spending limits per card
• Use bulk payments to make up to 1,000 payments to employees or partners with a single click
• Hold, send, and receive funds in up to 28 currencies

Revolut for Business is a business account platform for domestic and international payments, designed to save you time and money. You can transfer domestically and internationally, all without hidden fees.

Business Score suggestion: Great option for a startup that might be using multiple currencies to send and receive payments, Revolut specialises in minimizing the fees traditionally associated with this type of thing. The app is pretty great as well and easy to use, would strongly recommend if you hold multiple currencies.

What to watch out for: There’s quite a complex list of fees, such as transaction fees, ATM withdrawal fees, card issuing fees, local transfer and international transfer fees and foreign exchange fees. These change depending on what plan you’re on, a small startup to an enterprise. Sadly there are also no cash deposits.

Transferwise

The highlights:

• Xero integration
• Batch payments
• Monthly statements
• Pay invoices and people abroad
• Receive money with no fees

Transferwise offers a free business account to send, spend and receive multiple currencies with the real exchange rate. Transferwise is a great option if you want to do business without borders. The stand out features of Transferwise relates to the borderless nature of their bank account. You can pay invoices, buy inventory and handle payroll with the real exchange rate in over 40 currencies.

Business Score suggestion: Great challenger offering for those who do international payments, transfers or receive multiple currencies from their customers and suppliers.

What to watch out for: Many features such as having multiple cards are in Beta so you may be a bit strapped for some of the basics.

Santander

The highlights:

• Up to £300 cashback each year
• Unlimited Santander ATM cash deposits
• Interest on your credit balance
• Access online, at Santander branch counters, ATMs and Post Office branches

There is no monthly account fee for the first 18 months, this account is suitable for businesses in their first year of trading. The ability to bank online, over the telephone or in a branch will also appeal to some people. In addition, Santander has won multiple awards for its business current account from financial experts.

Business Score suggestion: Santander is a solid option for a high street bank, with online over the phone and in-branch banking available. They’re known for having an award-winning business current account and offer some unique services.

What to watch out for: After the first 18 months, the fees are £12.50 per month for the 123 current account.

Thanks for reading, let us know which bank account you’ve gone for. We produce content on services startups need and use, so check back for more.

Business Score Team

Best startup bank accounts in the UK — 2020 Edition was originally published in Business Score on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

How to design a digital product when you only have 48 hours

Myself and a few friends, Richard & Emmanuel took part in the #OpenBankingHack17 Hackathon, hosted by the London based BaaS start-up, Railsbank. In its own right, a really fascinating banking as a software company, currently creating its own ecosystem for FinTechs to access financial software and banking partners through their proprietary API. In short, you can set up a “bank” with only five lines of code. We were fortunate to have our team increase by three more talented members during the Hackathon, a front-end developer, Yin and two full-stack devs Alex and Mikhail.

There were around sixteen teams who competed, our team ‘Coverdraft’ walked away with three top prizes: Best Student Hacker (Yin), Best Female Hacker (Me) and Best Overall Pitch. Great Weekend!

I’ll be sharing five design hacks that can help non-designers with creating useful, highly explanatory and visually pleasing designs that enhance their standing at Hackathons or any equally similar, time-constrained events — a last minute demo pitch or even an upcoming investor meeting.

1. Logo Design — The quick & easy way

When it comes to designing a logo under time constrained conditions — it’s best to keep it simple. I would suggest avoiding clever negative space logo designs or designs that are play on words. I recommend focusing more on a simple combination of iconography and typography.

Here are some examples:

In each example, two elements are being used. The name of the company and a clean icon that demonstrates what the company’s service is. Eet Up represents a social dining application, Concierger is an on-demand hotel concierge application and Repairo is a next-day, pick-up and drop-off electronics repair service. I designed each of these logos in under five minutes, using an online logo tool, Squarespace Logo in this case.

The tool provides a wide range of icons to choose from and varying typefaces which as shown above can represent several different brand identities.

If you want a true hands-off design process, you can utilise new logo design services that use artificial intelligence to design for you. Here are some of the most prominent companies doing this for free:

• LogoJoy
• Tailor Brands

They work by asking you your proposed company name. The online tool will then proceed to ask you whether or not you like several logo designs. They use your responses to what you like and dislike to build what they believe is a logo you will want.

2. Landing Pages — Keep it clear and concise

Designing and launching a landing page can be incredibly effective if you want to have an action to culminate your pitch. For example you can direct the audience to sign up at your landing page, join a waiting list or of course, request access to the product you have built.

I find there are two stages worth mentioning when thinking about designing a landing page quickly, they are, inspiration and execution. Focussing on the first step, there are several resources that can help with a simple landing page design.

Great landing pages for inspiration live at the following places:

• SiteSee
• Landing Folio
• Lapa Ninja

When it comes to building and launching a landing page. It’s useful to use a service that either provides free hosting by attaching to their subdomain or a service such as wordpress and purchasing your own domain. These services offer drag and drop website design and a suite of several themes which you can simply ammend to suit your needs. My favourite options to do this are:

• Squarespace
• Strikingly

3. Wireframing — Halfway there

Now we get into the bulk of design work. There are few shortcuts when it comes to wireframing, because the elements of your application or product will be very similar to a product already on the market. It’s useful to design wireframes to examine the way in which your product could work and decide on the best user experience. Wireframes, create intentionality and show consideration of the user, you can include wireframes in your presentation if you want to show the judges your product design process.

Services which enable you to create wireframes are:

• Moqups
• Balsamiq

Here is an example of designing a mobile or web mockup on these services. It is stripped back and does not include the finer details you may require later on into the design process.

4. Designing Mobile and Web Applications

After you have built a wireframe you can try your hand at designing the final product. However, this is not essential as it can be quite complicated — especially if you are new to design software.

The most commonly used design software tools are, Figma, Sketch and Adobe XD for web and mobile designs. They have built in templates that can help you start your design. I would recommend using these tools if you have some experience of Photoshop or similar.

Alternatively there are currently easier tools to use, I recommend:

• Proto.io

Proto is a fantastic web based design tool. It enables you to design from scratch but it has several design assets already stored on the programme. For example, if you were to design an iOS application on an iPhone 8 screen resolution. Proto has a library of commonly used iOS symbols, buttons and content.

Simply drag these onto your ArtBoard and position to suit your product.

5. Presentation — Put your designs on display

Presentation time! So, you’ve used your time wisely and created the skeleton of a complete product in under 48 hours. You should be proud and relieved.

Now it’s time to present your designs and make sure they’re at the forefront of your presentation. This goes back to branding and giving your product a conscience identity and style, this will reinforce intentionality and make your designs more thoughtful for the audience and thus, more logical.

If you are not a natural designer, you should try free templates that enable you to simply change the text but keep the style and design of the presentation.

I recommend:

• Canva

On Canva you can search 50,000 templates. They are further categorised by the type of company. For example a Photography company presentation could use more background photography and be more minimalistic, whereas an accounting firm’s presentation may be more text-heavy. Below is an example of a bold but sleek presentation template found on Canva.

I hope this helped. Good Luck!

A little about me, I am a Startup Founder & Product Designer who has shipped several products over the past few years. In these cases the design process took an average of 4–6 weeks, with a well-established user-led process. I don’t recommend using these Hacks when you have a normal lead time, I simply believe they work particularly well at Hackathons. I wanted to share my experience and show how you can create complete product and service design mock-ups during a Hackathon — you should, it pays off.

5 Design Hacks for Hackathons was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I was asked to help a friend of mine with designing a FinTech Mobile Application for a micro-loans company. I’m trying to build up my design skills by taking on small, free projects in my spare time. The business is not mine. Therefore, I won’t say much about the company, I will focus solely on the design and why it could work well for its intended use.

The market in which the micro loans company will operate in, is very much mobile-first, with a lack of high-street in person banking opportunities — many FinTech applications opt for strictly mobile applications and use various forms of payment such as: mobile money, airtime top-ups and bank deposits as a means of payment to and for many services.

Knowing that it was important to design an application that was not ‘function-heavy’ and made the process of applying for credit, as well as repaying credit as simple as sending a text message, as many consumers in the market would be used to a similar experience from similar providers. As well as that, as the company could focus solely on micro-loans, amounts from £100-£1000, funds of this amount can be allocated on the same-day or within a short period of time, as well as this the repayment length is comparatively short as well ranging from 30–90 days. Therefore, the application would have to reinforce the notion of simplicity by utilising minimalist design and guiding the user’s experience in viewing the application as manageable.

As we all know, lending money even small amounts over short periods of time, with simple application processes can be incredibly harmful if people fall into troubling circumstances when it can no longer be repaid. This application intends to have a rigorous risk assessment portion integrated into the service, before user’s can access any funding. I imagine this will exist directly after the Introduction screen.

Here is the breakdown of the concept design:

1.Home Screen & Signing In

2. Introduction Screens

3. Dashboard & Loan Application

If you’re interested in design, let me know what you think! It’s only a few interactions but any feedback would be great.

I also used Principle to animate the design. See below.

Tools: Sketch/Photoshop CC

TL;DR — A simple web application design concept for a modern day relocation company.

Relocating internationally is one of the most stressful experiences anyone can undergo in a lifetime. That pain is made worse when you have to relocate for a new position in a new company — whilst simultaneously trying to prepare for the new position and perhaps in some cases move your entire family as well.

We believe the process of relocating could be improved.

Hulah is exploring the current state of relocation, for three key case types; for employers who pay their new hires a lump sum to manage a move, employers who hire traditionally expensive relocation firms with little automation and low online presence and lastly individuals trying to relocate themselves using a DIY toolkit.

We believe there must be a more efficient, digital process that aids the early-start productivity of an employee at their new position — in a new country. As well as that, managing relocations more effectively can save employers money, usually wasted on supplier inefficiencies and poor management by HR professionals and administrative staff who should be working on more important tasks related to their expertise.

Alongside exploring the business case for our new proposition, we have created a simple draft UI concept. Here is a walkthrough of a few key screens.

1. Account Creation

After visiting the Homepage and being presented with a snapshot of information about Hulah and the relocation services, users can choose to Sign In or Create an Account. This page is purposefully simple in design to appeal to users who are perhaps used to a more traditional appearing application.

2. Application Tutorial & Introduction

After creating an account, users will be presented with an information content box, which highlights the key features of the application they are about to explore. This section could also be used to invite users to begin a tutorial, if they feel they need extra assistance in understanding the application.

3. The Dashboard

This was the most complicated section to design and on reflection it feels quite busy. Nonetheless, the dashboard will be a place where the user (employee) and employer can get an overlook of the relocation progress, importantly - the cost of the relocation. It will also be an area where the user can get a quick snapshot of their pending tasks as well as any updates from the suppliers they have used.

4. Supplier Management

Supplier Management is an area where the user can select from either an open-ended list of relevant suppliers or from their employer’s preferred suppliers. We are exploring whether or not an API is possible to build for the amount of suppliers we will require or if it should simply act as a directory with useful updated information on different suppliers. In this case, the user will just be redirected to the suppliers own website, with an affiliate link attached.

This is just a first draft of what we imagine the relocation project could look like in the long run. I don’t imagine it will look like this exactly but the foundation will be very similar.

Would appreciate your feedback!

Tools: Sketch, Photoshop CC & Illustrator.

1. Critique. Critique. Critique.

2. There’s more to digital agencies than website design, mobile apps and great content on social media. So much more. Think a ‘holistic, aesthetic experience’ like at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which… ‘effortlessly blends into the architecture.’ Sounds pretty good right?

3. Know your consumer. Really know them and sometimes it helps to create consumer personas to truly tell your client who they are aiming for. I dreamt up Rose, the anti-establishment, ex-bartender who drinks Blind Pig cider during my week here.

4. Some clients have no idea what they are doing; it’s our job to help them, without hurting their ego.

5. Digital is KING. Every agency has a digital arm now, or wants one, so get to know Digital.

6. Blue-sky thinking is great but can you actually make that happen, creativity and rationality should go hand-in hand. POSSIBLE bridges this gap by focusing heavily on empiricism.

7. Digital agencies can be fast-paced and you can get given a really last minute job to deal with. The hard work should be worth it in the end. Happy client, happy you.

8. Strategy is a lot like change, change can be uncomfortable, and it’s our job to help clients embrace that change. So make it easy to understand and sell it well.

9. You don’t have to love every client straight away & start buying their product to feel like you can do a great job for them. Maybe some dislike for them can make them that much better. Maybe.

10. Digital strategy is challenging and seems as though it can be frustrating — but at the end of the day you get to use your creativity to make cool things happen, so why not.

I was asked to write a short summary about my time at POSSIBLE, it ended up like this.

POSSIBLE is a global digital creative agency. POSSIBLE specializes in results-driven work, focusing greatly on data-driven insights. I was based at POSSIBLE during my third week on the WPP Micro Fellowship ‘15.

‘What is the customer’s journey when they enter our stores?’ ‘What’s the story that we’re trying to tell or …sell?’ and ‘How can we leverage big-data and consumer insights to better understand our customer’s behaviour?’

Do any of these phrases sound at all familiar? I’ve probably said the second one myself, when trying to brand my own organisation. Although, I definitely said ‘tell’ and not ‘sell’. Ha. So if like me you have also uttered these words, you may work in communications and advertising, or you’ve come across these jargon filled sentences before, when some representative of some company has tried to justify their somewhat intrusive behaviour into our everyday lives. Now to give some credit to the industry, advertising and marketing has come a long way from the days of simply - selling us stuff. Some advertisements and marketing communications are informative, culturally divisive and sometimes — challenging of the status quo.

Advertisements provide us with excitement, sometimes sadness and a lot of the time make us question ourselves, but for some reason we just can not stand them before our video starts, alongside our google searches or embedded into our news-feeds. No matter how good they are. Sorry, every Superbowl commercial. Ever.

Now, with the rise of consumers taking control of their buying habits and not just expecting but demanding more from their brands, the trend of downloading ‘ad-blocking’ software and enjoying a white space, clutter-free web-page is not about to die down. Its highly consumer driven, its rapidly growing and advertisers and marketers would be wise and more profitable to respect it.

…How?

Since its inception advertisers have felt differently, notably more positively about their relationship with consumers. However, it’s obvious that the relationship between consumers and advertisers hasn’t always been a partnership. Instead it’s felt more like an over zealous Aunty showing up with a gift, which she knows you’ll like (because she asked your mum) of which you happily accept but you really dont feel like sitting and having a chat. Basically, it can feel a little forced. But you.. kind of oblige.

Now, the future of advertising in my humble opinion rests on the creation of partnerships as opposed to the previous method, buying and selling of ad spaces on various different online platforms. One such organisation that comes to mind in tackling the issue of archaic, 21st Century online advertising, is VICE Media.

These guys.

If you dont know about VICE, here’s the short. Heralded as the ‘new teen Bible’ by The Independent, the magazine started off as a free punk publication and was launched in 1994, known as the Voice of Montreal. Since then, VICE has been known for it bolshy attitude towards journalism, it’s published articles titled, ‘Skinheads against White People’ and ‘Tattooing Pigs.’ It’s managed to marry authenticity and accessibility to young writers and audiences to establish its success, whilst also being a stand-out player in Global News — reporting controversial stories daily that shock, scare and delight its audiences all at once. It is now worth more than $2.5 billion and was recently invested in by WPP plc. and Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox Corporation.

In 2009 VICE realised that it could be more profitable by taking control of its largest revenue stream, advertising. It launched VIRTUE.

Myki Slonim who headed up VIRTUE when it first began, said “Virtue is a formalisation of what we’ve been doing before. Clients started coming to us with more open briefs wanting to tap into our knowledge of the market and what we can do. It’s a recognition that we do a lot of project work outside of the VICE channels.”

One of the most lucrative partnerships to come out of this new advertising model was with tech giant, Intel. Intel requested the help of VICE to tap into young consumers and to be more relevant. The result was a platform called, ‘The Creators Project’ which utilised Intel’s technology and provided a space for musicians, artists and designers to innovate. It’s YouTube channel generated more than 250 million video views and more than 50 million unique visitors on its website. The project won critical acclaim from hundreds of international news outlets and even a Cannes Lion. Here’s one of my favourite videos to come out of the project. You can pretty much just stare at it.

Now, this isn’t a new idea.

Partnering up to create unique platforms, content and sometimes even products has and will continue to drive sales for brands. So what makes this different? VIRTUE essentially uses the consumers, writers and creators of VICE’s already established workforce and network to interpret and understand the world around them. With this unique insight, VICE leverages this consumer base to create and work on projects alongside brands. At it’s core is collaboration, not just with two companies and two bottom-lines but with the desired users and consumers as well, these guys are at the driving seat of every project and every partnership VICE has.

As well as this, the returns experienced by the brands who partner up with organisations like VICE tend to be more lucrative and establish greater connections and a more long-standing group of followers than traditional advertising campaigns. Hey, finance department, there’s hope.

So how should advertisers respond to the rise of ad-blocking software. Firstly accept it. It can and will not change unless advertising dramatically revolutionises itself to genuinely be driven by consumers themselves. When I say this, I mean really driven by consumers. Not PR exercises. Secondly invest in more meaningful partnerships and collaborate with organisations that share more than just a set of abstract values and principles. I’m pretty sure VICE and John Lewis both want to make the world a better place but probably wouldn’t make the most ideal partnership. Actually, you never know.

In the beginning of this article, I listed three questions which we normally hear from the marketing industry. This industry IS desperately trying to understand its consumers, to get into their heads and understand why they behave the way they do. Now to me, the logical next step is obvious. It’s getting the hard-to-be understood consumers to co-create alongside brands, to be components of the narratives that advertisers create not just reflections. To me, this is the mark of true collaboration.

Consumers are crying out to be part of brand’s stories and VICE versa. So on that note, I’d like to end by saying, VICE is exciting. It’s refreshing and really listens to its audience. The advertising and marketing industry is also exciting. Their response to ‘ad-blocking’ software may make or break their relationships with their consumers and the ones on the side of consumer choice before anything else, should and will come out on top.

Over to you, advertisers.

A pink prison.

That little four letter word in the centre of that phrase, seems to automatically dilute the harsh ideas you associate with a prison. Say it a few times and you’ll actually want to visit one. Maybe. In 2014 I worked for a charity that rehabilitated prisoners, so my first interaction with one came only a year ago and it certainly was not pink. HMP Brixton along Jebb Avenue in South London, was humble in size, eerily quiet and chillingly brutal in architecture. Feeling very much like the home of criminals. No, sorry — ‘future ex-offenders’ as my colleague often corrected me on. Unfortunately, HMP Brixton was yet to get the behavioural economics memo on being more…pink. It still employed uniform wearing, key-jingling men and women and taught anger-management classes as a means to calm its prisoners down.

..So why pink?

Drunk Tank Pink or #f394ac is being used across the world to paint prison cells, in hope for a calmer, more… relaxed set of inmates. People with GBH convictions and murderous pasts are in fact being placed in these cells with the aim that they'll be less likely to engage in violent actions throughout their sentences. To mine and your surprise. It’s actually working.

Now the science behind Drunk Tank Pink is that the colour is associated with femininity. Of course, right. The culturally subjective anthesis of testosterone fuelled males, physical strength and aggression. Now when I heard this from ‘Adam Alter’s Big Think’ talk series I was not surprised, what I was more interested in was how behavioural economists failed to speak about the cultural and societal stereotypes that shape our irrational behaviours.

Rory Sutherland from Ogilvy Change said ‘behavioural economics deals with how people actually make decisions in the real world.’ Speaking comparatively against the conventional economic theory that human beings are entirely rational and thus, the self-correcting, free markets must exist. Furthermore, he goes on to say that behavioural economics is in line with our psychology, so if you design choice badly for example you may end up making your advertising redundant. So knowing this, my next question is, who has informed our psychology and how will that impact advertising?

A little bit of history. You may not know this, but the colour pink only became an identifier for the female gender in the late 1940s. Yes, not that long ago. Following World War II advertisers wanted to re-imagine the fashion and beauty industry and used bright clothing and make-up to bring it to life. Pink became the colour du jour. Advertisers used provocative imagery that emphasised various shades of pinks, reds and oranges to suggest flirtation, attractiveness and femininity. Or more profoundly, that appearances matter.

Across the world, little girls bedrooms are now being painted pink, their dolls and toys are lathered with pinks ranging from bright, pastel, Peppa and champagne. So in the battle of chicken and egg, marketing and advertising won this one. Sorry B.E.

So why does behavioural economics matter to marketing?

In a number of cases where we see behavioural economics at the forefront of good decision-making for advertisers and marketers, what we’re actually seeing is the culmination of advertising and marketing’s past, simply being played out in today’s reality.

Of course, human beings are not entirely rational. We’re an imperfect creation, with an imperfect amount of information. What we see around us and the images that society projects cultivate what we know to be normal and what we essentially live by.

So on thinking about why behavioural economics is so important to marketers, I’m going to take a few examples to demonstrate how advertising and marketing effectively use BE and will end on how they can survive without knowing how many items to stock on one shelf or how many people to put in a poster.

Here’s why.

Proactively, understanding the behavioural economics associated with your target consumer can dramatically increase the sales of that product, for example; a recent study pitted Hershey’s Kisses and a Lindt Truffle against one another, offering the Kisses for $0.01 and the Truffle for $0.15. The results found that people recognised that the Truffle by Lindt was an exceptionally good deal and overwhelmingly chose that option. On another study they made the Kisses free and the Lindt Truffle $0.14. You can imagine what happened. Kisses all round. Promotional marketing seems to have a harmonious relationship with behavioural economics, in more than just this example. Marketers can be smarter, in-tune with the future and better at targeting the right people.

But I wonder what would have happened if you pitted that same Lindt Truffle against a completely un-branded one for $0.01 or for free. Now I haven’t conducted any exciting chocolate studies but I know myself that Lindt Lindor Truffles are delicious, incredibly smooth and just about melt-in-the-mouth enough to take my $0.15 cents, or..10p.

Can’t remember the last time I had one but I’m pretty sure it’s true. Why? Well I think that European looking man in the white chefs hat, pouring chocolate off a whisk, must have told me. It’s a brand I like. A brand I trust.

So in relation to my earlier point, it’s fascinating how consumers behave, on a large and a small scale. Behavioural economics has a huge role to play. However, to me this role is a large component of a marketing and advertising journey, but not the driver. What stands the test of time and what actually creates these irrational beliefs, are stories, feelings and a sense of belonging.

Great marketers are known to be great story makers, not just the tellers of these stories but the authors themselves and without this unrelenting creativity and freedom to influence, society would look very grey. Not a pink prison in sight.

So to end, I’m aware I haven’t exactly addressed why behavioural economics matters to marketers (Sorry!) but I wanted to look at their relationship and answer the question; ‘will behavioural economics save advertising and marketing.’ Of course understanding the fluid and irrational decisions made by people will increase the reach or sales of your product. However, it’s important to remember that although understanding consumers is entirely necessary, the element of freedom in creation is what makes advertising and marketing, the most dominating force of influence in society today and it might be worth remembering, if like me you easily get bogged down in how large or small the text should be in your customer communications.