Full interview with Stephen Fry at the iPad launch on Regent Street

Here's The Lounge Group's interview with Stephen Fry about the new iPad!




We met him bright and early this morning at the iPad launch at the Apple store on Regents Street in London. He talked to us about the iPad, why he loves Apple and the future of online media consumption.

The interview's also on guardian.co.uk.

Sell out performance? Bands and brands

The Lounge's Managing Director, James Layfield, appears in Marketing Magazine today talking about partnerships between bands and brands.

Check out the article at marketingmagazine.co.uk

The last word: Dr Martens’ sole music

Our recent article in the FT last Friday.

The YouTube Generation Hits Jackpot

All you young-and-fabulous are in agreement that YouTube is fantastic, right? Owned by Google, it has 20 million users in Britain, making the BBC’s 6.5 million viewers seem small-fry in comparison.

For a handful of young entrepreneurs-turned-tycoons, YouTube just got a lot better. The latest craze to sweep America is headed for our shores. The ‘haul video’, also known as ‘vlogging’ (video-blogging) involves young girls showing off the results of their shopping sprees and uploading the videos to the site. The craze soon took off; as it stands there are 110,000 haul videos on the Tube, some with tens of millions of hits. How are they cashing-in from the phenomenon? Because brands are falling over one another to offer the girls with the most followers sponsorship offers, product deals and magazine spreads.

The vlogging-frenzy was started by sisters Blair and Elle Fowler, from Tennessee. They have achieved celeb-status in the video-haul world, and their videos have been viewed over 75 million times. It must help that Blair is particularly stunning; your stereotypical all-American teen. On her blog Blair describes herself as “just a girl who loves anything makeup, fashion, beauty, pink, or juicy!” It is easy to judge the sisters for their bimbo-esque qualities and their obscenely materialistic attitudes, but they are certainly no fools. At age 16 and 21 they have earned enough through their haul videos to feed a small country. Their popularity is increased by their claim that they genuinely purchase the haul items themselves, without being compensated by brands for promoting their products.



Some of these vloggers, such as Blair, are ‘successful’ enough in their hits that they are approached to join the YouTube Partner Program: Shihir Mehrotra, director of Product Management at YouTube, trawls the site in search of those who have cultivated a particularly high number of followers. Once they become partner they are paid to make their haul videos and receive a percentage of the revenue brought in by the advertisements. Mehrota reveals that “several…are making six figures” annually from the Partner Program. He also states that “some haul videos…compare to major cable channels in views”, which reveals the scale of this new craze.

Not everyone is impressed by the latest YouTube phenomenon. Those old enough to be breathing when Elvis was still alive complain that they cannot keep up with the changing face of social media. In the words of my own father (age 53), “I find Facebook cringe, and what do you call it? TwitTube? It’s even worse”. However, it is those who are whole-heartedly jumping on the social media bandwagon that are cashing in.

Hold on tight, older generations, you’re in for one hell of a ride…

by Christy Thatcher

The Lounge Group are looking for a new Account Executive!!

We are looking for a high calibre candidate to work at The Lounge as our Account/ Operations Executive. 

This role is crucial to the future growth and success of The Lounge and, as such, we are looking for an intelligent, confident, enthusiastic and tenacious individual with a passion for brands, excellent communication skills, at least 1 year’s work experience and a good working knowledge of experiential marketing and consumer insight research.

The role consists of:

• Management and recruitment of staff for experiential, sampling and promotional work
• Venue sourcing and permissions
• Organising and recruiting for consumer insight projects alongside planners
• Managing consumers for insight projects alongside planners and account teams
• Assisting Account Manager with client reporting and status reports
• Finance including staff payroll and expenses for campaigns
• Helping run the Lounge’s social media platforms– adding to the blog, twitter and Facebook profiles and helping to build these as staffing tools
• Management and proactive development of the network, our Facebook and recruitment tools

You will be working with a lively, friendly team on all things experiential and field marketing.

You need to:

• At least 1 year’s relevant experience
• have excellent organisational skills
• a can do attitude and drive to make things happen
• be familiar with social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook
• be resourceful
• have a positive attitude at all times

Based in our Head Office in London Bridge

Immediate Start Required

Please contact Kate Hardy by email (kate.hardy@theloungegroup.com) with your CV and a summary within the email telling us why you are the perfect candidate for this role.

We look forward to hearing from you!