Can travel platform Trippin capture the consumer zeitgeist with its own agency?
It might come as a surprise amid cancelled flights, railway staff strikes and the cost of driving spiraling out of control, but international travel is in fact back. And as advertisers around the sector begin spending again, one new agency hopes to benefit.
A still from All Corner’s recent campaign for Ace & Tate in Germany / All Corners/Trippin
All Corners is a creative consultancy launched by Trippin, a youth-focused travel media platform that was founded five years ago and which has an enviable client roster that includes Converse, Ace & Tate, Filling Pieces, Nike Swim, W Hotels and Dr Martens.
The agency offering grew out of Trippin’s burgeoning content practice, which last year included work for Nike, Versace and Tommy Jeans. Founder Sam Blenkinsopp wants to parlay its community of contributors, freelancers and users into a powerful consultancy service.
He says: ”Trippin is a travel media platform powered by a global community. We’re on a mission to help people travel more consciously, to open people’s minds and help them see the world in a different way and have a better relationship with people and planet. We do that through a plethora of things: content and storytelling events, exhibitions, parties, activations, panel talks, research reports. Inevitably we’ve partnered with some amazing brands along the way – brands that share our vision of the world and that are aligned with our values.”
New managing director Ian Richardson has previously worked at Virtue, LadBible and Joyride. He explains that Trippin’s connection to its reader community adds a major USP to All Corners as it develops. ”It’s really important that we continue to have business units that fuel a united community and continue to provide value. Whether or not All Corners becomes a pure play white label agency, it should still be plugged into our community, otherwise we’re not really fueling the bigger mission.”
Travel, notes Richardson, sits conveniently at the intersection of several consumer lifestyle sectors, such as fashion and sportswear. Brands such as Nike, he says, want to reach Trippin’s audience of global-minded travelers as well as tap into its staff’s expertise.
”Travel is a lens on culture of all kinds, from food to music to you name it. We’re set up specifically as a team to do two things; to continue to facilitate these branded partnerships that we have, that can manifest as events and content... and insights that lead us to opportunities for more strategic work, more pure-play creativity and content creation [away] from the Trippin platform.”
According to Richardson, the consultancy plans to rely heavily on freelance talent. Similarly lean models have been used by established concerns such as Liberty Guild and pandemic-born businesses such as Small World.
It’s also building up a core team of six staff, signing up creative strategist Thea Gausen, director and producer Martina Piazza and OMG’s India Hill to handle client services.
”We’re going through this process of formalizing that community a bit,” says Richardson. ”But we are a core team that really works with this decentralized network that we have across the planet, which is only possible because Trippin has built such an amazing community over the past five years.”
Post-pandemic moment
Richardson contrasts his previous experience ”Millennial whispering” for Vice and LadBible Group as belonging to the previous zeitgeist. Sustainable travel, he suggests, is the next big moment: ”This is something different, something really values-driven.”
Client interest has been strong and, according to Blenkinsopp, All Corners is already fielding enquiries from brands outside its home territory of fashion.
”It’s a really unique vantage point into all aspects of culture. All Corners is broader than just travel – that’s the bedrock of Trippin, but All Corners goes way beyond it. Whether you’re in the travel industry or tech, music, fashion, foods, sports – the dream clients are the ones that share [our] values and perspective. And they’re looking for external help.”
Richardson adds: ”We’re not knocking on doors – it’s all inbound. We can’t say ’yes’ to everything from a bandwidth point of view, but it’s nice to have brands of prestige coming to us.
”Touch wood, but there’s a whole world of opportunity outside.”