The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

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By Cameron Clarke, Editor

October 26, 2015 | 3 min read

It has become one of the most overused terms in the marketing lexicon in recent times, but when Jim Cregan talks about storytelling it sounds like more than just bullshit bingo.

That's because Cregan was a part-time mermaid entertainer who left Dorset for Australia, discovered a taste for iced coffee and brought it back to the UK as a humble bedsit business. Jimmy's Iced Coffee has since blossomed into a booming brand stocked by Sainsbury's and reportedly "circled by buyers" as its turnover approaches £2m.

So at the DigitasLBi UK NewFront, The Drum caught up with Cregan and asked him what it takes to build a brand from scratch and tell a compelling story via social channels.

"Our brand was born into social media," Cregan said. "As we had no budget starting out as a tiny brand we immediately jumped on social media to tell everyone ‘Hey, I was a part-time mermaid, I’ve been to Australia, come home and now I make this iced coffee that I’m really proud of. Do you want to come on this journey with us?’

"It’s imperative to have a tone of voice and a brand nailed if you’re going to be talking on social media. If you go to a party and there’s an open mic night or a karaoke session, as soon as you give the mic to someone they just want to sing their heart out – they might be really really rubbish at it. Social media has basically given everyone, whether it’s a brand or a person, a microphone, and if they haven’t got it right they can fill the internet with drivel."

For Cregan, avoiding adding to the drivel has meant keeping strict control over what goes out on social media, and sometimes stepping outside the digital bubble altogether.

"I think we’ve been really careful and considerate about what we post.

"Luckily we’ve got a story. It’s a very simple, straightforward story that we’re telling people. There’s no waffle, no kerfuffle. We’re not using an agency to speak on our behalf. Everything we do is us and I think that’s what people like the most. We’ve got to make sure we’re pretty careful how we move forward and retain that because as you get bigger, things get harder.

“We don’t really want to get too wrapped up in the digital thing because there’s too much noise. We don’t work on Snapchat or Vine because I think it’s too much – we just keep it quite still. We’ll only pounce on something if we think it’s going to be relevant to us."

You can hear more from Cregan in our video above. The Drum will be posting more video interviews from the NewFront event throughout this week.

Jimmy's Iced Coffee Jim Cregan Storytelling

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