Resident Be More ‘next big thing’ hunter, Alex Perry, talked to Dan about the benefits of having a YouTube channel, his future at BBC Radio 1 and his favourite fairground ride…

In this exact moment, what’s the first word that comes into your head?

Spatula. I’m not sure why. I suppose it’s quite a beautiful word in many ways.

What was it that made you launch your own YouTube channel in the first place?

I decided to start making YouTube videos having watched other YouTubers for nearly three years and feeling like I wanted to do something creative and join in this community!

What do you think are the components that make YouTubers and their videos so popular? Is there anything that YouTubers have in common?

I think it’s the relate-ability. People feel like they have a personal connection with another person who is just talking to them, which makes it so much more sincere than TV! And whilst we are all in the same situation, there is an incredible variety of different content that is made by all kinds of people on YouTube. It’s very diverse.

Which of your videos did you most enjoy creating and why?

All my collaborative videos were great fun to film! But I have to say technically ‘Innuendo Bingo’ was the most fun to “make” and ‘Sexy Internet Dating‘ because I was crying laughing for about two hours while filming it. ‘What not to do at the Cinema’ is what I always say is an example of perfectly executing an idea I had though! That’s a good’n.

Do you think that Danisnotonfire has a shelf life? How long do you see yourself doing it for?

The thing with YouTube is that it’s completely under the creator’s control. If I wanted to stop the kind of videos I’m making now and start reviewing breeds of cats, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea, but I could if I wanted to! It’s very free so people can decide what they want to do and why. I am still full of ideas so I personally feel that danisnotonfire isn’t even halfway done, but my friends and I are placing bets on when I’ll have a YouTube meltdown. I give it one to two years.

How successful has the launch of your own product range been? Will you be creating any other products off the back of Danisnotonfire?

Every YouTuber sells some kind of merchandise. In fact for many months I didn’t, until my own followers were hounding me to make t-shirts, as they genuinely want to either have a piece of this person for themselves or support them! I’ve also recently started selling ‘Llama hats’ that were inspired by a running joke. For me it’s more about making cool things that people will enjoy for their uniqueness.

The world is about to end and you get to eat one more meal – what would it be?
Vegetarian Indian food. I am the world’s biggest carnivore but you have not lived until you have experienced the explosion in your mouth… of flavour.

What sort of business opportunities have arisen from the success of Danisnotonfire?

Firstly my work on YouTube caught the attention of producers at BBC Radio 1, which led to me creating a two hour show for them on Christmas day which eventually led to last week, when I was offered the job as the new DJ of the request show! I have worked with a few brands over the years, to which every YouTuber has their own rules as to what they will / won’t do, but I have worked with people like Microsoft who flew me to L.A to vlog from E3, and Sanyo, who sent me to Jamaica to test a camera. In addition to this I also sell merchandise and occasionally assist internet start-ups to gain users.

A BBC Radio 1 presenter? Wow. What do you think will be the best thing about that?

Mainly trying something new! I have done presenter-type work before but never regularly for something I have a lot of creative input on. So I think it’ll be fantastic. That and the fact I will be broadcasting myself to an almost completely difference audience to my YouTube channel, which is exciting.

What do you enjoy most about running Danisnotonfire?

What I enjoy the most is either just creating something that I think is good and the satisfying process of an idea turning into a finished video, or when people tell me that something I’ve said (or my videos in general) have inspired them to think differently, or have helped them through a tough time. All I try to do is ‘make good YouTube videos’ so when people send me emails to say thank you, it really motivates me to keep going.

What’s your favourite fairground ride and why?

I’m going to be lame and say the Ferris Wheel. Most of them involve a lot of fast-rotating and that just makes me sick (I’d rather go on Colossus than a tea cup ride), so sometimes it’s nice to just relax for a bit and enjoy the view!

The debate around the fall of the print media industry has been raging for some time now. TV and radio threw the first punches and the Internet went for the knockout blow. Closings and layoffs are now a regular occurrence and it is generally accepted that the news business has struggled to capitalise on the rise of digital. There are some notable exceptions to this rule – the Daily Mail’s website is one of the biggest in the world, with 5.3m visitors a day as of January (it’s impossible not to read a story about a seven-year-old boy trapped in a silent world…until his cat Jessi taught him to speak…)

Factors such as falling revenue from print ads and the emergence of online-only news platforms are also fuelling the fire. The ways in which we all consume media is simply evolving and let’s face it, it is easier to peruse the BBC online than attempt to read a goliath newspaper on a crowded Tube train.

ABC, the industry body for media measurement, publishes monthly figures about newspaper circulation. In July, the trend shows that all but one of the UK’s major national newspapers are in decline year-on-year. Even with this year’s Jubilee celebrations and Olympic Games, newspaper owners have struggled to claw back their sales.

However, there are people who say that the sort of in-depth analysis and opinion that you can read in a newspaper or magazine is worth the money. And the industry is finding other ways to fight back. Johnston Press has re-launched 23 print titles in the first half of this year, changing some from dailies to weeklies, in a bid to refresh its portfolio. And Independent Print launched ‘i’ two years ago, at just 20p. Figures show that ‘i’ is growing year-on-year by over 52%.

But the push into Twitter profiles, RSS feeds, live video-streaming and similar digital territories does appear to be unrelenting. Can those left in the print media evolve with it? Yes if Boat Magazine is anything to go by, a bi-annual print publication born out of a creative studio based at London’s King’s Cross.

Boat Magazine is, in essence, a completely new arrival to the print media scene; and an exciting one at that. The team of writers are nomadic and they temporarily base themselves in cities around the world that have stories to tell. Cities like Sarajevo and Detroit.

Creative Director Davey Spens describes how it works: “We pick our studio up and relocate to the city we’re writing about, inviting contributors to join us to collaborate and work with those locals that we meet. We find stories by spending long enough in a city and digging around, meeting people, following trails, chatting. We spend at least three weeks in each location, with no fixed plans or agenda. We keep our ears to the ground before we go out so we have some sort of idea of what stories we might find, but most of it happens when we get there”.

Spens goes on to talk about how he wanted to be different from the sort of hit-and-run style journalism that he thinks is quite prevalent these days, with print media sometimes misrepresenting cities and not giving them the journalistic attention that they deserve. He believes that Boat Magazine offers the sort of in-depth analysis and story-telling that people still value in print.

And this completely new style of print journalism looks to be working: “Boat Magazine grows from issue to issue; we’re still blown away by how it has been received. We never really anticipated people would buy it in such numbers; it’s just something we felt passionately about and really wanted to do”.

Spens and his team have just picked their studio up and moved it to Athens. Who knows what they’ll find…

“£400,000 spent on a slapdash mess in acid colours, it looks like its designers have accidentally dropped it on the floor, then decided to use the shattered pieces anyway”, was the response of just one of the critics to the launch of the London 2012 logo five years ago. Within two days of the launch nearly 50,000 people had signed the petition to change the logo, causing a virtual riot. Just like many, my first reaction was shock. I was following the negative stories, and personally questioned the design from different angles. I was not sure if the logo was intended to be a revolution in the history of commercial logos, or if it was deliberately designed to provoke publicity and debate on a global scale.

It was created by one of the world’s leading branding agencies, Wolff Olins, who have created brand identities for, amongst others, Orange, AOL, Tate Modern, V&A and Red. According to the agency, the logo “is unconventionally bold, deliberately spirited and unexpectedly dissonant, echoing London’s qualities of a modern, edgy city”, but that didn’t stem a torrent of criticism from the general public, the media and the design community.

But whilst I have to agree that the London 2012 logo does not fit into the standard pattern of previous Olympic logos, that makes it neither less valuable, nor less exciting. The logo is timeless, versatile, reproducible, flexible and screams in a very bold and colourful manner. It has an instant wow factor and is immediately recognisable. At a time when media and designers always complain about the status quo, I can understand how Wolff Olins went for this radical design approach, and how it can be a basis for a complete graphic system, transforming the Olympic event into a coherent visual experience http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2012/july/london-2012-the-look-of-the-games.

The London 2012 brand speaks volumes, and is very British. I can see the connection to great British artists, like Peter Saville or Neville Brody, who embody the punk and new-wave movements in their designs; the 2012 logo is a possible adaptation not only of their work, but also the rave culture, the art savvy ones, the festivals and everything else the United Kingdom is liked for.

Unlike its critics, I am intrigued by how unexpected the logo is. It has raised, to a new level, the use of abstraction, boldness and simplicity, and I have become more and more sure it should be a source of pride for London and the Games. The logo takes time to sink in, but it certainly grows onto you, and the way the brand has come alive is mesmerising and appealing. Maybe the way it was sold to the public and media was unsuccessful, but personally speaking, I think the critics were wrong and hope that it will be remembered as much for providing a compelling and cohesive visual identity as for the initial controversy.

Sam Sivarajah is a designer in Be More, speaks four languages and will be cheering for Jessica Ennis and Leryn Franco.

Zoosk is a rather unique platform, allowing their millions of members to create and share different stages of their romantic journeys – aided by a variety of tools such as Romantic Moments, Couple Profiles, and a Personals application.

Like any new relationship, it’s an exciting time for us, and we’re looking forward to helping tell Zoosk’s story to the UK consumer media in some creative and suitably romantic ways. It’s all part of our mission to make Zoosk synonymous with romance in the UK. So come on Brits, pucker up.

The British love affair with the music festival is nothing new, with most able to recount a tale of warm lager, loud music and wet feet. However with Glasto having a year off, the likes of Sonisphere and Big Chill cancelled, and the increasing popularity of the festivals on the continent, what will the next generation of music festivals look like? How do festival brands and their sponsors evolve, and what role does technology have to deepen the experience and draw in the crowds in an increasingly competitive market?

A recent Observer article suggested that Brits were ‘out of love’ with music festivals, citing the Olympic year for a stretch of resources and economic pressures. But what about the huge festival brands out there that continue to pull in the punters.

For almost every festival their USP is their line-up, and there appears to be two major trends in this respect. On the one hand, to create a niche line-up that appeals to a limited audience (for example Knockengorroch, ‘the bigger festival in a smaller pot’), whilst the other is to go down the route of critical mass, championed by V Festival, bankrolled by Branson plc and part of the Virgin behemoth. For instance this year’s V Festival sees the Stone Roses on the same bill as Nicki Minaj, and the Stranglers sit next to LMFAO. Arguably this is a triumph for the democracy of UK music, giving consumers choice, but to me this leaves a rather sour taste in the mouth – providing a contrived ‘catch-all’ policy.

We have to apportion some of the blame for these Hollyoaks-meets-Skins line-ups to music journalists, whose column inches both dictate and reflect the music trends.  As the likes of NME and Q magazine seek to compete with online music media like Pitchfork through to Pop Justice, they have become more conservative, less risky and ultimately more populist, seeking to cast a wider net of readers. A case in point for this was Lana Del Rey’s appearance on the front cover of NME in January this year and compounded by the fact that Cameron even admitted his penchant for Miss Del Rey.

Indeed even Alex James (of Blur fame) decided to throw his own cheese-come-music festival last year, reaching out to the Chipping Norton set. Such a decision led to a cringe-worthy Clarkson/Cameron photo shoot, a bankrupt organiser, and a rather red face.  Thankfully this is not the future face of the British music festival.

So what is?

Hopefully we can take a leaf out of our American cousins, and use technology to help create the festivals which shock and amaze – a 3D hologram of Tupac at this year’s Coachella is a good start. In terms of consumer experience, those Norwegians have the edge, providing all the punters at last year’s Eurosonic Noorderslag with a micro-chipped wristband. Not only did it allow them to freely hop on-off site, but it could be pre-loaded with their spending money for the weekend for contact-less payment. No wallet, no worries.

For brands, music festivals present an ideal opportunity to engage with a targeted and captive audience – the literal incarnation of ‘crowdsourcing’. Thus for those willing to spend the large sums of money to partner with British music festivals, they will need to don their creative hats to get enough bang for their buck.

Content creation is the key. Heineken, for example, a sponsor of Coachella, created considerable buzz around their Cold Storage Room, where punters could store cases of Heineken in a cooler that was only accessible with the owner’s scanned thumbprint. Since Coachella doesn’t allow outside drinks on-site, Heineken ensured it was the beer of choice for the thousands there, whilst providing a tangible service. Scott Lucas, of Interbrand, summed it up neatly by adding “when well executed, interactive engagement delivers a brand experience that is meaningful for both the brand and the consumers. One that is interactive, on the mark of what the brand stands for, and connected to the context of the event.”

So whether you’re a festival promoter, a brand looking to sponsor, an artist, or simply a fan, the appearance of the British music festival will continue to change over the next decade. One aspect will certainly not – Nicki Minaj will forever be appalling.

Just so we’re all clear, upcycling is a process whereby something that would otherwise be wasted is used to make something that is of equal or greater use / value (so it’s one half of the recycling process, its sister being downcycling, where something becomes worth less).

Eco-living communities around the world have embraced the trend, as reusing unwanted items and turning them into new products (meaning less use of raw materials and the energy used in the production of raw materials) helps the planet become more sustainable.

Upcycling has also become a buzz word for sustainable business. US-based company TerraCycle brought upcycling into the mainstream by setting up ‘brigades’ of environmentally-friendly consumers, who earn money for charities and their schools by upcycling the product packaging of major brands such J&J, Kraft Foods, BIC, and Aveeno, into new items. Aquafresh pen holder anyone?

Etsy, the online marketplace for handmade goods, saw the number of products tagged with the word “upcycled” increase from about 7,900 in January 2010 to nearly 30,000 a year later – an increase of 275%. As of October 2011, that number stood at nearly 167,000, an additional increase of 450%.

It seems the number of people selling these products has increased dramatically. So the demand is there. But have these products become a must-have?

Many small businesses and start-ups are betting that the answer is yes. “We are seeing a significant increase in the number of people starting niche businesses and upcycling fits perfectly into this category,” explains Emma Jones, founder of small business support company, Enterprise Nation, and co-founder of StartUp Britain. “These tend to be businesses you can start in your spare time (whilst keeping hold of the day job) and from the comfort of a home office so start-up costs remain low. Upcycling is something that appeals to people’s consciences and sense of purpose, and turning purpose into profit is becoming very popular!”

One such business is Sir Plus, a start-up set-up by university graduate Henry Hales. He struck on the idea of selling a range of original menswear in the UK, using off-cuts and surplus fabrics, or ‘cabbage’ as he likes to call it.

In this case, ‘cabbage’ refers to the industry term used to describe fabric that’s left over after an order has been made up. “Sir Plus formed contacts with many of the major factories and fabric dealers across England, which gave us access to the finest quality fabrics; ranging from Sea Island cotton with an incredibly high thread count, to the softest Italian silk on the market” explains Hales.

“Our first line was boxer shorts, made out of excess shirting from some of the best tailors Savile Row and Jermyn Street have to offer. The quality and story behind the product have gone down really well with our customers”.

From the success he has been having with his initial range of bow ties, Panama hats and boxer shorts, Hales is now planning on producing upcycled waistcoats to the same high standard.

It seems upcycling isn’t just becoming mainstream; it’s becoming fashionable.

If you think your product, brand, idea or invention could be the next big thing, email thenextbigthing@bm.com

The cat is well and truly out of the bag now. With articles in PR Week and on Gorkana, and hordes of people signing up already, we can finally reveal the fruit of our labours for the past six months.

That’s right; we’ve just launched the B-M Brand Academy.

But as your applause and the fireworks die down, you’ll no doubt be wondering what it is, and why now?

Simply put, the Brand Academy is where we help exciting start-ups and junior marketing professionals create the behemoth brands of tomorrow.

The troubles SMEs have in getting access to finance have been well-documented. But when we sat down with the Federation of Small Businesses, we were struck by how much they said their members needed support in marketing themselves.

So we set out to create a training programme of six workshops to help brands get to grips with the fundamentals of good comms. The sessions are being run by head honchos cherry picked from across the business, and will cover a whole range of subjects, including targeting relevant audiences, getting the right headlines, avoiding potential pitfalls, building a social following and being creative.

Sounds lofty to try and help create the big brands of the future, but it’s really important that we give these start-ups the helping hand they need. After all, they’re vital to the health of our entire economy.

The first session is today, and subsequently every two weeks. Find out more about the Brand Academy (and sign up!) here.

Not only are we working on its social media presence (if you don’t already like Lindt UK on Facebook what are you waiting for?) but we’re lucky enough to be PR-ing all its brands such as Excellence and the melt in your mouth Lindor. And that’s not all. We’re currently beavering away on the seasonal area of the business, and gearing up to some great Lindt Gold Bunny traditional Easter events to celebrate the iconic Gold Bunny’s 60th birthday.

That’s all we can tell you at the moment, so I’m off to raid the chocolate cupboard….and share it with my colleagues. Obvs.

Have you ever been browsing online and come across a product that made you think “that looks good, I might try that”, only to forget all about it next time you are making your weekly shopping list? If that sounds familiar, there’s an application called Slingshot that is on its way and could very well change the way we shop online…

Online shopping is big business. These days it’s never been so easy for companies to reach a global audience through an online sales platform, whether that means gaining access to over 180 million shoppers worldwide with an eBay shop, or showcasing your products on a site such as Folksy.com, which has risen to become one of the most popular UK sites for handmade gifts and supplies.

Websites now act as a second shop floor, and for small businesses in particular, the internet is a powerful tool for interacting with their consumers. John Walker, National Chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, recently commented that “online trading has helped to empower small businesses to find new markets, sell new products, try new models and compete on an equal footing with larger businesses”.

The UK is Europe’s leading e-tail economy, with sales estimated to have reached £68.2bn in 2011. According to the Interactive Media in Retail Group, the UK e-tail market is currently growing at 16% per annum, in spite of the recession.

With over 32 million people shopping online in the UK, and with the number of platforms that they are using to sell their wares continuing to grow, experience and ease have become ever more important. Born out of this trend comes start-up tech company Slingshot. According to its creators (and university friends) Stephen Darlington and Mitch Vidler, Slingshot is on a mission ‘to make boring shopping as easy and fun as possible’.

Slingshot allows you to add products to your existing online shopping basket from a multitude of places. Instead of searching around a retailer site like Tesco.com for products, you can add them as you see them in day-to-day life. For example, if you see a Slingshot icon on the website of a brand like Doritos, you simply click on it and it will ‘sling’ the product into your online Tesco shopping basket. Or if you see a Slingshot icon on a celebrity cook’s recipe page, with one click you can ‘sling’ all of the ingredients into your online basket.

Vidler goes on to discuss how Slingshot is making online shopping easier: “One really innovative part of what we do is that our users do not need to sign up for a Slingshot account or install any browser plug-ins. We simply use the user’s existing online shopping account (e.g. Tesco.com), which they only need to sign in to once. This is really important for ease of use; anyone who already shops online can use Slingshot straight out of the gate.”

This nifty piece of technological wizardry is an exciting prospect for brands and retailers, as it can take them out of the confines of their domain, and can make any webpage or advertisement an extension of their site that people can use. Fundamentally, it allows impulse purchasing and it is something that big companies like PepsiCo are set to pilot, with Tesco.com already on board.

Fancy a go? Try their test page here: http://slingshotshopping.com/ and sling those crisps.

If you think your product, brand, idea or invention could be the next big thing, email thenextbigthing@bm.com

It’s the never-ending flavour combinations that have made ice-cream such a roaring success in the business world, as consumers can choose anything that suits their taste – whether it be Ben & Jerry’s “Cherry Garcia”, Baskin Robbins’ “Cotton Candy” or Haagen-Dazs’ “Crème Brulée”.

And ice cream is big business. Take Baskin Robbins for example. In 2010 alone, their total global sales added up to $1.6 billion, as they served more than 300 million customers at over 6,433 store locations worldwide.

But as people have become more health conscious, looking for ways to live a less guilty lifestyle, so the ice cream industry has had to find ways to develop its offering and satisfy the masses. Frozen yogurt seemed a natural solution, as it is usually lower in fat and calories than most ice creams.

Couple this evolution with the continuing rise of the ‘treat’ and the opportunities become even more interesting. According to Rob Ward, a food marketing expert and founder of MyFoodTrader.com, one of the main reasons of the treat’s meteoric rise is because “it is a symptom of economic uncertainty that people will go to comfort food that gives instant gratification”.

Small businesses and start-up brands are seeing the financial benefits that can be gained by focusing on this trend, capitalising on consumers who seem intent on spoiling themselves.

One such business is Samba Swirl, a frozen yogurt brand that currently has two branches in London – one in Battersea, the other in Islington.

Samba Swirl has the opportunity to become the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory of the frozen yogurt world. Of course there are many who are familiar with Natural frozen yogurt, maybe even Green Tea or Chocolate flavoured variants, but Samba Swirl brings you Peanut Butter, White Chocolate Macadamia and Caribbean Coconut flavours; exotic is an understatement.

This isn’t the only reason why this brand could have what it takes to edge ahead of its competitors, who come in the many forms of Frae, Snog, Yog, Moosh and Yufori. It also promises its fans that “its frozen yogurt has amongst the highest count of live natural yogurt cultures of any yogurt on the market, which have been proven to be beneficial to the human body through aiding digestion and maintaining good health”, meaning that the more health conscious and even the lactose intolerant are catered for.

Based on an American concept, Samba Swirl takes instant gratification – or what has been termed ‘nowism’ – to the next level. Trendwatching.com reports that the “rise of ‘nowism’ is being fuelled by ever quicker, more accessible real-time products”. At Samba Swirl, this comes in the form of self-serve machines, where you fill your own pot and create your own product. Six flavours are on offer on any given day, which rotate every day. You can then choose from over 40 toppings, from cranberries and cherries, to Crunchies and caramel.

Its popularity is further helped by its locations. In both Battersea and Islington, Samba Swirl has chosen residential sites where the brand can become a part of the community. This appeals to the large number of families living in these areas; “the kids obviously love us and the parents do as well, which works out nicely, especially since there’s nowhere else to go for ice cream in the area”, says the company’s owner, Lyndsey Packham.

And Samba Swirl hasn’t stopped there. In an attempt to also attract a more mature audience, its branch in Islington stays open until 10.00pm. A post-pint pot of Pistachio ‘froyo’ anyone…?