Passionfruit

We’ve just raised our Series A round!!! 🎉 The $9M funding round is led by Seaya, with participation from existing Seed investors firstminute capital, Playfair , Cornerstone VC and Portfolio Ventures. It must be said it’s been quite the journey for us at Passionfruit since our seed funding round in 2022. Now our platform’s worker-base has surged to a community of 3,000 and supports the needs of hundreds of major brands worldwide, including PepsiCo, Mars, AB InBev, HSBC and The Match Group. But why? Well as the best of the next generation’s knowledge workers are increasingly striking out to become their own freelance boss, businesses of all sizes are sensing the opportunity to go outside of traditional big agency models, which consequently drive down cost and drive up results. And so it’s our purpose to provide an AI-powered platform that radically simplifies a company’s ability to discover, arrange and engage vetted independent talent, whilst also proving on-project collaboration tooling and implement entire work-streams within a single, streamlined platform. It’s at this particular moment we’d like to thank all of our investors, customers and freelancers for continuing to make this mission possible. With $13.3m in total now raised, we hope we are someway towards meeting the demands of those who ultimately keep us living the Passionfruit dream! Most importantly it is a huge thank you to our team, who continue to go above and beyond the call of duty in making Passionfruit the platform we know it all can become in the coming years. You can find more about our raise by following the link here: https://lnkd.in/e-jUZPD3 #MarketingHasMovedOn

REMINDER: COMMUNITY BUILDING ISN'T JUST A BUZZWORD Community building is fast becoming one of those marketing terms that loses its meaning the more popular it gets. (The irony of us speaking about it isn't lost on us..) BUT when we asked Laura Jackson – content creator, broadcaster and Founder of Glassette – her community strategy, she didn't have one. Despite having a following of over 400k across her own channels, and 230k on Glassette's. And do you know what? It's a breath of fresh air 🤯 She doesn't have one because she engages with her community authentically. Should you spend time on community building? Yes.  Should it be integral to your strategy? Yes.  But it needs to be run by people who genuinely care about and understand your customers for it to have meaningful impact for them and your brand. Share this with your marketing team as a reminder of why community is important in the first place! 👏 #CommunityBuilding #Community #Marketing #MarketingStrategy

MEET OUR NEW PEOPLE 🙌 Join us in welcoming 2 new starters to our team! Jasvin Khurana joins as Customer Success Associate, alongside.. Sid Shivakumar, our new Sales Development Representative. Hit the 👏 below to say HEY

WHY MARKETERS SHOULD BE BUILDING BRAND MEDIA NETWORKS Something we can all learn from the "will they, won't they" TikTok ban is that relying on one or two platforms for marketing performance and spend is not enough 👀 Instead of asking "well where should we be re-directing our efforts?" we need to think about creating our own piece of the pie... By building our own media networks. Like traditional media networks we would see in news and TV, but brand-owned. Our CEO, Raffi Salama, explains how these brands are getting it right: > McDonald's > United Airlines > Walmart And how it's becoming the FASTEST GROWING part of their entire business 🤯 Who else is doing this well? cc: Seth Dallaire 👏 #Marketing #MarketingStrategy #MarketingHasMovedOn

MARKETING EVENTS ARE BORING The same old awkward networking The same speakers The same topics The same stale pastries... we could go on! Marketing teams are some of the most creative people in a business, so why are we putting ourselves through this?! Well, duh duh duh *superhero swoosh* 🦸♂️ At The Passionfruit Commuter Club, we're shaking things up. We're hosting talks with culturally relevant leaders OUTSIDE of the bubble of marketing. Intimate rooms full of marketing leaders networking differently. Our next one is this week:  ✍️ The Substack Content Clinic  With former Editor-in-Chief of Elle UK and Cosmopolitan UK, and now Head of Writer Partnerships at Substack UK, Farrah Storr MBE 📍 London If you want to join this one or future events, go to ➡️ https://lnkd.in/e-7dcNZ9  #marketing #marketingevent #networking #marketinghasmovedon

Marketing leaders list of plans to hit OKRs: 167,932 How many are actually actioned: 3.25.. We have marketing specialists ready to deploy when you need the extra help. One VP said it was "nothing short of incredible." Here if you need it 😉... https://lnkd.in/dS78GDtf #Marketing #MarketingLeader #MarketingOperations

The one reason everyone’s talking about Cadburys? Relatability. And you can sprinkle some of this into your strategy too, through localisation. This is exactly how US clothing giant True Classic expanded globally. Working with Passionfruit specialist, Tobias, True Classic built a new strategy centred around dynamic content localisation. By tailoring content to local markets using local knowledge and data, True Classic: > Scaled from US-only to international success > Increased ROAS by double digits > Gained strategic insights to support future campaigns *toots our own and Tobias’ horn* 📣📣 Relatability and localisation work hand in hand, by using tailored local content to create relatable campaigns (whatever industry you're in!) If you want help doing the same >> https://lnkd.in/dS78GDtf #Marketing #MarketingStrategy #Cadbury

STOP over-relying on paid marketing channels if you want to create LASTING impact 🤭 We get it, you need results *yesterday* and paid channels can help you move at pace. And paid is important, don't get us wrong.. But if you want share of voice in your industry, you need to focus on long term brand building. Just like:  > Aldi UK has in discount supermarkets > REFY has in beauty > SURREAL has in cereal > Blank Street has in coffee How? Watch here as our CEO Raffi Salama explains. What other brands should we add to the list? #MarketingHasMoveOn #Marketing

MEET OUR NEW PEOPLE 🙌 Last week we welcomed 4 new starters to our team and we'd like to introduce you to them! Adam Robertson joins as Head of Commercial, pictured alongside.. Tom Dingwall, our new Sales Development Representative. And sitting on the same couch.. Anna Peterson, our Specialist Operations Executive. And last but not least.. Joshua Wildman, who joined us as Finance Director (in 2024, but we’ve been useless with our updates, sorry Josh!) Hit the 👏 below to welcome them!

"We've lost that desire..." Andy Goode dissects the current state of international rugby, pinning much of the sport's struggle on waning international fanbases. He suggests there's much to be learnt from premiership football, but caveats the success of this model with it's reliance on the one thing rugby doesn't have... TV Deals 📺