Hi everyone,
I bet you expected me to start this month’s newsletter with a Halloween joke.
But that would be scarily unoriginal. Hehe.
What I will say is that October’s been FULL ON!
We’ve been busy relaunching Joli Ad Studio in time for the Team Marketing event, where we all left with a Slack channel full of ideas and five lucky winners from our prize draw! Congrats to Andy from Roseacre Pub Company, you’re off to Paris 🎉
On a personal note, I swapped Hampshire for New York for a week and came home with a belly full of bagels, pizza slices and pancakes. The food highlight? Raising Cane’s. I know, I know, controversial…
Since then, the clocks have gone back, and my FYP is already packed with festive hotspots and new seasonal menus. But it’s not the generic AI slop posters I’m sending to friends. It’s the creator content and the brands doing something genuinely exciting that are catching my attention.
That’s the thread running through this edition, from creators who hooked their audiences in the first line, to unexpected brand collaborations that make total sense.
Grab a warm cuppa and enjoy this month’s read.
Btw enjoy the pic above of me accidentally slamming a balloon into a child on the 92nd floor of a skyscraper. A sentence I never thought I’d say.
Izzy x
🔥 Top creator content from October
Every month, I dig through the creator content made through Joli and pick my top three based on performance and style. I break down what made each one work, with a little shout-out to the people behind the brands who helped make it happen. Expect inspiration for your next brief and tips on what to look for when choosing creators for your own brand.
One format I’m seeing work well is a talking-to-camera intro followed by voiceover and B-roll. It gives the video a personal opening, then keeps things moving while showing off the venue and food.
Maledi used this format in her video for Burger & Beyond, which generated 48,233 views and over 1,300 saves and shares combined.
Her opening hook gave viewers a reason to keep watching: “Today we’re going to a place that’s been rated the number one burger in the UK.”
Burger & Beyond put this accolade at the heart of the campaign brief in Joli, giving Maledi a compelling story to lead with. When briefing creators, think about what makes your brand stand out and how it could spark their audience’s interest.
Grub MCR has been running a campaign on Joli, inviting local Manchester creators to explore its location at Campfield Market.
Two videos from the campaign have topped 50,000 views. Anna’s video reached 50,320 views and over 1,600 saves and shares combined.
Her hook, “I found the best weekend destination in Manchester,” pulls local viewers straight in. She then brings the experience to life through B-roll of the market, with the text overlay “Manchester’s 1K loop of independent market stalls” giving people a sense of just how much there is to explore.
Lana opens her video speaking to camera with her friend: “I just finished work. I’ve met up with my friend, and I’m craving Italian.”
In one sentence, she sets up the occasion, the company and the craving, positioning Stefania as a spot for a midweek catch-up over Italian food.
On Instagram, Lana positions herself as a “corporate girl”, with restaurant recommendations fitting naturally into her after-work life.
When choosing creators, think about the occasion you want to drive bookings for. There are creators like this on Joli worth exploring for your next brief.
🎄 Still got festive tables to fill?
If you’re a hospitality marketer, the jingle bells started months ago. The planning, the menus, dressing a table for a Christmas content shoot in the middle of summer… I hope it’s all paying off!
But if you’ve still got tables to fill over the festive season, there’s time to give your brand a final push. Here are three ways to build buzz and bring in those last festive bookings with Joli:
1. Get local influencers through the door
Create your Christmas brief now, with the first creator visits lined up for the week your festive menu launches or your decorations go up. That way, content starts coming back quickly, with plenty of time to get on people’s radar while they’re deciding where to book Friendmas, Christmas Day dinner or the office party.
2. Make a bigger splash with a paid collaboration
Smaller creators can make brilliant content, especially on TikTok. If you’re looking to reach a larger audience, Joli can help you find the right creator for a paid partnership, with an engaged following and a style that suits your brand. Joli’s paid collab feature, with an industry-specific rate card, is driving a 30% reduction in creator fees because it’s quicker for them and we’re transparent about what’s likely to be accepted or not. To find out more, speak to your customer success manager.
3. Freshen up your ads with UGC
If your ads are falling flat, fresh creative could give them the boost they need. Set a brief live in Joli Ad Studio, get matched with one of our trusted, professional UGC creators and hire them to make a video built around your brief.
Last Christmas, inamo used content produced through Joli Ad Studio in Facebook and Instagram ads that drove over 390 bookings for groups of 1–6 people over the festive period. Their team said the process required “minimal time and effort” to get exactly the content they needed.
You could have fresh ad creative back in 7 days, ready for your festive push. Find out more about Ad Studio!
🤔 Hospitality’s era of unexpected collabs
For years, fashion and beauty brands have used experiential marketing and brand collaborations to launch products.
But now hospitality brands are catching on and getting more creative with how they show up in real life, and who they’re collaborating with.
A few collaborations have caught my eye recently:
- atis × Nike: A running event with a specially created shake for runners. A natural crossover between movement, food and community.
- KFC × La Vieille Ferme: KFC teamed up with La Vieille Ferme, the wine affectionately nicknamed Chicken Wine, for a temporary wine bar serving fried chicken and wine pairings.
- Paulie’s × Elijah Craig: Pizza meets bourbon, with a party at Paulie’s to kick off Old Fashioned Week.
At the Team Marketing event a couple of weeks ago, Catherine Wells from SushiDog made a point about brand collaborations that stuck with me: the best partnerships feel unexpected and exciting.
The brands don’t have to sell similar things. The connection might come from a shared audience, an interest or an overlap in culture. There just needs to be something that makes people want to be part of it.
👀 Is long-form content making a comeback?
Instagram is testing a new format that lets select creators share horizontal videos up to 90 minutes long, with shorter Reels linking viewers to the full video. It’s currently being tested with creators in the US and Brazil.
Whilst short-form content is constantly competing for our attention to laugh, learn and follow, longer videos give creators more room to tell a story, share their personality and start deeper conversations.
That’s part of what makes YouTube so valuable for building a community. If Instagram gets this right, creators could build that same depth on the platform where they already have their strongest audience, without asking followers to move somewhere else.
It’s hard to say what this could mean for hospitality just yet, but it’s definitely one to watch from both the brand and creator side.
Before you go, a little favour for our friends at Kitch and KAM
They’re putting together their next State of Social report and want to hear how hospitality operators are using social media, what’s working and where the challenges lie.
If you work in hospitality, take a few minutes to share your experience and help shape the findings.
That’s it for this month’s edition. Don’t forget to follow us on LinkedIn for more social media news, hot takes and Joli product updates!
Speak soon, Izzy & the Joli team 💛
