LADbible

Solomou developed the idea for a social media publishing business while at Leeds University, where he studied business management from 2009 to 2012.[6] The Lad Bible Limited was founded on 3 April 2012[7] and developed into the LADbible project when director Arian Kalantari joined.[8]

LADbible's parent company changed its name from The Lad Bible Limited to The Global Social Media Group Limited on 18 November 2013. On 19 June 2014, the parent company changed its name to 65TWENTY LTD then to The Ladbible Group Limited on 16 November 2015.[9]

The LADbible project started in January 2012 when the channel published their first Facebook post which achieved over 75,000 interactions. In 2014, LADbible's Facebook page had almost 2 million likes and was attracting over 5 million unique users every month.[10] By November 2015 this number had increased more than 400% to 10.6 million followers on Facebook.[8] This has continued to grow to more than 24.3 million followers in May 2017.[11]

In July 2017, Tubular Labs ranked LADbible as the No. 1 'Media & Entertainment Creator' in the world. [12] In the same month, LADbible also achieved No. 3 globally in the Top Media & Entertainment Properties, ahead of Time Warner, Comcast and Sony.[13][14]

LADbible publishes a diverse range of original and user generated content – spanning editorial, video, documentary and live. Since its launch in 2012, LADbible have posted over 6,800 videos and generated in excess of 41.8 billion views on Facebook.[15]

The channel covers a wide range of subject matter from the everyday laughs, world news and celebrity interviews, to more in-depth campaigns around topics that matter to young people. Since 2012, LADbible have launched campaigns that raise awareness and drive conversation amongst its online following around mental health, environment, politics and animal extinction.

Celebrity Content LADbible have worked with some of the biggest celebrity names to produce viral content across its platforms. The channel offers a variety of video formats including 'Snack Wars' [16] and 'Shocking Answers' [17] designed to entertain social audiences. In 2018 alone, LADbible filmed exclusive interviews with the likes of Sir Richard Branson,[18] Margot Robbie,[18] Denzel Washington [19] and Hugh Jackman.[20]

Knowing Me,Knowing EU With a looming EU referendum, LADbible launched an awareness campaign to encourage their youth audience to exercise the vote. The publisher spent three months producing stories and digestible explainers on the vote which linked directly to the government's register-to-vote page. As a result, LADbible drove 45,000 clicks to the site which accounted for 20% of all traffic.[21]

UOKM8? LADbible first launched their award-winning mental health campaign in 2016 with a dedicated UOKM8? website hub. The content across both site and social platforms focussed around the sharing of stories that raised awareness and drove conversation around the topic amongst young people. Supported by charities including CALM, the campaign included a video series called 'Everyday Heroes' that featured influential men such as Olympian Louis Smith and their struggles with anxiety and depression.[22] UOKM8? was recognised by the industry by winning awards including: Drum DADI, Masters of Marketing, Lovies and Webby.[23] The campaign as a whole, reached in excess of 36 million and received over 4.8 million video views. UOKM8? was relaunched in 2018 with a shifted focus towards providing advice around helping others suffering with mental health problems. The relaunch saw a partnership with fashion retailer boohooMAN, together producing a limited edition t-shirt to raise awareness for the cause.

Trash Isles LADbible's biggest awareness campaign to date, ‘Trash Isles’, was designed to highlight the global problem of plastic pollution in oceans. Featuring big names including Sir David Attenborough, Dame Judy Dench and Al Gore, the publisher approached the United Nations to declare an accumulation of plastic in the Pacific Ocean, as an official country, encouraging people to sign up to be a citizen.[24] The PR stunt kick started a social movement that lead to online debate and mass behavioural change. Trash Isles was identified by The Drum as one of the most awarded media campaigns of 2018,[25] picking up accolades across the industry including x8 Cannes Lions awards including x2 Grand Prix.

Extinct LADbible launched ‘Extinct’ in August 2018 to tackle the global problem of wildlife extinction, particularly drawing attention to the impact of human action on declining numbers. The campaign comprises stories from around the world confronting the social platform's audience with the issue first hand. Content highlights include a launch documentary following the British Army fighting against poachers in Gabon, celebrity endorsements such as Sir David Attenborough,[26] Ricky Gervais [27] and MP Michael Gove,[28] and an exclusive Snapchat filter to highlight the declining number of global elephant species. The campaign reached over 70 million people worldwide, achieved over 22 million video views online and included an exclusive partnership with the British Government [29] around the IWT Conference.

In 2016, LADbible's parent company, LADbible Group, launched their in-house creative agency, Joyride, to offer brands unique advertising solutions across their widely followed online platforms. To date, LADbible has provided the platform for Joyride-produced branded campaigns for the likes of Adidas, Home Office, EE, Cancer Research UK, McDonald's and Amazon (company).

In 2018, LADbible launched a long-term partnership with Smirnoff. Free To Be aimed to create a more inclusive night life for all with inspirational stories, videos, social assets and a website hub.[30] As a result, LADbible reached 73 million, sparked 339K engagements, with a pre/post campaign survey revealing a 4% increase in inclusivity conversations amongst their target audience.[31] The campaign also featured an offline activation aimed at empowering the deaf community at Wireless – UK's biggest urban music festival. LADbible propelled deaf music artist, Signkid to guest headline the mainstage, alongside hip-hop artist Big Shaq.[32]

In February 2015, in an interview with BBC Radio 5 Live, LADbible's then marketing director says "A quarter of 'lads' reading the site are actually women," and that it "absolutely redefines what lads are".[33] This interview was featured in a BBC News article titled "How did The Lad Bible become so successful"[34] which looked at the reasons why LADbible had become so successful and appealed to such a large audience.

Later in the same year, a news story on The Independent looked deeper into how LADbible had "harnessed social media" to fill the gap in the market left by the closure of the once-popular Lads' Mag titles. It revealed that where a traditional newsroom is arranged into desks dedicated to specific interests like health, education or business, staff at LADbible's office specialise in different social media platforms; Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube.[8]

On 19 April 2017 LADbible featured in Marketing Land as they generated 3.2 billion views[35] to become March's most popular video creator in the world.[36]

In November 2015, LADbible featured in Manchester Evening News for winning two awards at the Digital Entrepreneur Awards ceremony. LADbible won the Social Media Campaign of the Year (medium/large) and founder, Alexander Solomou, won the Young Digital Entrepreneur of The Year award.[37]

At the Prolific North Awards 2016, LADbible won Video of the Year with their video produced in collaboration with Bearded Fellows for "The Ladbible app Launch" campaign.[38]

At the 2017 Brand Film Festival awards, LADbible gained double recognition for their work with the RNLI, including Best of The Best, for the Respect The Water campaign.[39]

In June 2018, LADbible's "Trash Isles" campaign won eight Cannes Lions Awards at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.[40] The campaign won two Grand Prix awards as well as a further two Gold, one Silver and three Bronze.[5][41]

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