03 February 2022

Fridays appoints Boldspace to integrated communications brief

Mike Robb

Fridays, the iconic restaurant brand, has appointed Boldspace to a wide-ranging brief on a retained basis following a competitive pitch.

The brief will see Boldspace working across Fridays, new cocktail led brand 63rd+1st and parent company, Hostmore plc, which listed on the London Stock Exchange in November 2021. The agency will provide PR strategy, creative, content creation, and campaign execution across both consumer and corporate activity, tracking and optimising all activity through the firm’s data and analytics platform, BoldLens.

Fridays, which has 85 sites across the UK as well as delivery and digital channels, was founded in New York in 1965 on the corner of 63rd Street and 1st Avenue, before coming to the UK in 1986 with the brand’s first store in Birmingham. Today, Fridays employs more than 4,000 people across the England, Scotland, Wales and Jersey.

The account will be led by Boldspace co-founder Mike Robb and Associate Director Lou Kelly, reporting to Chief Marketing Officer at Fridays, Dan Staples.

Dan Staples, Chief Marketing Officer at Fridays and 63rd+1st, said: “We are a business with huge ambitions. With a focus on quality, relevance and simplicity we’re leveraging our unique heritage to make Fridays famous again. In 63rd+1st, we’re rolling out a new cocktail led bar + restaurant concept to meet consumer demands. We needed an agency partner that was bold, energetic, and adaptable to deliver our plans for rapid change and innovation – and in Boldspace we know we have got just that.”

Mike Robb, Co-founder and Managing Director at Boldspace, said: “Fridays is a truly iconic brand with a rich heritage, but one that needs to do more than ever to stand out in an increasingly cluttered marketplace. Our brief is very squarely centred on making Fridays famous again, telling the world what the brand is about and why it is relevant to them today. We are hugely excited to be working with Dan and the team in the years head.”

The appointment follows significant expansion at Boldspace in recent months, with the recent appointment of Steph Bailey as Chief Communications Officer from FleishmanHillard and Aivory Gaw as Chief Brand Officer, taking the team to 28.