Rooftop swimming photo shoot, Shoreditch House, London, 24 January 2024
Content shoot for Soho House, ‘starring’ as the ‘face of the pool’ at Shoreditch House is no other than TFTK founder Lida Hujić. @sohohouse #sohohouse #shoreditchhouse #the2point5percent @lidahujic
To take part in the shoot to promote the pool and all the other great perks that Shoreditch House offers was an invitation that could not be refused. In fact, it was gladly accepted, although, nowadays, Lida prefers being on the other side of the camera. Having been part of the cultural programming team at Soho House for over a decade, she is usually more focused on creating content and bringing it to life - promoting great causes and people - than having her make up done for a shoot. It all started with a small team of two at Shoreditch House in the early 2010s, when a handful of external advisors - among them Lida - were brought into the ‘fam’ to use culture as a resource – to promote Soho House as being ahead of the curve. This is the sort of marketing - call it hype, call it cool marketing - explored in depth in Lida’s two books, based on her experience of working with brands that start small (connected to underground subcultures) and, over time, go on to become mainstream and have a huge influence on the style and communication industry. Whether that was MTV in Europe in the 90s (MTV – ‘YOU HEAR IT FIRST’, as the conscious cool self hype TV ident would remind you – though you didn’t ask) or more recently Soho House (creating content to be THE FIRST TO KNOW) – such platforms are essential in sifting through new trends – from underground and making them more palatable for the mainstream via convincing the early adopter to buy into that self-conscious hype, before the consuming crowd follows suit (early majority, then late majority).
Read about the mechanics of spreading the relevant word of mouth in The 2.5%: small group, big influence – there is a whole chapter about Soho House. As for MTV, the case study is in The First to Know book, fully illustrated with original film footage in the Visual Library.
Back to the Shoreditch House pool shoot, over the past decade, the way Soho House communicates with its members and portrays itself externally has evolved, including the adoption of social media. Instagram wasn't a thing when the events departments started to operate. (There was Facebook and Twitter - but it wasn't a consideration as a communications tool, until the rise of Instagram and influencers). Lida could tell you the tale of how they started to explore Instagram – from zero to over 1.4M followers at the time of writing this post. Soho House is more mainstream now and the concept of private members’ club has developed into a trend with many new players entering the market but Soho House remains the leader in terms of desirability. The waiting list of people wanting to join Soho House as members is long. (An internal email stated that new membership for UK was frozen for 2024! Full capacity!).
If you want to make some noise, to market your brand or your business, TFTK can help you with your communication needs or business development needs or both – check out the HYPE page or just get in touch, tell us what you're trying to achieve and we’ll tell you if we’re the right partner for you.