Lizzie Rivera,
Live Frankly (BICBIM),

Who is Live Frankly and what do you do?

Live Frankly is a lifestyle website, and we essentially exist to give shoppers what they want, which is quick and easy access to good brands while giving sustainable brands access to a bigger audience. We want to connect the socially conscious consumer to the people, the shops, the brands and the restaurants that match their value. What we tend to find is that there are some incredible brands out there and incredible people doing brilliant things, but they don’t have access to the marketing budget to get their voices heard. We’re trying to be the platform where they can elevate this and get their message heard while connecting people to the brands they want to see.  

At VIDA, we define Next Generation Media Brands as having one or more of the following characteristics: Being disruptive, having diverse revenue streams, operating across multiple platforms and meeting the needs of an underserved audience/community. How does Live Frankly fit our definition of what it means to be a Next-Generation Media Brand? 

We’re disruptive, definitely. One of the reasons Live Frankly was created was because there’s so much green-washing in the industry. It’s really confusing for consumers who want to do the better thing, but they’re not sure how. You hear of fashion brands with one ethical product, yet 99% of their products are non-ethical. It’s the same in the food industry – the words’ natural’ or ‘fresh’ are used a lot, but they’re not regulated. In beauty, you can use the term ‘natural’ and it has no legal standing whatsoever, which means that a beauty brand can be 99.9% unnatural or un-organic and still use those terms if they have just one ingredient in there that is. We want to create a platform where we’re championing brands that have sustainability and ethics at the core of their business model. They essentially have a triple bottom line, which is profits, people and planet, so we are disrupting the industry by refusing to work with the brands who are going at it half-arsed, or ‘green-washing’. We’re really trying to cut through the labelling. No brand is perfect, but the brands that we champion are better in all of their goals. 

We’re meeting the needs of unserved audiences by helping those brands who don’t have access to a consumer, primarily because that consumer is confused and buying something that is not as ethical as they’re led to believe. The unserved audience is the consumer, but it’s also the brand at the same time. 

In terms of diverse revenue streams and being multi-platform, we do content creation, pop-up shops, events, supper clubs – we’re definitely diverse in that way. One of the problems in this space is that a lot of people are talking the talk, but they’re not walking the walk. 

What’s your ‘why’?

Our ‘why’ has definitely changed. I created BICBIM [now Live Frankly] when I was incredibly naïve and thought, “I’m going to look for the perfect brand, and this site is only going to feature a brand who kills it in every area: profits, people and planet”. What I’ve learnt over the past seven years of writing about sustainability and researching and learning is that, unfortunately, it’s not black and white. There are many shades of grey, and now Live Frankly is all about being honest. It’s about finding the brand that has the best intentions at their core, and they’re doing incredible things. They’re disrupting all of the industries they’re in, and it’s about promoting them and pushing the boundaries to be better. We’re not looking for perfect, we’re looking for better. That’s what the consumer wants: They just want to know that they’re buying better. 

How did you build your brand?

I actually started it because I was doing a lot of research in my personal life, so it was definitely a passion project. Before I’d go to a restaurant, I’d call them up and ask where they got their meat from. Then I’d probably call the butcher and ask him about the standards on the farm, and I just learnt more and more. These were really tough questions to ask when you’re not from a farming background. I started with content to try and unpick all of these areas. Some of the content we have is around what you need to consider when you’re buying an avocado, for example, because nothing, sadly, is black and white. Our whole reason for being is to break everything down and make it accessible for the mainstream consumer; to get behind the marketing and just see the facts – the truth – but in a way that’s inspiring. We’re not telling people what they can’t do, we’re telling people what they can do. 

How did you develop your audience?

Our audience is definitely content-led. As a journalist, I write for the Evening Standard and The Independent, so there’s an audience from there. We also do a monthly newsletter, social media, talk on panels, host events, etc. We speak to a lot of other brands and help them to get their message out there, so then they automatically talk about us. It’s a really supportive eco-system.

How did you increase your revenue?

We started with a crowdfunding campaign, raising just over £10,000 to keep us going for the first year, which it did. Our funding and revenue models are changing because it’s really hard to make media pay, as anyone who’s in media will know. Just having a diverse revenue stream is really helpful – everything we do is going into making Live Frankly a success and building up the audience. 

How have you raised funds?

Since our initial crowdfunding, we’ve been self-funded. We’re now funded through our own content. We would definitely consider going for funding and it’s something we’ve been working on in the background, especially for the launch of Live Frankly [formerly BICBIM], but we’re not quite ready yet as it takes so much time. Time is our most precious resource.

What’s next?

We’re officially launching Live Frankly at the end of March, and then later this summer we will be doing a pop-up shop plus 10-days-worth of events, talks, supper clubs, etc., so watch this space for that. Getting Live Frankly off the ground is the plan for this year, and making it as big a success as it can be, with more articles, more research, more brands and more events.