MAD//Fest Innovation Pitch: Boots Picks The Room To Fuel Personalisation Drive And Disrupt Influencer Marketing

20 Aug, 2021

Enabling brands and fans to forge non-paid partnerships and create authentic content proved to be the right prescription for Walgreens Boots Alliance at a £20k MAD//Fest London pitch last month.

Walgreens Boots Alliance is to partner with ‘advocacy generated content’ start-up The Room to help fulfil the brand’s ambition of leveraging technology to deliver more personalised healthcare after a successful pitch at MAD//Fest London last month. 

The Room will now have the chance to scale their business with Walgreens Boots Alliance through a £20k pilot pitch.

Founded by Sky Sports presenter Alex Payne, The Room addresses the lack of authenticity in influencer marketing by creating a platform where brands and fans can create mutually beneficial partnerships. The advocacy generated content model produces an unpaid and authentic cross media channel that does not rely on cash transactions, unlike influencer marketing partnerships.

“The solution is advocacy generated content. It’s unpaid cross channel media created by genuine lovers of brands, products or experiences. The content benefits from the assets generated, the audience it reaches, and most importantly, true authenticity. It’s more engaging, more authentic, the ROI is far greater than industry averages, it drives brand love, and the content is in a higher volume,” said Steve Hargreaves-Auld, The Room's Director of Growth in the winning pitch.

Hosted by Walgreens Boots Alliance Director Consumer Healthcare Futures Marni Allen and Co:Cubed Founder and CEO Jeremy Basset, The Room pitched against a strong line-up of start-ups featuring Admix, Adverity, Seedtag, Triyit and Zuko.

You can watch all the MAD//Fest London action including the PITCH//IT sessions from M&S, Diageo, Reckitt, Pizza Hut on our YouTube channel. Just select the ‘House of Innovation’ playlist for each day to catch all of the pitches.