Digital stars spread the word about city with creative buzz

Hebe Media is organising a series of “creative encounters” with trendsetters in cities such as Stockholm in Sweden, Hangzhou in China and Lille in France to promote the music, fashion, arts and technology industries of Leeds.

The company connects with creative leaders from an influential city and brings them together with counterparts from West Yorkshire for two days to raise the international profile of Leeds and forge business links.

The first encounter took place in Barcelona in 2010. Leeds later played host to a group of bloggers from the Catalan city.

Lee Hicken, a founding partner, said the creative and cultural elements of city life are vital to attracting inward investment. He said that when young companies decide to move to a city, they are influenced by wanting to be near like-minded people, as opposed to the price and availability of commercial property.

“It’s because they want to hang around people who feed their business and vice versa,” said Mr Hicken.

“We can get that feeling going in Leeds, that there’s a creative scene here that’s interesting and has money it.

“We think that attracts the next layer of business after that.”

Mr Hicken said Hebe is trying to establish Leeds on the circuit of international cities with strong creative industries.

“In the past, Leeds has not been on that circuit,” he added. “Our creative scene does need to shout about its offering.”

Business partner Simon Zimmerman added: “If we create a brilliant cultural scene that attracts brilliant people, then brilliant business will follow. It does not have to be the other way round.”

Hebe is based in Munro House, at the heart of the city’s unofficial arts quarter and home to the Leeds Gallery and a number of other small companies in the creative industries.

The business is making a name for itself and in the autumn won a contract from Land Securities plc to be preferred digital supplier and brand ambassador for the forthcoming Trinity Leeds retail and leisure development.

Hebe is working with the FTSE-100 company to make Trinity Leeds “as physically exciting as possible using digital technology”.

It also produces the UK Observing Diary, written by head of fashion Shang Ting Peng for a large audience in the Far East, and the LOL Leeds Online social network, headed by Stacey Hicken.

“Not with any strategy in particular we have picked up a lot of business in the city,” said Mr Hicken.

The 30-year-old experienced some early business success when he was at sixth form in Boston Spa at the end of the 1990s.

He helped establish a modelling agency, called Premier Snakers, which went on to attract international media coverage.

Mr Hicken and Mr Zimmerman have been friends since school and came up with various business ventures including an outside bar company and an in-car iPod system. After school, Mr Zimmerman went to Hull University and then joined the Arts Council’s development unit, while Mr Hicken went to study at the European Institute of Design at Barcelona, where he met Shang Ting Peng, who is from Taipei in Taiwan.

After graduating, he returned to Leeds and teamed up again with Mr Zimmerman.

“When I was in Leeds, I was thinking I want to explore the world. When I was in Barcelona I thought I had to go back to Leeds and make it better,” said Mr Hicken.

“It was like a pride thing. Everyone had this really low opinion of Leeds internationally. We as a city need to communicate what we do better.

“When we came back we needed to create a business that makes money, but at the same time we have always had this underlying mission to do as much as we can to raise Leeds’ profile internationally in the way that would interest us.”

Hebe was an early adopter of social media and helped brands such as Capita and Unilever navigate the new digital world.

But the partners turned down work from other brands after becoming frustrated with what they saw as a reluctance to embrace new values.

Mr Zimmerman, 30, said digital “is not about websites or apps, it is about a cultural shift” that has changed the way that people think and behave. Brands must be prepared for the next generation of consumers who are “total digital natives”, he added.

Fashion world ‘inspiration’

STAFF at Hebe Media describe themselves as trend researchers, communication specialists, bloggers, photographers, designers, writers, event producers, DJs, digital strategists and brand ambassadors.

The company takes some of its inspiration from the fashion world, which is led by people who spot trends early.

“We always look at trends and communications that are working and think how they can be applied to different sectors and types of business,” said Lee Hicken.