I kicked off my morning today at the local coffee shop around the corner from our hotel because the line for the hotel breakfast was out to the lobby. The coffee shop was the first I’ve seen with flavor shots so I was happy to get myself a caramel iced latte. I also ordered a Nutella crepe with strawberries, but the waiter served me a crepe with strawberry jam, but I just went with it and ate it because I figured he just misunderstood me. Turns out that it was actually somebody else’s order, and I just put my headphones in and finished the crepe then walked out the door.
I made it back just in time to meet with the group in the lobby for our walk to Hearst UK. We were greeted by 3 of our “tour guides” and with a table of pastries and fruits. The split us up into 3 groups and took us on a tour around the building. Our group’s first stop was the video room (obviously my favorite) where we met Alex Harring and she let us pick her brain about her job. I noticed that they shoot video on Sony A7II’s, which is a great camera. Then we went to the library to see the archives of the old issues of their magazines. We also got to see the office spaces and fashion closets.
Following the tour, we sat down to listen to a panel discussion from some of the editors within the company including Kenya Hunt, Matt Hill, Jess Edwards, and Amy Lane. They had a lot of cool things to say about how to stay relevant to your audiences and find out what they want. After that, we went to a conference room to have a presentation by Julian Lanley about a program he created within Hearst called “The Nest”. It is a program build to incubate new ideas and talent to develop new businesses.
Felicity, the fashion editor of Elle and Sophie, the editor of Cosmo came in to give a preview and breakdown of what they do for scheduling photo shoots for the magazines. I really enjoyed their presentation because I thought the photography was absolutely stunning.
We then left the building of Hearst to walk to the Good Housekeeping offices down the street where they do all the testing of products. I was geeking out because all of the rooms and kitchens were all so beautiful. I thought it was so interesting how many products they have to test. They have an entire room dedicated to testing vacuum cleaners. We then concluded our visit with the annual photo and were left for lunch.
A group of us went to this Thai restaurant that no one could figure out the name of. I ordered chicken pad thai because it is one of my favorite meals. It wasn’t spicy at all which I was surprised at, but it was really awesome! Tomorrow we sadly leave London for Windsor Castle and Stratford!
