With two recent viral videos making headlines, Jack Colchester of Block Report explains how trawling platforms such as Reddit has opened up new creative avenues for a brand that 60% of people in the UK had never heard of.

Social media has long been a breeding ground for the weird and the wonderful, the unexpected internet folk heroes who burrow into culture and never quite leave. Think ‘Succulent Chinese Meal’ or being ‘Rick-Rolled.’ These aren’t just fleeting viral moments; they continue to live on in the internet hall of fame.

Jack Colchester, founder and head of insight at data-led, social PR agency Block Report, has a name for these people: ‘internet heroes.’ They don’t rely on trending sounds, CapCut edits or influencer polish. They’re authentic, awkward and entirely unforgettable, which is precisely why brands usually steer clear.

But not Itsu.

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The East Asian-inspired fast food chain has recently flipped that social media script, embracing two of the internet’s most wonderfully bizarre characters, Ronnie Pickering and the Wealdstone Raider, and turning them into TikTok gold. Behind it is Colchester’s team at Block Report, the new agency on the block that’s shaking up brand strategy.

“We pray at the altar of brand saliency over brand image,” Colchester tells The Drum, nodding to a classic Mark Ritson perspective. Marketers spend too much time obsessing over what people think of their brands and not nearly enough time accepting that most people aren’t thinking about them at all.

“We’ve got to find ways of generating more brand saliency,” he adds. “And worry less about the reams of strategy decks and brand image.”

Block Report’s work on Itsu is turning heads. In June, it reintroduced TikTok to Ronnie Pickering, 10 years after his road rage moment first made headlines. Last week, the Wealdstone Raider was out front, slinging dim sum.

But before any of that can happen, Colchester says, every client must sign a ‘treaty of talkability,’ a nine-commandment pact that sets the tone for how they operate. The commandments include ‘Thou shall accept that without brand saliency, brand image is academic,’ ‘Thou shall be generous with your time; this is scrappy and moves quickly,’ and ‘Thou shall operate at the edge of acceptability; there is no such thing as risk-free fame.’

And this approach is quite risky, in unexpected ways. For the Pickering video, Block Report hired a private investigator to try track down the legend, though without success. The detective spent two days searching for Pickering, known for his “Do you know who I am?” video. “He doesn’t have social media and is completely elusive,” explains Colchester. “We had to get an actor in the end for Ronnie Pickering, because basically all the pubs had barred him where he’s from in Hull.”

Thankfully, tracking down Gordon ‘The Wealdstone Raider’ Hill was much easier. A builder by trade and a lifelong Wealdstone FC supporter, Hill shot to internet fame after a 2013 video captured him passionately heckling rival Whitehawk FC fans with unforgettable taunts such as “If you want some, I’ll give it ya” and “You’ve got no fans.”

In five days, Itsu’s remake of the viral video has racked up millions of views across multiple platforms. “What an amazing job he (Hill) has done,” Colchester adds.

The work with Itsu came about due to a monthly report that Colchester calls a ‘block report,’ where his team essentially scours the internet (mostly Reddit) to see what people are chatting about brands, categories and culture. “60% of Brits had never heard of Itsu,” he explains. “We have this thing called the ‘engines of culture,’ which is a tool that looks at certain sub-Reddits and looks at what the conversations are evergreen. In the UK, it was seagulls and Ronnie Pickering. So then we were like, OK, so let’s do Ronnie Pickering.” Pretty ironic, as Pickering’s whole video is rooted in the fact that he was unknown.

Each month, Colchester’s team presents 10 insights and 10 ideas to clients using this method. Colchester believes that this way of using data and insight is what’s setting them apart from more traditional models and agencies. He wants to get data into the heart of creative talks, right at the start of brand conversations.

“Make news, don’t follow it,” he says. “It just feels like everyone’s got the same tone of voice. Everyone’s jumping on the same trends.” For Colchester, the magic of ‘Internet Heroes’ lies in their staying power. “These are people who just keep on coming back,” he says. “It’s like Rick Astley. If you put Rick Astley in an ad, it’s going to do well.”

He’s heard the pushback before, that figures like Pickering or 2021’s Zoom star Jackie Weaver aren’t relevant any more. But to him, that misses the point. “These are names that continue to resurface in culture. That’s the whole point.”

@itsuofficial We’ll do literally anything to boost our awareness metrics #ronniepickering ♬ original sound – itsu

Pickering, the Wealdstone Raider, Jackie Weaver… they’re all part of what Colchester describes as a kind of evergreen internet mythology. “There’s an obsession with them.”

These aren’t just nostalgic moments, he argues. They live in the collective memory of the internet and that’s precisely what makes them so powerful. “When we worked on the Ronnie Pickering campaign, we were consciously mining that cultural memory. We knew it was something the internet still cared about.” Once Block Report hits on something that resonates, Colchester says, the approach is simple: “We keep going until people stop liking and engaging with it.”

For any brand that Block Report works with, it’s all about “marrying the insight with a list of tactics,” continues Colchester. “And the tactics could work with any brand doing anything. It’s just like an unexpected way of showing up.” He’s excited about applying this to a whole host of brands that it is working with.

“The fourth most Wikipedia-d thing this time last year was Saltburn. It’s our fourth most Wikipedia-d thing on the planet,” he adds. “It’s literally someone eating cum out of a bath. Like, it’s so gross, but I always use it as an example. That’s what it takes to get people to sit up and go to Wikipedia and search for stuff. The days of, ‘Oh, we put a bear in an ad, lol,’ it’s like, ‘No, no one cares.’ I’m not saying you have to be as fucking gross as Saltburn, but it’s that level of creative whiplash that it needs to have to get people to sit up and take notice of it.”

According to Colchester, the tone of voice isn’t the difficult part. The real challenge comes when a brand already has an established platform and strategy in place. “That’s where it can get tricky.”

Block Report often talks about the idea of two-speed marketing, a framework that allows space for fast, reactive creative work alongside more traditional brand-building efforts. “We’re not saying all your advertising and marketing should be done like this. This is a very specific type of activity.”