Winner of All Response Media’s £50,000 ‘TV Star’ competition revealed

Following entries from over 250 high-calibre UK start-ups, we can now exclusively reveal the winner of All Response Media’s annual TV Star competition.

One fast-growth business has been chosen to receive a £50,000 TV advertising campaign, courtesy of top 20 media agency All Response Media (ARM). Run in conjunction with Startups.co.uk, the nationwide search to find the UK’s next TV Star launched in February.

After months of intense due diligence and pitching to an esteemed judging panel, the winner has been decided.

And the winner is… minicabit!

After much deliberation, the judges – including graze.com CEO Anthony Fletcher, ARM co-founders Andy Sloan and Colin Gillespie, and Startups.co.uk’s very own Ian Wallis – selected the UK’s leading cab comparison and booking platform as the winner.

A former Startups Awards winner for App of the Year, the multi-channel platform for pre-booked local and long-distance cab journeys will now receive a fully-funded media and creative campaign worth £50,000 and will have access to ARM’s proprietary attribution measurement and reporting suite ARMalytics for tracking TV to web-visits.

minicabit’s pitch

Having helped high-growth companies such as Hello Fresh, Babbel, Made.com and giffgaff achieve stellar results, ARM intends to help the cab bookings comparison service debut its TV campaign in the third quarter of this year.

A select number of finalists – several featured recently in the Startups 100 2016 index – will also be supported financially by ARM through a media contribution. These finalists were:

• Airsorted
• Bizzby
• Fiver London – everything5pounds.com
• Funding Options
• Hiring Hub
• Housekeep
• minicabit
• Sassy Bloom

minicabit follows in the footsteps of last year’s winner Calm.com, founded by Million Dollar Homepage founder Alex Tew and Moshi Monsters entrepreneur Michael Acton Smith. It used its win to create a two-minute ‘Slow TV’ ad campaign which is believed to have been a world first.

minicabit CEO, Amer Hasan, said he was “thrilled” to have won the TV Star competition:

“[This was] perhaps the toughest pitch since we featured in Dragons’ Den! We’re even more excited to see how ARM’s innovative media platform and solutions can help us further accelerate our growth and extend our marketing mix into the TV advertising space.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for the business and we are delighted to have won such a significant prize fund to help us get started.”

All Response Media’s Andy Sloan commented:

“With our TV experience and unique technology, we know what works and we know the power of TV in building both businesses and brands.

“With TV Star, we are delighted to have an incredibly worthy winner in minicabit and are looking forward to seeing their exponential growth via the medium of TV. minicabit is an exciting brand with massive potential, with a founder in Amer Hasan whom possesses an incredible track record in business. To work with entrepreneurs you need to be one, and TV Star we believe embodies that ethos.”