💰 VAT's The Problem - Sign It
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Tom Kerridge, a million-signature target, and the biggest sector-wide push in years.
If you've been anywhere near hospitality this month, you've seen it. #VATsTheProblem - the campaign calling on the Government to cut hospitality VAT from 20% to 10% - has gone off like a rocket.
Spearheaded by Tom Kerridge and backed by UKHospitality, the British Beer & Pub Association, the BII and CODE Hospitality, the petition smashed 20,000 signatures in 24 hours, passed 100,000 in three days, and has since cleared 215,000 and counting.
The ask is simple: bring the UK in line with Europe, where hospitality VAT sits at roughly 10% in Spain, Italy and France, and lower still in Germany.
Right now the UK has one of the highest rates on the continent - second only to Denmark.
Sign it, share it, and make your guests part of it.
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🪖 SevenRooms Just Declared War On The Reservation Chaos
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Channel Connect lands free, every booking in one book, and a not-so-subtle dig at OpenTable.
On 16 June, SevenRooms launched Channel Connect - a desktop app that pulls reservations from every booking channel (OpenTable, Resy, Google, your website, social, even AI agents and hotel concierges) into one dashboard, and syncs your inventory across all of them in real time. No more three iPads at the host stand. No more manually reconciling double bookings mid-service.
The headline that matters: it's free, on an open licence, and you don't need to be a SevenRooms customer to use it.
Why this is landing now is the interesting part. Back in April, OpenTable changed its terms to require restaurants to make it their primary system of record. SevenRooms' response has been pointed - its co-founder went after OpenTable publicly on LinkedIn, and Channel Connect is the product-level answer.
Our view, no single platform should be the gatekeeper to your operations.
A few other thoughts:
📲 The booking layer is fragmenting fast - Google now takes AI-powered bookings directly in search, AMEX is merging Resy and Tock into a 25,000-venue network, and discovery is scattering across more channels than ever.
🔑 Guest data ownership is the whole game - every booking that lands in your system builds your CRM, not a marketplace's.
💌 That data is what powers everything we do - segmented email, birthday and anniversary flows, win-back campaigns, the lot. No owned data, no personalisation.
One caveat worth saying out loud: this is a US-led launch and it's still early, so check availability and how it plays with your existing stack before you rip anything out. But the direction of travel is unmistakable - the platforms are fighting over who owns the diner, and the smart operators are making sure the answer is them.
Own the booking, own the data, own the relationship.
Everything else is rented.
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🚸 Under-16s Are About To Disappear From Social
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The UK's landmark ban is coming. If your audience skews young, your reach map is about to redraw.
On 15 June, the Government confirmed it: social media will be banned for under-16s, with platforms blocked from offering services to that age group. It's modelled on Australia's world-first ban and, in typical fashion, the UK says it's going further.
The headline list of affected platforms: Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X. Notably not included: YouTube Kids, and messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal. For 16- and 17-year-olds, features like livestreaming and stranger contact get switched off by default.
Legislation is expected before Christmas, with protections live from Spring 2027. So this isn't tomorrow - but it's close enough to plan for.
What it means for hospitality marketers:
🎯 If you target 16-24s, the bottom end of that range is about to get harder to reach via paid social.
📲 Age assurance is getting serious - Ofcom is defining what "highly effective" age checks look like, which means more friction and tighter targeting.
💡 The brands that win won't be chasing under-16s anyway - they'll be building loyalty with the over-16s who can engage, and reaching younger audiences through parents.
🍽️ For family venues, this actually reinforces the parent-led marketing angle - speak to the bill-payer, not the kid.
It's a reminder that platform reach is never permanent. The audiences you can buy today aren't guaranteed tomorrow, and the brands with owned channels - email, loyalty, app, SMS - are the ones who sleep easiest when the social media rules change.
When audiences get evicted. Build something you own.
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🤖 ChatGPT Ads Have Landed In The UK
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$100m in six weeks. GPT Ads just went from theory to reality.
We flagged ChatGPT ads as "one to watch" a few editions back. Watch time's over - it's happening, and faster than anyone expected.
The early signals OpenAI is reporting: no measurable hit to consumer trust, low dismissal rates, and fewer than 7% of ads rated "low relevance." Ads appear clearly labelled at the bottom of responses and, crucially - don't influence the actual answers. Targeting is contextual, matched to your conversation topic rather than traditional keywords.
A few things that should make every marketer sit up:
💸 June brought cost-per-click bidding and a self-serve Ads Manager with no minimum spend.
🌍 The pilot is now live in the UK, with more markets promised this year.
📊 Analysts at Truist are calling 2026 an "inflection year" for AI-powered ads, projecting OpenAI ad revenue could exceed $30bn by 2030.
Consumers use ChatGPT mid-decision - researching, comparing, planning - which is exactly the moment intent is highest.
For hospitality? Picture someone asking ChatGPT "best bottomless brunch in Manchester" or "where to take the kids for dinner near me." That's a moment, and moments are now buyable.
It's early, and we're not telling you to shift media spend now. Initial tests show super high CPMs + CPCs, and whilst conversion modelling is available on traffic-led campaigns, you cannot yet run conversion intent-based campaigns.
Worth keeping an eye on this.
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