Food for thought — why breakfast is more than just a meal for Orange Digital

Breakfast is classed as the most important meal of the day and for the champions at Orange, breakfast is just that.

Providing a delicious breakfast to the staff has been a staple at Orange Digital since the early days of 2014. The importance it played continued to grow as did the tastes and presentations of every dish — think over the top gourmet hipster cafe food every morning. As a result, staff started to get in early, put their breakfast and coffee order in and went back to their desk and started chatting and interacting with each other.

This daily interaction became more important than we could have foreseen. For example, when the cafe team were away, productivity would decrease. Additionally, this daily interaction amongst the team saw the beginning of a soon to be deeply rooted culture. Bonding over a meal paved a new road for Orange Digital — one of friendships, of family, of food.

It didn’t take long before we realised we could share the breakfast experience with those outside of Orange. Someone (that someone may or may not have been me) piped up, ‘why not bring in people for brekky and see what happens’ and the idea of Breakfast with Orange was born.

Some people talk about breaking bread, we prefer breaking avo on sourdough.

Our thinking was that we have a talented people, a nice office-space, and amazing food; so let’s have our team share their passions (and hopefully teach people something new) while everyone enjoys the benefits of a gourmet brekky. So we sent out some invites and created an event landing page. Three members of the Orange team crafted presentations, and the first Breakfast with Orange was held, September 2016.

Since the first event, our presentations have covered a variety of disciplines including:

• Search Engine Optimisation,
• Google Ads,
• User Experience,
• App Development,
• Branding,
• Video Production,
• Design, and
• Digital Marketing.

To give you a snapshot of the topics we have presented, I’ve highlighted some here:

• How to design CRAP — Jo Burrows
• Taking advantage of video for social marketing — Sarah Newport
• 5 Reasons Websites Without User Journey Mappy Fail — Jenna Coles
• A Snapshot of Google’s Latest Updates and Innovations — Cintia Souza

One of my favourite things about the breakfasts is that you get to meet new people and build relationships. In 2016, we hosted a brekky with 6 different organisations attending. Fast forward to 2019 and would you believe one of those attendees is on her third role and still a client of Orange?!

That’s one of the real benefits of attending breakfasts at Orange; we want you to walk away from the morning with your head full of knowledge, a tummy full of food, and hopefully a new friend or two. It’s food for thought.

Breakfast has just become a thing that we do now. Over the past 2 and a half years, we have regularly held these events every 2–3 weeks and enjoyed the company of over 220 attendees (some have even come back for seconds and thirds) across various marketing disciplines. While only some of them have become clients of Orange, most have (and more importantly) become friends of Orange.

It has been a fun, yet challenging experience inviting people you haven’t met to turn up to a free event. From opening our (elevator) doors and welcoming so many people from a variety of different backgrounds and experiences all to chat, eat breakfast, and showcase our unique Orange Digital culture, our people, and our inviting space.

We’ve learnt a lot of the past few years and our breakfasts continue to shape and change depending on the current industry trends and environment.

We are a strange breed of people who enjoy sharing the things we do and how it can help others, but I’d like to think that’s what makes Orange, Orange.

You should come along to one of our breakfasts and check it out for yourself. Who knows, you may find a new BFF, get invited to one of our other events (did I mention our Wine & Cheese nights?), learn a thing or two, or maybe even choose to work with us. However, most importantly you’ll be able to sit back and enjoy a delicious breakfast while participating in some great conversation.

Now time to go order another coffee.

In the meantime if you want a sneak peek into what we get up to, check us out on:
LinkedIn — to preview some of our projects, events, and insights into the digital industry.

Facebook — keep up-to-date with all things Orange, from events, projects, and team highlights.

Instagram — check out what a day at Orange looks like as well as featuring some of our best creative work.