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The agency is tasked with raising the visibility of both brands within the UK media. Joe Murgatroyd, account director of Brandnation’s sport division, will lead both accounts.
Mary Killingworth, managing director at Brandnation, said: “We’re absolutely delighted to be working with Raleigh and Haibike who are fantastic additions to our impressive existing portfolio of cycling brands.
“These are brands that have a rich cycling heritage but which also offer a vision for the future of cycling by forging a way in the e-bike market.”
Killingworth added: “Brandnation has an exciting plan of activity lined up that will raise awareness of the brands and help keep them at the forefront of the minds of cyclists new and old.”
Alicia Wheatley, communications manager at Raleigh, concluded: “Brandnation has a wealth of experience of delivering results within the cycling industry so we’re very excited to welcome them to the team.
“The agency’s knowledge of the cycling industry paired with their creativity was a winning formula that we believe will help Raleigh and Haibike achieve great things in 2018.”
2018 promises to be another intriguing year in the evolution of the PR industry as economic, social and technological trends continue to change the earned media landscape.
Whether it’s the development of new technology or the way in which consumers view the world, earned media’s evolution this year will see divergence from “traditional” operations.
Artificial Intelligence, video, earned media measurement and brands taking a stance will all play a key role for communicators over the course of this year. Cision’s latest white paper reveals how you can get ahead of these four essential trends, which are set to shape earned media throughout 2018.
The PR industry will further harness the power of AI
While the rise of Artificial Intelligence has been widely discussed throughout the media over the past few years, 2018 is the year that its development will begin to make an impression on the work of communicators.
Chatbots are already being used to interact with consumers, while the evolution of consumer tech devices using AI, such as home automation devices, opens up exciting opportunities for communicators.
As the algorithms powering machine learning become ever more refined, the PR industry will be able to use AI to improve the efficiency with which they can process vast amounts of data, as well as unlock the insights contained in data.
Communicators will use technology to “join the dots” between earned media and business results
One area where communicators can make best use of advancing technology is through earned media measurement.
Earned media practitioners have seen their budgets remain stagnant when compared to paid media colleagues over the past few years. This does not reflect the effectiveness of earned media; instead it shows that paid media has been far better at attributing its results to company objectives and illustrating its value to an organisation.
This year new technological advances, including Cision software, will allow communicators to begin to attribute value to their work and earn their fair share of the marketing budget.
More brands will need to take a stance – for better or worse
Social media has evolved public discourse to the point where people and organisations are expected to speak out on the social issues affecting the world today. As seen last year, brands have to take a stance on social issues in order to satisfy consumers who expect them to stand for something.
Given that brands have traditionally shied away from commenting on social issues, the result of their forays into social commentary so far has been mixed.
Earned media practitioners will continue to harness video content to power their stories in 2018.
A survey by video company Animoto found that four times as many consumers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it. As such, earned media professionals need to produce engaging video content to maximise the impact of their campaigns.
As video content continues to proliferate across a variety of platforms, communicators will need to ensure that they tailor their videos to each platform they use to appeal to the different audiences they are trying to reach.
Communicators will need to plan for how these four aspects of earned media will affect their work in 2018. To find out how you can take advantage of these trends, enter your details into the form below and download ‘Four trends that will shape PR and earned media in 2018’.
Gemma Hart, a former Sanofi and SAB Miller comms leader, has joined Ruder Finn UK as its head of internal communications.
She will lead Rudder Finn’s internal comms team and deliver a unified global proposition around the agency’s proprietary internal customer experience (ICX) methodology.
Hart was previously Sanofi’s head of internal communications for UK and Ireland. She was responsible for re-establishing the pharmaceutical giant’s internal comms and corporate social responsibilities strategies and engaging 1,700 colleagues across seven sites.
Before that, she was SABMiller’s interim group leadership communications and engagement manager and led the activation of its first global employee engagement programme.
She has also held senior communications roles for GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and London Ambulance Service.
“Internal communications is a vital and growing part of our business,” said Nick Leonard, Ruder Finn’s UK managing director. “With Gemma’s experience and drive, I know we can accelerate our progress and take our global proposition to the next level.”
Hart added: “I’m passionate about helping leaders engage their people to drive behaviour change, and with ICX we have a really neat way of standing in both employees’ and business leaders’ shoes to create experiences that will drive business performance.”
Full Circle Communications has recruited Matt Beasley, a former Lloyd’s of London media relations manager, as a director within its insurance and financial services consultancy.
Beasley joins Full Circle from FWD, where he was an account director for three years. He has also worked at the Institute of Financial Services and Centrica across specialities including education, B2B and consumer PR.
With a career spanning 18 years, Beasley has experience in international PR, national campaign management and crisis communications.
“Matt’s reputation, expertise and impressive track record in the London insurance market adds further breadth and depth to our capabilities,” said Alex Wise, director at Full Circle. “His arrival is an important milestone in Full Circle’s continuing expansion.”
Beasley added: “I am pleased to be joining Full Circle and to bring my market insight and experience to further strengthen the impactful, reputation-led corporate communications campaigns clients expect from the consultancy.”
Emily Luscombe, a former deputy MD of Bell Pottinger’s Engage division, has joined Golin as deputy managing director in its London office.
Reporting to Bibi Hilton, Golin’s London MD, Luscombe will oversee the agency’s corporate, B2B and technology teams and be responsible for its key operations.
Prior to joining Golin, Luscombe oversaw Bell Pottinger’s employee engagement programmes and led key client relationships for the firm in sectors including financial services, industrials and the built environment.
Golin’s former head of corporate, Nick Bishop, is moving to the newly created role of head of corporate strategy. He will oversee strategic consultancy, corporate narrative development and reputation management services for key Golin clients.
“Emily is a highly respected and experienced leader,” said Hilton. “Her combination of deep knowledge in the fields of corporate and B2B comms along with hands-on experience of building and leading integrated teams will play a key role in driving further growth and award-winning work in 2018.”
Luscombe added: “Golin is doing inspirational work that is really pushing the boundaries of communications – and are rightfully getting widespread recognition for it. I’m delighted to have the opportunity to work with Bibi and the leadership team to help them build on this further.”
The strategic comms agency will work closely with the bank’s senior management to develop and implement an ongoing external comms programme. Its account team will be led by founding partner Gay Collins.
The appointment comes as Panmure expands its service offering under new chief executive Ian Axe.
Collins said: “Panmure Gordon has a great heritage and is at a fascinating stage in its development. Since going private, the business has embarked on a significant programme of growth and we are only at the beginning of what is sure to be an exciting road ahead.
“We look forward to helping Panmure Gordon articulate the leadership team’s compelling new vision.”
Juliana Wheeler, head of marketing and communications at Panmure Gordon, added: “The Panmure Gordon team is delighted to appoint Montfort. We were impressed by Montfort’s grasp of our new vision as well as its understanding of the opportunities and challenges our business faces.
“We look forward to working with the Montfort team as we build our business.”
The agency emerged victorious after it, and eight others, had four hours to devise a campaign for food redistribution charity FareShare before presenting their ideas to assembled judges and audience members. Live experience agency Ignis was awarded second place, while Mischief PR, which has won the Shootout in the past, took third.
Raw London will now work with the charity to implement its ‘Any shape – any size’ campaign between May and September. It will receive a £250,000 digital media spending boost from one of the event’s official partners; premium publisher cooperative 1XL, as well as £30,000 in fees from FareShare.
Launch PR’s Johnny Pitt, founder of the Creative Shootout, said: “The Creative Shootout is the most raw and real creative show and award in the UK. Every finalist team deserves to be called out for brave and inspiring performances, with just four hours prep time. We saw some stunning creative work tonight. The UK creative industry is truly alive and well.”
Lindsay Boswell, CEO of FareShare, added: “What a night and Raw London’s campaign will make a massive difference to us in 2018 as we look to treble volunteer numbers in the UK.”
Picture credit: Andrew Porter Commercial Photography
3 Monkeys Zeno outlines how it partnered with Radio One DJ Scott Mills to bring the Met Office’s sun safety message to new audiences and drive downloads of its weather app.
Campaign: Met Office: Who do you trust? Client: Met Office PR Team: 3 Monkeys Zeno (Adam Clatworthy, Chris Bull, Christine Jewell) Timing: July 2017 Budget: Under £50k
Summary
The Met Office has always been the go-to provider of weather forecasts as the UK’s national weather service, but weather forecasting is an area disrupted by new entrants. So, how do we remind the public that no-one knows British weather better?
We devised a summer awareness campaign – Who Do You Trust? – to reach new audiences, spread an important safety message and drive downloads of The Met Office’s new app.
Objectives
Research showed that the two most important elements of a weather forecast to the public are accuracy and usefulness. The summer campaign needed to address these two consumer demands, while also:
Reaching a new, younger audience
Driving downloads of the new Met Office mobile app
Encouraging daily use of the Met Office app or website for the most accurate forecasts
Positioning the Met Office as the expert weather authority
Strategy
For the “usefulness” strand of this campaign, we commissioned research among our core target audience – parents with children aged 11 and under – to investigate their understanding of the dangers of UV.
Leading with the startling finding that over a third of parents believe that suntans on children are a sign of good health, we packaged and pitched the story to national, regional and lifestyle media in June – when UV levels in the UK rise.
To promote the accuracy of the Met Office’s forecasts, we polled the UK public to reveal how many people believe in different weather myths and uncovered the UK’s favourite alternative forecasting methods. We then debunked these myths, reinforcing the message that the Met Office is the forecaster you can really trust.
Implementation
We positioned the Met Office as the expert weather authority, partnering with the NHS and BritMums to increase awareness. We also co-authored content with vloggers The Youngs, and baby product retailer Gro Company, which are trusted by mothers of young children.
We developed a range of content, including illustrated storybook-style animations, adverts for the Met Office app, display advertising and infographics. All materials included a call to action to encourage parents to check UV levels regularly on the Met Office mobile app and take action to protect their families with a safer approach to UV.
Collaborating with Radio One DJ Scott Mills (who our insight showed resonated with our younger audience of 18–34 year-olds), we created a series of short videos with Met Office meteorologist Clare Nasir, debunking the popular weather myths.
We packaged up the research results and videos and launched to the media, while also sharing the content through social channels. The research findings were used as a hook for a broadcast day featuring British meteorologist Clare Nasir to drive awareness with the radio audience.
Results
The campaign delivered 24,832 app downloads at a cost of £0.31 per download, as well as 30 million hashtag impressions and 235 news articles.
It reached over 750 million people, garnering coverage in The Times,The Telegraph, The Sun, Daily Mail, Cosmopolitan, Country Living and Good Housekeeping. It also generated discussion on BBC Breakfast, ITV’s This Morning and Sky News, marking the first time the Met Office has secured coverage on these key morning TV shows.
Internally, the coverage and success of the campaigns created a positive buzz with Met Office employees right through the summer months, driving pride in the organisation.
Here’s our round-up of essential PR news stories and features from the past week, including an interview with olive’s Laura Rowe, account wins for Red Lorry Yellow Lorry and William Murray, and new appointments at WPR.
MHP Communications has been appointed as the retained financial PR adviser to Benchmark Holdings, an aquaculture health, nutrition and genetics business, following a competitive pitch.
Payment technology provider NOMO has enlisted fintech PR and marketing agency Foco to create its B2B content, following a competitive pitch.
Lansons is providing investment platform provider IntegraFin Holdings Limited with comms support for its intended admission to the London Stock Exchange.
KNect365 has selected Red Lorry Yellow Lorry to provide PR support for its connected entertainment event TV Connect. The agency will aim to strengthen the event’s profile in the media, telecoms and technology space.
Fruit juice machine provider Zummo London has appointed William Murray Communications to handle its PR and comms. The agency will help Zummo to facilitate engagement with the premium hotel and cocktail markets.
Events and fashion brand Candypants has selected JPR Media to raise awareness for both its events and fashion arms, as well as secure profile opportunities for founder Ray Chan.
Agency news
Good Relations has launched Good Live, a live brand experiences division, with former Taylor Herring staffer Kat Day at the helm.
John Brown, Hotwire’s former group head of engagement, has set up comms consultancy Don’t Cry Wolf. The consultancy will work with “straight-talking” brands to help build affinity with their audiences, providing services around brand strategy, creative and training.
Buckinghamshire-based agency Nobull Communications has launched a new tech division; Nobull Tech. The agency’s new arm will specialise in communicating technological advances to consumers in a “human” way.
People news
MWWPR has appointed Jessie Allen as an associate director in its London office. Allen will help the agency to expand its media and entertainment portfolio, strengthening its B2B, consumer and corporate offering in the sectors.
Creative comms consultancy The Playbook has appointed Andrew Baiden as its new managing director. Baiden will oversee a 10-strong team looking after clients in the sport, technology and consumer sectors.
Newsline PR has appointed former The Sun and News of the World chief sports correspondent Rob Beasley as a PR account manager.Beasley will work with the Newsline team to produce content for all of the agency’s clients.
WPR has made four new hires following its continued growth. Kirstie Jones is appointed social media manager, Sasha Danzey-Smith joins as account executive and Dean Taylor and Lorna Ricketts are hired as graduate account executives.
Media relations is far from dead, Eulogy MD Lis Field argued in this week’s Cision webinar. In fact, it’s more important than ever.
While some might view the rise of influencer marketing as a threat to traditional PR and media relations, she said that it’s actually a huge advantage.
“All of a sudden, we have a much wider toolbox which we can dip into,” she said. “I’m really grateful to be working in this world now, given all the changes that have gone on.”
“If you can crack social media and influencers, it’s a win-win,” agreed David Frossman, head of media at W. “These influencers, in the influencer age that we live in, are a new media platform that we should integrate into our overall campaigns.”
This webinar, moderated by Cision’s Philip Smith, explored how the latest trends can help you create a media relations strategy that delivers results in 2018 and beyond.
Media relations is becoming influencer relations
The scope of media relations may be broadening, but Frossman and Field agreed the same core techniques still form the basis of every great PR strategy.
“Media relations just got broader,” said Frossman. “We need to apply the soft selling skills we have developed through a career of working with media influencers to the broader influencer environment and understand the nuances between working with journalists backed by media brands versus bloggers and vloggers.”
He argued that media relations professionals should be involved at the earliest stages of campaign planning and should own how assets are handled outside the social environment.
Communicators must know the whole media inside out
It goes without saying that a media relations professional should know the media inside out. But with that landscape becoming increasingly fragmented, keeping your finger on the pulse has never been tougher.
“It’s about investment on your side, and that means consuming lots of media and following journalists on social,” said Frossman. “[It means knowing] what makes them tick, understanding how their day operates, understanding when they have to go into conference.”
He added: “You can kind of of second guess when someone might be fishing around for stories, because it’s usually the day before they have to deliver something to their editor’s office.”
There’s no substitute for a personal relationship
Both experts agreed there’s no substitute for developing personal relationships with your media contacts. Showing journalists they can trust you is essential if your story is going to stand out from the thousands of others they receive.
“If you don’t know them personally, then why on Earth should they trust you?” asked Field. “They have a massive job to do and not enough time to do it.”
“What you’ve got to do, in a more practical sense, is sell the best thing you’ve got to make yourself seem more important,” added Frossman. “Use anything you can to get them out for coffee.”
Target coverage that contributes to business objectives
Field ended her presentation by warning PR professionals against targeting coverage for its own sake. To stay relevant, communicators must show that their work is raising awareness, safeguarding reputations and driving revenue for their clients.
“We don’t just think about whether we can get some media coverage, or whether we can get some cuttings for a client,” she explained. “It has to work to drive a business objective.”
She concluded: “If your client is demanding you simply double the number of cuttings for the next campaign, you really need to get new clients.”
