Page 13 – Gorkana

PR Case Study: TVC Group – Farm Safety Week

June 20, 2018/in PR Case Studies /by Alister Houghton

TVC Group helped the Farm Safety Foundation to promote Farm Safety Week and raised awareness of the impact farm accidents can have on farmers and their families.

Campaign: Farm Safety Week
Client: Farm Safety Foundation
PR Team: TVC Group
Timing: July 2017
Budget: £10,000

Summary

The Farm Safety Foundation wanted to raise awareness of its brand and get its message about the importance of farm safety onto the national news agenda.

The charity manages Farm Safety Week, an annual campaign held each July to highlight the importance of protecting farmers and farm workers and ensure they make safety a priority. The industry currently accounts for almost 20% of all workplace fatalities in the UK.

Objectives

Boost awareness of the Farm Safety Foundation and Farm Safety Week among farmers aged 18-29 beyond the 69% recorded in the July 2016 Farm Safety Tracker.
Positively impact the percentage of farmers who say the way they behave around the farm has been changed ‘somewhat’ or ‘a lot’ by the campaign.
Generate national media coverage, with a particular focus on TV. TVC’s coverage targets included 10-15 online pieces, 10-15 radio pieces, 2-4 national pieces and 2-4 TV pieces.
Ensure that 85% of coverage included a farm safety message.
Generate a minimum of 10,000 organic film views.
Engage 250,000 Facebook users over two weeks.

Strategy and implementation

Farm Safety Foundation has used different approaches and messages over the years to achieve varying degrees of success, so the tone and narrative of this campaign was crucial. Farmers do not want to be preached to, so anything perceived as ‘finger-wagging’ would alienate them.

The charity’s annual Farm Safety Tracker research revealed that many young farmers have grown up learning risky behaviours and, in most cases, are not taught to associate these with accidents. The strategy therefore was to use ‘real life’ examples to showcase other farming families – just like theirs – where risk-taking has led to accidents.

Arable farmer James Chapman, the foundation’s farm safety ambassador, became the star of the campaign. Chapman lost his left arm while working with farm machinery in his early 20s.

The campaign’s centrepiece was a video starring Chapman. Shot in documentary style on his farm in Warwickshire, the film features Chapman reciting a poem (written by TVC’s creative content director) entitled Who Would Fill Your Boots?, about life as a farmer and who would carry on the work if he was gone.

TVC created three pieces of content with a clear call-to-action: a 15-second teaser of the film, a 30-second social media edit and the full ‘hero’ version. The agency developed a distribution plan to seed the films across editorial – hitting key sites like Mail Online and The Drum – and social media.

The Farm Safety Foundation promoted the campaign heavily across its Yellow Wellies Facebook page, with audience insights illustrating that the majority of young farmers, aged 18-40, were more active on Facebook when compared to other social media channels.

The team also developed a media programme for comedian Al Murray, a Farm Safety Foundation ambassador who has first-hand experience of a farming accident. TVC secured interviews for Murray with Sky News Sunrise (which ran twice), BBC Radio Five Live, Radio 4’s Farming Today and Metro’s 60 Seconds With.

A story using shocking headline-grabbing statistics showing that farming remains one of the country’s most hazardous industries, accounting for 1.5% of workers but 20% of all worker fatalities, was designed to drive print coverage.

Results

The 2017 Farm Safety Week campaign either matched or exceeded all of the Farm Safety Foundation’s initial targets.

Awareness: Recognition of the Farm Safety Foundation and/or Farm Safety Week increased by 8% to 76% among the youngest farmers (aged 18-29), according to Farm Safety Tracker results from July 2017.

Behaviour Change: When asked as part of the 2017 Farm Safety Tracker how the campaign has changed the way they behave around the farm, 65% of farmers said ‘somewhat’ and 24% said ‘a lot’.

Coverage: The campaign secured 103 pieces of print, TV, radio and online coverage on national sites and titles to reach a primary audience of farming and rural communities, as well as the wider secondary audience. The coverage breakdown was as follows: 12 online pieces, 77 radio pieces, two national print pieces and 12 TV pieces.

Messaging: All coverage contained messaging around farm safety.

Facebook engagement: In two weeks, the Facebook campaign engaged 580,640 users who were involved in farming or agriculture – more than double the objective. It generated 981,102 social media impressions.

Brand film views: The film captured significant attention from both the media and general public, clocking up 86,000 organic views in the first 24 hours – eight times the original objective. Paid spend of £1,000 added another 234,593 views, leading to a total of 321,201 views.

Client testimonial

Stephanie Berkeley, Farm Safety Foundation specialist, said: “With the help of TVC, we have taken this campaign from a five country social media-led campaign to a fully integrated comms campaign… and something that will continue to gather momentum and create behavioural change in the industry. We could never have achieved this without TVC.”

Pictured: James Chapman

PR news round-up (11-15 June)

June 18, 2018/in Industry News /by Solomon Radley

Here’s a round-up of last week’s biggest PR news – featuring CNBC‘s Arjun Kharpal, new hires at The Lucre Group and highlights from the 2018 AMEC summit.

AMEC Summit 2018

Industry leaders showcased the innovations set to revolutionise PR measurement at the 10th AMEC Global Summit in Barcelona.

AMEC unveiled a brand new resource to help PR professionals build impactful measurement programmes.

Cision celebrated a golden evening at the 2018 AMEC Awards, and took home a combined 12 prizes, including four Gold awards.

Thought leadership

CNBC's Arjun Kharpal: Tailor your pitch to different outlets

Cision’s Cheryl Douglas interviews CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal

Tailoring your pitch and avoiding blanket emails are the best ways to capture a journalist’s attention, CNBC International tech correspondent Arjun Kharpal said at last week’s PR Week’sCrisis Communications Conference.

Account wins

Karol Marketing has won a brief to provide media and communications support to Great Exhibition of the North this summer, following a competitive pitch.

Gala Leisure has appointed Borkowski and Goodstuff Communications to deliver the comms and media strategy for the relaunch of its Buzz Bingo brand.

Talker Tailor Trouble Maker has won a brief to handle all marketing and PR for Burger & Lobster. The agency will be responsible for new food, restaurant launches, in-restaurant events and the brand’s partnership with Deliveroo.

UI specialist User Conversion has appointed Jam to drive positive awareness of its conversion rate optimisation process, following a three-way pitch.

Quintain, the property company behind Wembley Park, has appointed Four Communications to implement a B2C comms strategy that highlights the park’s regeneration.

Promote PR adds British Wheelchair Basketball to its roster of sports clients

British Wheelchair Basketball has appointed Promote PR to grow the sport’s audience, attract new participants and raise the profile of the British teams’ journey to the 2018 World Championships.

Investment industry specialist JPES Partners has been appointed to provide asset manager Muzinich & Co with UK and pan-European media relations services.

Hair vitamin company Sugarbearhair has appointed Push PR to handle its UK PR.

Investment manager Wealthsimple has hired Pagefield to lead its UK PR. The agency has been briefed to amplify the firm’s communications and make investing “more accessible to everyone”.

OppoSuits has retained Frank as its UK PR agency following a trial Christmas campaign. Frank will drive brand visibility and engagement for the brand through brand activations, proactive media relations and influencer campaigns.

Skincare, bath, body and home fragrance brand AromaWorks has appointed RKM Communications to manage its UK and global social media accounts.

Financial derivatives software company OpenGamma has appointed Aspectus to deliver its UK communications programme. The brief spans messaging, media relations and media training.

Luxury fashion accessories brand Bamford London has selected Clementine Communications to handle media relations for Bamford London Mayfair Watches and Bamford London Accessories.

Supply chain logistics specialist SCALA has appointed PR Agency One to boost its reputation and help it achieve its international growth plans.

Children’s Heart Surgery Fund has enlisted Wolfstar to develop a campaign to persuade existing and potential donors to leave the charity a gift in their will.

Genetic Disorders UK has appointed The PHA Group to support its annual fundraising campaign, Jeans for Genes Day, in 2018.

People news

Shanker Singham

Huntsworth PR Group has recruited competition lawyer Shanker Singham as a senior adviser to develop its Brexit and trade offering. The group includes Grayling, Citigate Dewe Rogerson and Quiller.

Digital design and UI agency This Place has appointed Daria Gerasimova as UK PR manager to lead its communications and social media activities.

Stir has appointed Sophie Hayes as associate director. She will work across the agency’s portfolio of food, drink and FMCG clients.

Healthcare specialist Publicis Resolute has promoted Emma Knott to associate director and head of social media.

Healthcare comms agency ROAD has appointed Sarah Winterbottom as senior director to provide senior counsel to clients and drive growth in key sectors.

The Lucre Group has hired Grace Wood as senior account director and Ryan Lewis as account director. it has also promoted Janine Clark to director of culture and reputation.

Agency news

The Foundry founder Kevin Murphy, Wm Grant & Sons Australia founding MD Brian Sharp and experienced creative director Steve Yelland have launched J44, a strategic brand consultancy. It will have hubs in Manchester, Harrogate and Edingburgh.

LEWIS has pledged to support Tech She Can, an industry charter created to increase the number of women working in technology.

CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal: Tailor your pitch to different outlets

June 15, 2018/in Features /by Alister Houghton

Tailoring your pitch and avoiding blanket emails are the best way to capture a journalist’s attention, CNBC International technology correspondent Arjun Kharpal revealed at PR Week’s Crisis Communications Conference.

Speaking to Cheryl Douglas, Cision’s head of media research and jobs, Kharpal said that out of the 50 or 60 pitches he receives daily, he only looks at five as the others are irrelevant.

“It’s a waste of everyone’s time,” Kharpal said. “The PR involved, the company involved and myself as well. It goes back to the point of tailoring the message and understanding the journalist.

“From when I was training to be a journalist I’ve always asked myself ‘who cares?’ when thinking about stories. If I can’t answer that immediately, then no one cares.”

Understand what works for different platforms

Citing the differences in CNBC’s output, Kharpal emphasised that PRs needed to know how outlets would cover stories differently for each of their various platforms.

He noted that CNBC’s television output was very “loud and colourful” in order make stories interesting to its audience, whereas its online output has a very different tone.

“Understanding those different platforms and actually how certain stories can be tailored to certain platforms is key now,” he said.

Don’t tell a journalist they’re wrong

Moving onto the subject of crisis communications, Kharpal said that the times where he has had disagreements with PRs is when they have asked to him change a headline or something in a story they didn’t like because of the tone.

He commented: “I’ve had a lot of times where someone has told me that I’m wrong. The only time we will issue a correction or clarification is if it is factually incorrect. If you don’t like the tone or the headline, we don’t care.”

Kharpal warned: “If you keep pushing on making those changes, that will kill a relationship with a journalist.”

Reacting quickly in a crisis

Referencing the recent revelations on Facebook and Cambridge Analytica, Kharpal explained to his audience of crisis comms professionals that if a company does not provide accurate information quickly, others will fill the void with speculative information.

“There was so much confusion,” he noted. “First it was a hack, then it was a breach, then it was people having their data stolen, then they didn’t have it stolen. Figures started at 56 million people, then it was 87 million people.”

He added: “The best way I’ve found for companies to deal with a crisis like that is to be honest, be quick and to put your leadership up front as soon as possible, as it’s on their heads.”

Snapchat pitching didn’t work

Kharpal was one of the first journalists to ask comms professionals to send him pitches over Snapchat. However, he said he found the pitches he did receive to be a mixed bag.

“It was an experiment to see if it would at least work in order to cut down the number of emails I get,” he explained. “It was not as good as I hoped it would be.”

He added: “There are some stories which can’t be fully described by an email or a phone call, sometimes it needs some visuals. Something like ‘we’ve got this cool new product, check out what it does, have a look on my Snapchat or Instagram story’ would work.”

Picture credit: Julian Dodd

Cision celebrates a golden night at the AMEC Awards

Cision celebrates a golden night at the 2018 AMEC Awards

June 15, 2018/in Industry News /by Alister Houghton

It was a golden night for Cision at last night’s AMEC Awards, as its companies took home a combined 12 prizes, including four Gold awards.

Cision achieved a sweep of the Best measurement of a consumer campaign and Best use of a measurement framework, winning Gold, Silver and Bronze awards in the categories for its work with Slimming World, Kellogg’s, Gumtree and Mischief PR.

Its work on Slimming World’s New Year Campaign also secured a Gold Award for Best use of integrated communication measurement/research, while PRIME Research – acquired by Cision – was awarded Gold in the plain English award for simplicity in campaign effectiveness measurement and reporting for its work on McDonald’s International McDelivery Rollout.

PRIME’s work with Airbus on its Using Insights to Navigate Through Difficulties project earned it two Silver gongs, while Cision’s work with Bulletin Intelligence’s AccuReach Data Science Project earned a Bronze.

Abe Smith, president, EMIA, Cision, said: “It has never been more important for communicators to be able to demonstrate the value of their work. At Cision we pride ourselves on providing our customers with the measurement and insights to show ROI on their campaigns and I am ecstatic that the AMEC Awards panel has recognised the fantastic analysis we have produced for our clients.

“Our collection of awards is a real cause for celebration and recognises the great work produced by the insight teams at both Cision and PRIME.”

Jenny Caven, head of external relations for Slimming World, added: “Working with Cision to implement the Integrated Evaluation Framework was a watershed moment for us. It has enabled us to focus on what really matters: understanding how our earned media strategy is maximising the quality of media exposure across multiple channels and how this is changing audience perception and contributing to growing membership.

“I’m delighted to have been able to share our measurement journey with the audience at this year’s AMEC summit in Barcelona. Going on to win further AMEC awards for the second year in a row in 2018 demonstrates that the continued work with Cision in our use and implementation of the Framework is recognised.”

(l-r) Cision’s Spenser Cullum, Viktoriya Trifonova and Grace Potter

The full list of Cision and PRIME Research award wins is as follows:

Best measurement of a consumer campaign – Gold for Slimming World’s New Year Campaign, Silver for Gumtree and Bronze for Kellogg’s: Better Starts
Best use of integrated communication measurement/research – Gold for Slimming World’s New Year Campaign and Bronze for Gumtree
Best use of a measurement framework – Gold for Kellogg’s: Better Starts, Silver with Mischief PR for This Girl Can: A triumphant ‘second album’ and Bronze for Slimming World’s New Year Campaign
Plain English award for simplicity in campaign effectiveness measurement and reporting – Gold for McDonald’s International McDelivery Rollout
Innovation award for new measurement methodologies – Bronze for Bulletin Intelligence AccuReach Data Science Project
Best measurement of a business to business campaign – Silver for Airbus: Using Insights to Navigate Through Difficulties
Best multi-market reporting – Silver for Airbus: Using Insights to Navigate Through Difficulties

The AMEC Awards is the largest awards scheme of its type for communications measurement and insights and concludes the annual AMEC summit.

A full list of winners can be found here.

AMEC unveils its ‘Measurement Maturity Mapper’ in Barcelona

June 14, 2018/in News Analysis /by Orla Graham

AMEC unveiled a brand new resource to help PR professionals build impactful measurement programmes today at its annual Barcelona summit.

The ‘Measurement Maturity Mapper’ was introduced to the world in a hands-on workshop with Cision’s Paul Hender, FleishmanHillard’s Ben Levine, Survey Solutions’ Colin Wheeler and Impact Research & Measurement’s Aseem Sood.

Once launched, this interactive online tool will show companies how they compare to others in their sector and the industry at large. It will then provide communicators with guidance on how best to improve their PR measurement practices.

In today’s session, the panel shared the results of a pilot survey, which has formed the basis of the new tool.

This pilot survey indicates that most PR teams are doing a good job of measuring helpful metrics and using them to plan their campaigns. But it seems they are lagging behind when it comes to tying these results to business results and demonstrating real business impact.

It’s hoped this ‘measurement mapper’ will drive conversations and provide clear guidance for PR professionals, even in the early stages of its development.

Making the case for PR and comms investment

One of the key themes at this year’s AMEC summit has been driving cultural change within organisations to use PR and comms data to demonstrate the discipline’s business impact and inform organisational decisions.

As such, the measurement mapper is also intended to provide case studies and recommendations about how to drive management changes – both downwards and upwards within an organisation.

The pilot survey results illustrate the need for this. Proving business impact is the area where respondents general had the most room for improvement, indicating that this is one of the biggest hurdles for clients.

To finalise the tool, AMEC will now refine the measurement mapper survey, continue analysing the data, build the interactive tool and develop supporting case studies to accompany the resource.

To discover how to enhance your measurement practices with this new AMEC tool, click here now and register for this month’s Cision webinar. In it, Paul Hender, Ben Levine and Colin Wheeler will outline how to take your PR measurement to the next level.

AMEC summit showcases the future of PR measurement

June 14, 2018/in News Analysis /by Barnaby Barron

Industry leaders showcased the innovations set to revolutionise PR measurement at the 10th AMEC Global Summit in Barcelona this week.

This annual summit has provided many of the key tools that communication evaluators depend on today, such as the Barcelona Principles and the AMEC measurement framework, and 2018’s event was no different.

The first day keynote included a ‘state of the industry’ debate with experts from the communications evaluation space. Ketchum Global Research chairman David Rockland and AMEC chairman Richard Bagnall began by outlining the journey the industry has been on over the last 10 years, including AMEC’s campaign to do away with vanity metrics like AVE.

In 2008, 80% of surveyed communicators regularly used AVEs to measure and report on the success of their communications. Today, Bagnall and Rockland say that number has dropped to just 14%.

This great achievement naturally raises a question: what next? What metrics will communicators use to demonstrate the return on investment that communications generates in the future? How can PR professionals go beyond the quantitative and qualitative metrics regularly used to measure brand reputation today?

To answer these questions, PR Week’s Danny Rogers moderated a panel of industry leaders as they discussed the insights, innovations and integration initiatives driving the future of comms evaluation.

Alex Aiken, the UK government’s comms director, and Cision president EMIA Abe Smith agreed that the future of the industry depends on achieving further integration between AI, automation and human driven-insights. Smith highlighted the forthcoming Cision innovations that will lead the way in this field.

He demonstrated how Cision Impact shows communicators the exact number of people their earned news content reaches. Clients can then go further and see detailed demographic data for that audience – including age, gender, salary and location. You can even track the ultimate outcome for each of the those people to see how many went on to buy your products or services.

The PR industry has come a long way in the last 10 years. But as some industry leaders said yesterday, that journey is over – and the future starts now!

This cloud comms breakthrough will change earned media

This ‘cloud comms’ breakthrough will change PR forever

June 13, 2018/in Resources /by Solomon Radley

What you’re about to see will change the way your business does PR and comms forever. But what will really surprise you is how simple it is.

You see, lots of communications teams still depend on a wide range of disparate tools to handle the various tasks they perform each day. They’ll have a database of media contacts, a press release distribution platform, an array of analysis tools and more besides.

These tools generally aren’t designed to work together. And managing campaigns effectively across all of them can be a real headache.

That’s why we created the Cision Communications Cloud®. It combines the very latest earned media technology into a single cloud-based platform – making it easy to design, implement and manage world-class comms initiatives.

But that’s not what’s so revolutionary about this first-of-its-kind comms platform. Because it also gives you the tools to directly measure the business contributions and returns your campaigns deliver – so you can make the case for greater investment in PR and comms.

Go beyond monitoring to measure the true value of your earned media coverage

Monitoring your earned media coverage is essential for understanding its reach and seeing what people are saying about your brand. But it’s not sufficient on its own.

So, the Cision Communications Cloud starts by automatically tracking your coverage across print, digital and social channels:

It makes it easy to engage with your audience online and listen to media channels to uncover trending topics.
It lets you analyse earned media sentiment, so you can clearly see how perceptions of your brand are changing over time.
You can even conduct valuable competitor analysis by comparing this information against your rivals’ earned media coverage.

But that’s just a taste of what’s possible with this groundbreaking earned media technology – because the best communicators go beyond monitoring to measure the true value of their comms programmes.

To compete in today’s media environment, what you really need is to measure the business impact of your media initiatives.

Track customer behaviour with unrivalled accuracy and transform your earned media programs

To optimise your campaigns, you need to know which ones are generating the best results. Insight is the key to increasing your earned media success, influencing your target audience and building business for your brand.

So, the Cision Communications Cloud does more than show you which outlets are driving traffic to your website. It reveals the exact demand generation results and revenue your activities deliver.

These are the same insights that have fuelled rapid expansion in the paid and owned media industries in recent years. Now, with the Cision Communications Cloud, they could soon be doing the same for your business.

With it, you’ll be able to see how effectively your campaigns are generating media coverage, increasing your share of voice and driving sales. What’s more, you’ll have the tools to attribute sales to specific pieces of coverage.

Finally, you can bring your comms up to date and create a detailed picture of the value of earned media for company stakeholders.

This post is an extract from Cision’s new white paper, Why it’s time for CMOs to embrace PR and comms. Enter your details into the form below now to claim your copy.

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Opinion: The comms challenges posed by shareholder activism

June 12, 2018/in PR Tips /by Guest Contributor

Geoff Serednesky, managing director at FTI Consulting, considers the rise of shareholder activism in the UK and the opportunities and risks it creates for comms professionals.

Shareholder activism – the practice of taking a position in a public company stock to influence corporate direction and unlock shareholder value – has become an increasingly hot topic for journalists and comms professionals, with some activism escalating to multi-million dollar proxy fights.

The practice has grown significantly in the US over the past decade, and was expected to experience a similar growth trajectory in the UK and Europe. Instead, the number of UK activism campaigns remained relatively low for years. That is, until they skyrocketed by more than 80% between 2015 and 2016, with this momentum continuing into 2017 and 2018.

The US market has experienced steady growth over a much longer period, with an uptick of only 2% over the past two years. The sudden increase in UK activism campaigns is primarily attributed to a surge in both ESG (environmental, social and governance) activism and ‘US style’ hedge fund activism.

In 2018, we are seeing increased scrutiny of excessive executive pay and support for gender diversity among boards. Two well-known activist firms – Elliott Management Corporation and Sachem Head Capital Management – have led recent UK campaigns and are positioned to be key players going forwards.

Initiatives such as the Stewardship Code (introduced in 2010, revised in 2012 and due to be revised again in 2018) have successfully spurred a far greater level of engagement between institutional shareholders and boards of directors.

Institutional investors are increasingly engaging with companies and supporting activists in their efforts to do the same. Companies that do not have consistent and meaningful dialogue with their investors run the greatest risk of attracting activist campaigns.

Headline-grabbing campaigns in the UK are usually run by event-driven hedge funds and alternative investors. These operational and financial campaigns commonly push for board representation, mergers and acquisitions, or changes to the management team.

Additionally, traditional institutional investors and asset managers, who were once reliable supporters of the status quo in British boardrooms, have begun publicly siding with activist investors. This change effectively demonstrates their willingness to oppose the incumbent board in controversial takeovers or other campaigns.

Looking ahead, it’s critical for comms professionals to maintain a pulse on shareholder activism and governance trends and consider evaluating the risks and opportunities for the companies they represent.

PR news round-up (4-8 June)

June 11, 2018/in Industry News /by Solomon Radley

Here’s a round-up of last week’s biggest PR news – featuring the CIPR Excellence Awards, new appointments at Quill PR and how PR measurement saves lives.