PR Case Study: Sending Innis & Gunn IPA to India

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To launch Innis & Gunn’s new India Pale Ale, Manifest London sent a hitchhiker on a gruelling 5,000 mile journey from Edinburgh to India, using only the Scottish brewer’s latest beer as currency.  

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Manny Marshall hitchhiked a 5,000-mile journey from Innis & Gunn’s Edinburgh home to New Delhi in India.

Campaign: Sending Innis & Gunn IPA to India
Client: Innis & Gunn
PR Team: Manifest London
Timing: August – October 2016
Budget: £4,000

Objectives

Scottish craft brewer, Innis & Gunn, tasked Manifest with launching its new India Pale Ale (IPA) cans. With IPAs having a recent surge in popularity, Manifest had to do something that would set Innis & Gunn’s new brew aside from the rest in the category, while raising overall awareness of the brand.

The core objectives were simple:

  • Launch Innis & Gunn IPA to the media and the public
  • Drive people to the Innis & Gunn online shop to purchase
  • Build overall brand awareness of Innis & Gunn
  • Continue to establish and engage with Innis & Gunn’s social communities

Strategy

IPAs may have recently come back into popularity but few people (even the craft beer scenesters) know of its rich backstory. The first IPAs date back to the late 1700s when beer was sent from England to the British Empire in the east. This gruelling journey would take six-months at a time, so extra hops were added to the brew to act as a preservative and flavouring, and to ensure the beer survived the journey.

Manifest recognised the opportunity to educate the public about this newly popular beer type, while creating a story that put Innis & Gunn’s own IPA front and centre.

To pay homage to the original IPAs, Manifest enlisted the help of seasoned traveller, Manny Marshall, and tasked him with hitchhiking the 5,000-mile journey from the brewer’s Edinburgh home to New Delhi in India.

With just a backpack full of clothes and a tent, Manny had six-weeks to make the journey. His currency? Cans of Innis & Gunn IPA of course, which were dropped off for her at various pubs and bars across his route for him to trade for food, travel and accommodation throughout his journey.

The trip took Manny across France, Australia, Germany, Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Greece. To avoid the volatile regions in the Middle East, Innis & Gunn flew Mr Marshall from Athens to the coastal city of Mumbai for him to complete the final 900 miles to Delhi.

Manny kept the public updated on his journey via regular updates on the Innis & Gunn blog and social media profiles, using #IPAtoIndia as his hashtag to garner words of encouragement and offers of help from the public.

His journey saw him share a beer with a newlywed couple posing for pictures on Prague’s famous Charles Bridge, drink at the steps of the 2,500-year-old Acropolis in Athens and hitch a ride on a tuk-tuk in Mumbai. Manny’s journey ended yesterday with a final sip of IPA underneath the iconic India Gate in Delhi.

Results

Outputs:

  • 17 blog posts live on the Innis & Gunn blog documenting Manny’s adventures
  • 23 pieces of coverage – nine of which were nationals
  • Total OTS of over 250million
  • 210k reach on Facebook and 52,996 impressions on Twitter

Outcomes:

  • 8% increase in brand mentions amongst our social audience throughout campaign duration
  • 17,320 click-throughs to the Innis & Gunn website
  • 2,000 click-throughs to the Innis & Gunn shop

Got a cracking campaign – with impressive results – that you’d like to showcase? If so, email [email protected].

Former Saatchi & Saatchi chairman joins Beattie

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Kevin Roberts, the former Saatchi & Saatchi chairman and CEO, has joined UK creative communications group Beattie.

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Gordon Beattie, Kevin Roberts and Laurna Woods

As chairman, Roberts will coach the senior team and help grow Beattie and its ‘Only’ brands internationally. His experience includes leadership roles at Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide, Publicis Groupe, Lion Nathan, Pepsi-Co and Procter & Gamble.

Laurna Woods, CEO at Beattie Group, said: “We are delighted to have recruited one of the world’s most inspirational business minds to help us expand in the UK, North America and Australasia.”

Roberts added: “Beattie is a creative communications consultancy with enormous potential to grow internationally. We are an integrated marketing and communications company with foundations in PR, marketing, creativity, content, technology and data. We have no plans to become a traditional advertising agency.”

Beattie has eight offices in the UK and trades under three brands – Beattie, its student recruitment brand 11ten and its suite of marketing agencies: Only Health, Only Retail, Only Tech, Only Student Recruitment and Only Crisis.

Roberts commented: “Beattie’s 2017 strategy is clear – recruit great people and open offices in line with client needs. We’re in for some exciting times as we build the Beattie and Only brands internationally.”

Beattie was founded in Scotland 30 years ago by Gordon Beattie, who remains president of the business. The agency recently announced that it is expanding into Canada.

Former Hudson Sandler MD launches Milk & Honey PR

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Kirsty Leighton, former MD at Hudson Sandler, has launched new agency Milk & Honey PR.

iron-bee-1Leighton, who has worked in senior comms roles at Edelman, Text 100, Waggener Edstrom and Orange, said: “I’ve spent many a year fantasising about setting up my own agency.”

Leighton’s experience has predominantly been in the corporate space.

She added: “We specialise in enriching messaging. Then we weave these rich, emotive messages into intelligent campaigns that deliver business value. The business story is at the heart of our narrative, but we don’t start with the numbers. We start with the people.”

Milk & Honey PR has been set up as a limited liability partnership (LLP).

Cognito associate director joins APAC HQ

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Cognito associate director Charlie Morrow has relocated to the financial PR and marketing firm’s APAC headquarters in Singapore, where he will be a member of the region’s leadership team.

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Charlie Morrow

Morrow will oversee some of Cognito’s key financial services PR clients, focusing initially on asset management, banking, market structure and fintech.

Cognito has offices in New York, London, Los Angeles, Singapore and Hong Kong. It specialises in financial services, FinTech and technology.

Morrow joined Cognito in 2009. He can be reached at: [email protected], or (65) 6221 7310.

SpareRoom hands UK and US consumer PR brief to Hotwire

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Hotwire has been selected as the UK and US comms agency for flatshare website .

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SpareRoom

Launched in the UK in 2004, SpareRoom claims to be the UK’s biggest roommate site (and third biggest real estate site overall).

It has since made its roommate-finding service available across the US, with a particular focus on key cities including Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washington DC.

SpareRoom said it was looking for an agency that could “deliver big creative ideas and go further than just media relations”.

Hotwire has been briefed to drive both brand awareness and consumer demand in the UK, while supporting its expansion into further regions across the US.

The team plans to develop attention-grabbing ideas, engage thought leadership, and specifically in the US, deliver hyper-local campaigns that target specific cities across the country.

Matt Hutchinson, comms director EMEA at SpareRoom, said: “It was clear from the first meeting that Hotwire’s skills and expertise stretched way beyond traditional media relations. Their understanding of our audiences, coupled with their commitment to creating compelling content that our audience would actually care about and engage with was impressive.

“Add to that their enthusiasm and creative ideas and we knew we had found the right agency to support us on both sides of the pond.”

Emma Hazan, MD Consumer at Hotwire, added: “Working with SpareRoom across both the UK and US is such an exciting opportunity for the team to really flex their creative muscles and deliver outstanding integrated campaigns. We will be working with SpareRoom to create compelling and tailored conversations between the brand and consumers on both side of the Atlantic.”

Instinctif Partners makes public affairs hire

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Bernd Buschhausen

Instinctif Partners is expanding its public affairs practice in Germany with the addition of new partner Bernd Buschhausen.

Buschhausen will work alongside managing partner Cornelius Brand in the firm’s Berlin office, assuming leadership of the team there.

Buschhausen joins Instinctif Partners after eight years at Edelman.ergo, where he led the Berlin office and served as a member of the senior management team for Germany. Prior to that, Buschhausen held a public affairs role at FleishmanHillard.

Carsten Böhme, managing partner and lead for Germany, said: “We are eagerly looking forward, together with Bernd Buschhausen, to expanding our service offerings in the public affairs area and to strengthening our presence in Berlin. His 20 years of professional experience in German and pan-European public affairs strategy and cross-geography management is of tremendous value to Instinctif Partners’ clients, both existing and new.”

He added: “With the addition of Mr Buschhausen, we have gained an experienced public affairs specialist who will assume responsibility in our Berlin office for this practice area, in particular for growing our communications advisory business in the policy areas of energy and the environment, food and nutrition, consumer protection, and financial services.”

Brand will assume a role on the firm’s global public policy board, with worldwide responsibility for the healthcare practice.

Prohibition PR and Interflora create “The Ultimate Proposal”

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Interflora together with social media agency Prohibition PR are working on a new campaign to mark Valentine’s Day 2017, which will see them create the “ultimate surprise marriage proposal for a loved-up couple”.

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Interflora and Prohibition PR are looking to create the ultimate surprise marriage proposal for a loved-up couple.

“The Ultimate Proposal” will see Interflora search for the UK’s ultimate creative proposal idea – from surprise holidays to guerrilla theatre performances and sky writing – and then make it come true ahead of 14th February.

It will all be a complete surprise to the recipient, with Interflora secretly organising and filming the whole process with help from the proposer, before releasing a video of the experience online in time for Valentine’s Day.

With hundreds of nominations already taken anonymously via the campaign microsite, Interflora has put the best four proposal idea suggestions to the public vote.

The campaign is being supported by traditional PR, a social media advertising programme, media partnerships, email marketing, as well as a dedicated campaign microsite.

Erica Nicholson, senior brand manager at Interflora, said: “Here at Interflora we are dedicated to creating surprising, unique moments for our customers on a daily basis, and this campaign is the ultimate expression of that.

“We have been inundated with the most amazing proposal suggestions, and our four finalists’ ideas are all fantastic and so personal to them. We can’t wait to see who the public vote for; we will be releasing a video of the whole experience online ahead of Valentine’s Day for people to enjoy.”

Hanover opens Dublin office

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Public affairs consultancy Hanover Group has opened a new office in Dublin. It will be led by former MD of Keating & Associates Lorna Jennings.

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Left to right: Charles Lewington, Lorna Jennings and Mary Harney

Further appointments include former Tánaiste (deputy Prime Minister in Ireland), Mary Harney, as senior advisor, and Hume Brophy’s Colin O’Donnell as senior account director. Harney will provide the team with strategic insight, support and advice.

According to Hanover, its decision to expand into Ireland was influenced by a growing demand for a pan-European offering. Hanover’s consultants will provide support to existing clients with Irish interests including Lucozade, Ribena, Suntory, Tata Steel and Apple.

Lorna Jennings, managing director at Hanover Dublin, said: “I am very excited to be joining such a dynamic and innovative international company as Hanover. Our goal is to establish a first-class consultancy for clients in Ireland, and create a unique service offering across the company providing political and reputational insight in key European locations and at the EU level.”

Charles Lewington, chief executive of Hanover Group, added: “We had planned to open an office in Dublin even before the UK’s decision on the Referendum, as we see great opportunity in Ireland’s strong growth in Hanover’s traditional areas of sector expertise such as financial services, health and technology.

“In the post-Brexit world, given the political and economic uncertainty with Ireland’s key trade partners in the UK and the US, Hanover’s insight, advice and support is needed now more than ever. I look forward to working with Lorna and Mary to create new opportunities to reach our ambitious two year revenue targets of £2m+ in areas such as Dublin’s Silicon Docks, supporting technology companies to scale and access the wider European market.”

Hanover last opened an overseas office in Brussels seven years ago. It also has offices in London, and encompasses growth-hacking consultancy Multiple and creative communications agency The Playbook, which launched last year.

Flight Centre Travel Group hires Rooster PR

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Rooster PR has been handed a retained UK press office brief by the Flight Centre Travel Group, following a competitive pitch. The agency will focus on positioning Flight Centre as the UK’s top travel retailer to Australia.

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Sydney Opera House

Rooster PR will be responsible for Flight Centre’s day-to-day press office and ongoing media strategy, managing media enquiries, as well as news generation and crisis and issues management.

Under the agreement the agency will manage PR activity for the following brands:

Rooster will kick off 2017 activity by implementing an integrated Australia Day (26 January) campaign which the agency created for the pitch. The campaign will communicate the benefits of booking with Flight Centre, highlight the company’s knowledge of Australia, and incentivise potential customers to book their Australian holidays with Flight Centre.

In addition to Flight Centre, Rooster will be responsible for StudentUniverse’s UK press office. Briefed to elevate the company’s profile and position it as a world leading travel booking site for students and youth, Rooster will manage all media enquiries as well as news hijacking, data mining and content generation.

The appointment comes following the release of Flight Centre’s first advert, which showcases real Flight Centre travel consultants. The company put a five-figure media spend behind the programmatic advert, which received over 250,000 impressions in the first week.

Sue Johnson, head of retail marketing at Flight Centre UK & Ireland, said: “We were impressed by Rooster’s expertise and the creative ideas they presented in response to our brief. We’re looking forward to what we can achieve through this partnership in 2017, particularly the exciting Australia Day campaign this January – watch this space.”

James Brooke, MD at Rooster, added: “Following a successful 2016, being appointed by one of the world’s largest travel companies is a cracking start to the new year. We’re eager to put our plans into action and position Flight Centre asthe number one travel retailer to Australia for media and consumers, not just this Australia Day but throughout 2017 and beyond.”

Hay Festival appoints Christopher Bone as publicity director

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Global literary event brand Hay Festival has appointed FMcM Associates’ Christopher Bone to the new role of publicity director, who will oversee UK and international PR for the organisation in its 30th anniversary year.

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Christopher Bone

Bone, who has six years’ agency experience, started his career with Glasgow-based public affairs consultancy 3×1 PR, followed by Stripe Communications in Edinburgh.

In 2014 he began working for arts comms consultancy FMcM Associates, where he represented literary organisations including National Poetry Day, Wellcome Book Prize, The Folio Prize, The SundayTimes / Peters Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award, and Hay Festival, which he has worked with over the last two years.

Based in London, Christopher will now oversee UK and international PR for the organisation in its 30th anniversary year, including Hay Festival Cartagena de Indias in Colombia (26 – 29 January 2017), Hay Festival Wales (25 May – 4 June 2017), Hay Festival Queretaro in Mexico (7 – 10 September 2017), Hay Festival Segovia in Spain (22 – 24 September 2017), and HayFestival Aarhus in Denmark (26 – 29 October 2017).

He will also work on several special projects, including the Hay Festival Press.

Becky Shaw, comms director at Hay Festival, said: “Chris is a highly skilled publicist strategically and creatively. He will be a huge asset to Hay Festival working on our international campaign for books in our 30th anniversary year. We are thrilled to welcome him.”

Bone added: “I first visited Hay for a weekend in 2011 with no connection to the world of books (other than a love of reading). Watching talks that year with VS Naipaul, Javier Cercas, David Milliband, and Nigella Lawson, was thrilling, mind altering and changed the course of everything I have done since.

“Having consulted for the festival for the last two years I am thrilled to be joining the immensely talented team in house.”