British Rowing appoints Promote PR for indoor rowing campaign

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With a goal to double participation in indoor rowing in the next five years, British Rowing has appointed Promote PR to help raise the profile of its new indoor rowing strategy, ‘Go Row Indoor’.

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British Rowing

British Rowing’s ‘Go Row Indoor’ initiative will launch with new indoor rowing class models for gym and studio, the appointment of master trainers, instructor training programmes, the development of online leagues, charity campaigns, software partnerships and national and regional events.

Helen Rowbotham, director of innovation at British Rowing, said: “Promote was a great sounding board for us as we developed our indoor rowing strategy this year – always willing to listen and provide guidance and recommendations.

“Its vast knowledge and connections in the fitness sector, coupled with experience of driving grassroots sports participation with effective communication campaigns made it the ideal agency for British Rowing.”

Promote’s MD Sue Anstiss added: “Indoor rowing is often cited as the perfect exercise – providing a low-impact, total body, highly effective and efficient workout. I have every confidence that with a strong communications campaign indoor rowing has the potential to be the next ‘spinning’ for the fitness sector.

“Indoor rowing is already making a mark on the UK leisure sector. It’s a key element in many CrossFit workouts, and an integral part of Orange Theory Fitness sessions and Shockwave classes. The explosion of dedicated boutique indoor rowing studios in the US is sure to follow in the UK soon.”

Instinctif Partners advises on flotation of ThinkSmart

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Instinctif Partners will advise on ThinkSmart Ltd’s corporate and capital markets communications going forward, following its work on the business’ AIM flotation last week.

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Giles Stewart

ThinkSmart, a provider of point-of-sale finance products, listed on AIM in London last week (2 December), while de-listing from the ASX (Australian Stock Exchange).

ThinkSmart has a long-standing relationship with UK electronics retailer Dixons.

Ned Montarello, executive chairman at ThinkSmart, said: “Listing on AIM is the next exciting step for ThinkSmart, building on our 14 year track record of supplying point-of-sale lease finance to UK consumers and businesses via our relationship with Dixons Retail and our new relationship with Carphone Warehouse.

“We are looking forward to working with Instinctif now that we are listed. They are a professional team whose input will be invaluable to ThinkSmart.”

Giles Stewart, who will be leading the account team, added: “We are delighted to be working with ThinkSmart as it begins its journey as a listed company on AIM. It has a great team, a compelling product offering and a proven, profitable business model. We look forward to working with ThinkSmart going forward, helping it deliver on its clear plans to grow the business in the UK.”

60 Seconds with Jennifer Ferguson, Getty Images

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Jennifer Ferguson, who was recently appointed SVP of global communications at photo agency and supplier Getty Images, talks to Gorkana about her move from fine arts business and auction house Christie’s and her plans and ambitions for the new role. 

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Jennifer Ferguson

What attracted you to Getty?
I have known and worked with the Getty Images brand for years as a client. First at PMK and then at Miramax and Kerzner. I had a great respect for it, but I really only knew Getty Images within the context of news and entertainment.

When I started speaking to Dawn Airey, the CEO, about the position, I realised the company was so much larger than what I had initially thought, and that it was actually the largest provider of visual content in the world.

Getty Images is such a unique brand, in that it is a brand that tens of millions of people interact with every day, whether or not they realise it! Getty Images is at the forefront of every media and visual touchpoint we use daily. It has a great story to tell in the content and digital space, and several innovations in the works for strategic growth. It’s a dream job!

What are your comms ambitions for 2017 and beyond?
Very broadly, we will work on telling our story through a defined corporate narrative that supports the strategic growth plan. Our strategy is Getty Images Everywhere – we move the world with images.

Getty Images has so much knowledge to share. Being the largest visual content provider in a world that communicates with images allows us to have a unique view. We will use that view to have a strong thought-leadership position in the digital content space, and ensure all of our PR actions are not just transactional, but roll up and support our strategic plan and the business narrative to grow the business and value.

How is the Getty business changing?
Getty Images was built on a very strong B2B business that continues to grow at a healthy pace. Under Dawn’s leadership, Getty Images has rolled out a B2E (Business to Everyone) strategy that allows that B2B segment to continue to grow while finding new opportunities for Getty Images to grow its consumer business by creating products that best serve new and existing users.

We recently hired a managing editor to oversee all content inclusive of our home page and social channels, making them more “E” friendly, created an innovation lab to nurture incubation of new products and technologies for consumers, and we have hired a head of data and analytics so that we can work smarter for our customers.

What are the communications challenges surrounding that?
I think our challenges are not unique. Agreeing a narrative and sticking to it is always a challenge. In such a fast-paced business and media world, it is easy to get stuck in a reactive cycle, trying to please everyone in the short-term. It takes real discipline and commitment to focus on the long-term and change a conversation, and we want to play the long game. We have to be educators in the process to get our internal stakeholders’ buy-in and trust, as well as understand the difference between strategic communications and transactional PR.

You communicate to a diverse audience (B2B and B2C), do you have any tips for PR leaders in a similar position?

Craft your over-arching narrative and then tailor the message to your constituent groups accordingly. They can actually bolster one another. For us, the B2B audience are also consumers and will see that messaging. Conversely, the B2C audience can create mass appeal for a brand which will influence the B2B audience. They each need attention and should complement one another.

What do you like best about working in-house?
Oh, how I love working in-house! I love the time and space to know a brand from every angle, to have deep relationships with all of the internal stakeholders, to be immersed in the partner functions strategies. I just love being part of a brand, seeing it change and watching it grow.

Manifest opens Swedish office

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Manifest has today opened a new Swedish operation, Manifest Stockholm, as the agency expands internationally, with further office openings in South Africa and Australia planned before 2020.

Manifest Stockholm

Josefine Hedlund (left) and Anna Karlsson (right)

Joining Manifest London and Manifest New York to become the third location for Manifest Group, Manifest Stockholm opens with four permanent members, and will be led by group CEO Alex Myers and two Swedish directors Anna Karlsson and Josefine Hedlund.

Manifest had already delivered campaigns in Sweden for some of its UK clients, including craft brewery BrewDog, Durex and the MTV Staying Alive Foundation.

Thanks to the sucess of this work, the agency has built a strategic partnership with purpose-driven business consultancy and network Coest, which introduced Manifest Stockholm to its first client, sustainable sportswear brand Houdini.

Other launch clients include Älska cider from The Swedish Cider Company; Military Work, a recruitment and staffing agency focused on helping ex-veterans find civilian work; Scottish craft beer Innis & Gunn, Slättö, which develops, owns and manages new residential properties and Swedish organic peanut butter Green Choice.

Myers said: “All of the Swedish businesses we’ve met have a real understanding of how brand purpose needs to be at the centre of what they do – far more than elsewhere in Europe – but there seems to be a lack of agencies providing creative strategies and campaigns to match.

“That’s where Manifest Stockholm comes in. Our offices in London and New York also allow us to help Scandinavian brands expand beyond their domestic market and go global.”

Karlsson commented: “It’s the right time to be bringing a new kind of comms agency to the Swedish market. The PR industry here can often be traditional in structure; but we hear that many of the most exciting brands in the country are looking to usher in a new era of creativity, integration and innovation. Manifest Stockholm is leading that charge, and it’s very exciting to be a part of it.”

Hedlund added: “Our client portfolio in Stockholm already includes some of the most innovative brands in Scandinavia – brands genuinely looking to change things, like Houdini for instance – and the real power of what we do is not simply to help those companies to compete in their industry, but to redefine it forever.

“Our mission at Manifest is to help brands change the world for the better, and it’s a privilege to be bringing that to Scandinavia as a co-founder at Manifest Stockholm.”

Earlier this year, Myers took full control of Manifest London, as well as Manifest New York, following a deal that saw minority shareholders Nev Ridley and Shaun Beaumont sell their stake in the business for an undisclosed sum.

Its then sister agency, Manifest Communications, owned equally by Ridley and Beaumont, was renamed ilk.

TVC promotes Swarovski’s partnership with 2016 Fashion Awards

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Swarovski has appointed TVC as its strategic content agency to promote its partnership with the 2016 Fashion Awards, which took place at the Royal Albert Hall on Monday (5 December).

TVC

The 2016 Fashion Awards took place at the Royal Albert Hall on 5 December

The 2016 Fashion Awards recognise talent in design, creativity, business as well as outstanding contributions to the fashion industry.

Preview content, available ahead of the awards ceremony, featured interviews and commentary from French fashion designer Jean Paul Gaultier, at his Parisian atelier, as he worked on the Swarovski outfits for the awards event.

Red carpet, behind-the-scenes and interviews with winners and attendees at the event are now being shaped into content for digital, social and online channels.

Guests included Lady Gaga, Naomi Campbell, Gigi Hadid and Kate Moss.

James Myers, group MD at TVC Group, said: “We’re thrilled to win this brief. TVC has a strong reputation and long experience of working with global luxury brands to help them develop compelling content strategies. We hope this is the start of a long partnership.”

#GivingTuesday: why so many brands got involved and its PR value

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#Giving Tuesday, a concept created as a direct response to the consumerism generated by Black Friday, drew in many corporate brands this year. So what do these brands hope to gain, or give, from taking part in such occasions? Comms experts from Forster Communications and Rostrum as well as Nicholas Ferguson, non-executive director at Savills, discuss.

Giving Tuesday is becoming a regular fixture for UK brands, two years after it was created by Charities Aid Foundation to promote charitable giving, on the Tuesday after Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This year, eBay, Costa, RBS, PayPal, HSBC, Morrisons, QVC and BT Group all campaigned to promote charitable causes of their choice.

Many of these brands went beyond the hashtag to encourage their customers to give more. PayPal UK was just one of the brands to create an original campaign for the occasion, teaming up with this year’s bake-off winner Candice Brown to create a bake sale and encourage donations for Cancer Research UK.

The brands partnered with organisations, channels and celebrities of their choice to enhance their causes. So, what is the PR value in taking part in #GivingTuesday?

Aligning the brand to consumer values

Peter Gilheany, PR director at Forster Communications, says that value lies from raising a brand’s profile in terms of its commitment and support for causes its current and potential customers care about.

“When you are competing with other brands, particularly at a time of year like Christmas, anything that aligns you more closely with the values of your customers is going to help tip them towards giving you their custom.”

CSR credibility

While Mark Houlding, CEO at Rostrum, says that brands should practice caution in getting involved in such partnerships unless it’s a genuine strategy for giving back, he says there is one clear benefit to brands getting involved in such occasions.“Charity partnerships can prove effective at building a brand’s CSR credibility from a content marketing and social media perspective.”

Gilheany adds: “Consumers will spot empty opportunism from a mile off. The value comes from using Giving Tuesday to highlight your existing and authentic commitment to specific causes and social change, and it is a great way to inspire staff, suppliers and customers to get involved and do something positive themselves.”

Businesses must aim for a sustainable future

What’s good for society, is good for business according to Gilheany. He says: “The best businesses want to change the world for the better, as do a lot of the people who work in the business sector. That change can come through their core operation or through initiatives run by businesses that are focused on a specific social change issues. Businesses that don’t demonstrate their values are not likely to remain sustainable in the future.”

Nicholas Ferguson is chairman at Savills and chairman of the Kilfinan Group and Kilfinan Trust – which aim to mentor chief executives at UK charities and give back to communities close to his heart. He adds: “Businesses are not separate from society, they are society. So they should support society, and particularly their employees in their charitable endeavours.”

Gorkana’s key #GivingTuesday takeaways

Looking over a 25% sample of UK Twitter content with the #GivingTuesday hashtag, Gorkana found the following tidbits:

  • There was a 60% female / 40% male split in people using the hashtag – so the charitable conversation was quite notably female-driven.
  • People were still connecting to the shopping origins of the day, with #blackfriday the number 3 hashtag in conversation and #cybermonday the number 6.
  • It seems like organisations devoted to facilitating ways to donate were the most mentioned Twitter handles. Within the top 10 most mentioned, there were six such handles (@biggive, @givingtuesdayuk, @giveasyoulive, @givingtues, @cafonline, @justgiving) versus two charities (@cr_uk, @shelter) and two companies (@bouxavenue, @britishgas).
  • Celebrity support was unsurprisingly deployed to drive donations with @rickygervais tweeting in support of the Wildlife Conservation Society and @tomdaley tweeting in support of The Brain Tumour Charity.
  • Have you nominated an exceptional colleague for The Suzy Ferguson Spirit Award? This unique award is run in association with Gorkana and LEWIS  and all monies resulting from sponsorship goes towards funding vital work  Bowel Cancer UK does in research on early diagnosis.
  • The awards are simple and free to enter, and all the details can be found on the website.

Aquila Insight hires Red Lorry Yellow Lorry

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Data analytics specialist Aquila Insight has recruited Red Lorry Yellow Lorry (RLYL) to raise brand awareness, aid recruitment and strengthen its UK presence.

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Rob Ettridge

The tech PR consultancy will help the growing Edinburgh-based business to increase brand awareness outside Scotland, and position it as a data innovation leader in key sectors such as retail and telecoms. The project will begin with a thought leadership-based campaign to help build brand awareness, aid recruitment and generate leads in the retail and telecoms sectors.

Aquila Insight helps businesses such as Sony Mobile, RBS and Tesco Bank to realise the value of their customer data.

John Brodie, CEO at Aquila Insight, said: “We’re delighted to be working with Red Lorry Yellow Lorry. They understand the industry, our business, what we’re trying to achieve and where we want to get to. There’s a huge amount of buzz around ‘big data’ and how brands can use that data more intelligently. We’re looking to the lorries to help define our story and our messages and help us stand out from the crowd.”

Rob Ettridge, partner at Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, added: “There’s so much data now at our fingertips yet surprisingly many brands need educating about how to use it smartly to understand and predict their consumers’ behaviours.

“With its unique blend of smart client-facing data analysts and innovative technology, Aquila Insight is the right company to help connect those dots and provide real insight into the value of customer data. As a rapidly-growing company in an exciting space, we’re thrilled they’ve chosen the lorries to help take the company to the next level.”

KISS appoints new head of PR

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KISS Communications has appointed Ware Anthony Rust’s Kate Matthews to the newly-created position of head of PR.

KISS

Kate Matthews

Matthews was previously head of PR at Cambridge-based marketing agency Ware Anthony Rust. Before that, she did stints as a board director at Thirteen Communications and associate director at the Red Consultancy.

She has more than 14 years’ experience creating and leading integrated PR campaigns for B2B and B2C clients, including Microscoft, Adobe, eBay, Flybe, Department for Education, ebookers, and learndirect.

Matthews will report to KISS MD Sarah Reakes.

Matthews said: “The KISS promise to ‘clarify the complex’ really stood out to me – as more and more brands compete for space, the ability to create simple but impactful ideas that cut through the noise is a real must for any successful agency. I have been impressed with the team’s energy and enthusiasm for delivering fantastic work and thought-provoking ideas.

Justine Smith, MD, PR, at KISS, will step down from her role at the end of this month (December). Justine has been part of KISS’ senior management team and a shareholder in the business for the last seven years, managing the agency’s PR team.

KISS CEO Simon Fryer said: “Justine has played a pivotal role within the agency and it is with great sadness that we see her leave, and we wish her the very best. Justine has been responsible for helping many people onto the start of their careers and supporting them to grow into the stars of tomorrow.”

Mitek appoints CCgroup for UK PR

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Mobile identity provider Mitek has appointed tech PR agency CCgroup to handle its PR in the UK as it plans to expand into Europe.

Mitek 1CCgroup, which will work closely with Mitek’s US agency MIX PR, will run a press office targeting high-profile platforms that influence financial institutions, fintechs and payment organisations. It will also implement a dedicated analyst relations programme and regular content-led lead generation campaigns.

Mitek provides financial organisations with mobile capture and identity verification software solutions to establish a person’s real identity during a mobile transaction, thus enabling a safer and more secure process.

Ann Reichert, senior marketing director at Mitek, said: “Financial services organisations in the UK, Europe and beyond are facing a host of technological, political, social and economic issues during the biggest transformation in the sector’s history.

“With digital transformation driving board room agendas, Mitek has the technology to create a digital relationship between provider and customer right from the outset. We need to capitalise on this opportunity and strong public relations is integral to our growth plans. CCgroup’s experience and expertise will be invaluable to our expansion efforts and European success.”

Daniel Lowther, head of FinTech at CCgroup, added: “Mitek is a genuine innovator at the intersection of mobile, identity and artificial intelligence – some of the hottest trends in tech right now. We love working for visionary, bold and ambitious companies in fast growing markets and Mitek ticks all these boxes. We’re excited to tell Mitek’s story in the UK and support its accelerated growth in the UK and beyond.”

Camarco hires senior consultant Nick Hennis

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Financial and corporate communications consultancy Capital Market Communications Limited (Camarco) has appointed senior consultant, Nick Hennis.

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Nick Hennis

Hennis joins from Tulchan Communications LLP, where he spent more than three years working across the natural resources, financial services and support services sectors.

Geoffrey Pelham-Lane, chief executive officer at Camarco, said: “We’re delighted to welcome Nick to our fast expanding team of professional, like-minded and talented people. Nick’s experience of working with a wide range of FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and AIM listed companies will benefit our clients significantly. We very much look forward to working with him in support of their continued success.”

Since the announcement of its launch in April 2014, Camarco has obtained more than 50 retained clients, including multinational and FTSE companies spanning the financial services, energy and natural resources, industrial and support services, real estate and consumer sectors.