Golin, Hope&Glory and Unity win big at last night’s PR Week Awards

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Golin, Hope&Glory, Unity, Battenhall and The Academy were among the big winners at last night’s PR Week Awards.

At the ceremony, which took place in the Grosvenor House hotel on London’s Park Lane, Golin scooped a gold award in the prestigious Agency of the Year category and took home a silver award as Large Consultancy of the Year.

Hope&Glory took home four gongs including the culture, media, sport and travel award for its Airbnb Floating House campaign and the Financial Services campaign of the Year for Barclaycard.

Unity won three awards at last night’s event, including the Best Integrated Campaign award and Best Health, Beauty, Retail and Fashion Campaign for its #FollowTheFairies campaign for Marks and Spencer.

The other gold award winners were Transport for London (In-house team), Taylor Herring for Fortitude on Sky Atlantic with a Polar Bear (Campaign of the year launch) and Diabetes UK for Dan! (Campaign of the year).

Other winners included:

*Battenhall took silver awards in Specialist Consultancy of the Year and Small Consultancy of the Year.

*The Academy picked up a silver award as the New Consultancy of the Year, as well as the FMCG

Campaign of the Year for Krispy Kreme and B2B Campaign of the Year for Everreach.

*We took a silver award as Mid-sized Consultancy of the Year.

The Most Innovative use of Digital and Social Media award, which was sponsored by Gorkana, went to Cow PR for its “Hide My Ass!” campaign.

Matthew Freud was also named the inaugural member of the PRWeek UK Hall of Fame. Each year, the PR Week Awards will induct a new member into the industry Hall of Fame, based on their contribution to the industry.

Macmillan Cancer Support’s Catherine McCaskie was also named Young PR Professional of the Year.

A full list of winners can be found here.

London Business Forum: Branson on Business

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Ronan GeorgeThe London Business Forum hosted a special event in early october celebrating the stellar entrepreneurial career of Sir Richard Branson.

The discussion, Branson on Business hosted by Jeff Grout  Sir Richard, or plain Richard as he prefers, took part in an interview and audience Q&A, revealing the secrets of his business success, the importance of luck and why Virgin will always be the underdog.

The beginning
Richard kicked off with a brief history on the founding of Virgin Atlantic in 1984, he was 26 and had heard Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, he was desperate to find Mike a record deal but found no takers. So he launched his own record label, Virgin, and put the album out himself.

Its triumph on both sides of the Atlantic secured the label’s future and set Richard on the road to greater business success. An example, he says of the importance of luck in his life story.

In 1984, unable to catch a flight out of the US because of industry bureaucracy, he hired a plane of his own and filled it with stranded fellow passengers. Upon arrival, a fellow passenger advised that he just might have a future in the industry if he could improve the flight experience, and the very next day, Richard contacted Boeing to loan a 747. The idea was to create competition in a sector dominated by British Airways. 31 years later, Virgin Atlantic has over 200 planes with Boeing and is one of the premier airlines in the world.

The essence of the Virgin brand
Virgin, to Richard, is about empowering people to make their own  decisions. The company is made up of small parts, and each has an equally vital role to play in the quest to provide the best possible service to customers. Whenever he travels on Virgin Atlantic, Richard makes it a priority to speak to passengers and staff. It is his principle belief that a good leader listens at all times, but then deal with the issues at hand promptly. A good leader never stops learning, and never pushes his own views.

Richard vs. Goliath
Unlike Coca-Cola, Microsoft or Google, Virgin is not synonymous with just one product, but has sought a place in music, airlines, rail, mobile phones and drinks, and the aim is always to try and reinvent and improve on what has gone before. Despite its successes, Richard maintains that within every field, Virgin has been the challenger – up against NASA in space or BA in the air. He maintains it is more fun being David, “pulling at the coat tails of Goliath”.

His aim is to make people smile and have some fun along the way. To him, Virgin has a sexiness that the likes of BA can never hope to match.

Brands admired
Richard is a big admirer of Tesla founder Elon Musk, seeing him as a “young me”. What interests him about Musk, is not only the extraordinary products he is putting out, but the fact that just four or five years ago, Musk was days away from bankruptcy. The line between success and failure is fine, but it is important for wannabe business people to keep trying until they succeed. Richard believes it is a great time to be an entrepreneur and has tried to give back with the launch of the Virgin Start-up Loan. The scheme provides mentors to anyone with a business idea, to provide advice and practical support. There are currently 800 people working on exciting ideas thanks to the backing of the scheme.

Advice
For anyone looking to build a career in business, Richard offers this mantra, “keep trying things, keep trying things, keep trying things”. He insists that it isn’t always necessary to listen to your accountant, adding that had he done so, Virgin Atlantic wouldn’t be here today. He is keen to point out that not every product launched or project undertaken will be a success. Richard believes that set-backs are very much part of the journey, and that risk should be accepted.

It is important also to embrace the art of delegation as there is real danger in trying to do everything oneself. Richard always seeks to surround himself with someone better than himself at the “day-to-day stuff”. He advises any business heads to move away from the office to allow their staff to get on with matters at hand.

For Richard, the Lord Sugar, Donald Trump, ‘You’re fired!’ approach to business is the opposite of what a company should aspire to. He generally sees business a family. You wouldn’t “fire your mother, brother or sister”.

Legacy
As a leading business figure for nearly 50 years, Richard is conscious that to some he is regarded as a role model. He believes strongly that it is important that he shares what he has learned over that time. To that end he believes mentoring is both important and helpful, and tries to offer this wherever he can.

Ultimately, he sees himself as a “lad of the 60s, out there, trying”. Richard estimates he spends 90% of his time working on Virgin’s not-for-profit schemes, under the Virgin Unite banner, tackling issues ranging from prison reform and conservation to the environment. In summary, Richard insists he has achieved everything that he set out to achieve. His 16-year-old self would be very pleased with the life his 65-year-oldself has lived – “I’ve had a blast. But with great wealth comes great responsibility. I’m in a position to make a difference, and I can’t waste it.”

By Ronan George, Media Executive, Gorkana

 

Stylist Live: brands, meet your target consumer

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Stylist LiveClaire Burrows, creator and founder of Air & Grace, couldn’t believe her luck as she watched attendees stream into Stylist Live. This was her audience – the women she created her products around – and they were all in one place with prosecco in hand.

Air & Grace shoes are the perfect union of ‘chic’ and ‘Sunday-morning-slipper-comfy’ – and I can say that because my feet actually cried a little when I took them off. But the notoriously tricky bit for companies like Air & Grace is reaching their target consumer – professional, on-trend, tech-savvy, urbanite women who barely have time for dinner, let alone browsing new shoe brands.

When Gorkana held a briefing with Emma Crisp, the Editorial Director for Stylist Live, a few months ago, we talked about Stylist’s plans for a vibrant and varied selection of stores, all speaking directly to the Stylist audience.

The result, as indicated by several vendors I spoke to, was a captive audience of attendees that are otherwise quite hard to reach. And with a plethora of design, cosmetics (odourless nail polish!), clothing, and deliciousness (matcha-filled Portuguese egg tarts!), that audience is likely to stick around for a good few hours.

In my opinion, Stylist hit the nail on the head, both in appealing to its target audience and in delivering that audience to exciting and innovative brands.

Futhermore, the event’s uniqueness makes an interesting point – as advertising sees increasing success with things like behavioural ad targeting, event planning could apply some of the same principles: get to know that target consumer really well and craft an event around his or her personality.

If and when you’re successful, you’ll end up with a sea of guests wandering around wondering how you managed to create something seemingly just for them.

In summary – if you’re in PR for fashion/food/publishing/beauty/tech/etc, get in line for a booth at next year’s event. Or, if you’re like me and up for a day of browsing, inspirational talks and even a catwalk – get over to Stylist Live this weekend (and please don’t miss the matcha tart).

 

 

Happy Birthday Instagram!

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This week, Facebook unveiled ‘Reactions’, a new tool that will allow users to go beyond the Like button and use emojis to express their emotional responses. Facebook’s Chief Product Officer Chris Cox has described Reactions as “a more expressive Like button”, with initial pilots taking place in Ireland and Spain. Reactions looks like an exciting addition to Facebook and we can’t wait to try it out!

Emojis big

Instagram turns five this week! The photo-sharing app loved by many (400 million users) is one of the fastest-growing social networks and increasingly seen as a key platform to announce news. With 80 million photos uploaded across the site every day, the three most popular Instagramers are Taylor Swift (49.9 million followers), Kim Kardashian (48 million followers) and Beyonce (47.1 million followers).

Instagram big

Earlier this week, McDonald’s launched its hotly anticipated all-day breakfast. However, unimpressed competitors immediately took to Twitter to fight back, with IHOP, Denny’s and Waffle House among those to highlight that the #AllDayBreakfast is not a new idea exclusive to the golden arches.

Denny's tweets

Middle Eastern airline Emirates has teamed up with US superstar Jennifer Aniston for its most recent ad. In the 60-second spot, Aniston wakes up in her comfortable Emirates bed after having a “nightmare” about flying with an airline that doesn’t have a shower or bar on board. The video was unveiled earlier this week and has already been viewed almost 2.5 million times on YouTube.

This week’s infographic comes from Advertising Week, showing the impact of social media and mobile on the industry and the growing mobile reach of social platforms like Facebook,Tumblr, Google and Instagram.

Infogrpahic

 

This article was written by Dani Doroftei.

Case Study: Star Wars Post-it Note Murals

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When Viking wanted to enhance its SEO value, the office stationery retailer, with the help of PR and SEO specialist Search Laboratory, decided to hijack the upcoming release of Star Wars The Force Awakens with the creation of giant Post-it note murals of iconic Star Wars characters. Using more than 3,500 Post-it notes in just five hours, the campaign unleashed a flurry of shareable content, with Mashable picking up the story and making it one of the most shared online pieces in the first 24 hours.

Campaign: Star Wars Post-it Note Murals

Client: Viking

PR Team: Search Laboratory

Timing: August – September 2015

Objectives

Viking is a major supplier of office stationery and office products to UK business. The objective of this campaign was to inspire office creativity and ensure Viking’s stationery offer was front of mind for business decision makers. A key audience for Viking is young businesses in sectors such as marketing, design and technology.

The campaign also placed emphasis on gaining significant SEO value from the PR coverage, so as much of the coverage as possible would need to link to the Viking UK website. The more links, the more effective the campaign. Links from high authority sites (ones with a high Domain Authority score) were particularly desirable, as those links have a greater positive impact on search rankings.

Strategy

The campaign team was aware that the new Star Wars film, The Force Awakens, is due to be released in December and there is currently a large volume of web users searching for Star Wars content. Additionally, Star Wars is a popular subject for tech and design blogs to cover, and these sites were popular with the target audience.

Inspired by an article by Ben Brucker, the team realised that it was feasible to produce giant Post-it note murals of iconic Star Wars characters. A designer pixilated the images and calculated the amount of Post-it notes and colours required, as well as how to arrange them on the office walls.

A team of four then set to work creating the murals which took around five hours to be completed.

Everything they did was filmed and photographed, including the use of Go Pro cameras to create a time lapse video.

In order to encourage news sites and blogs to hyperlink back to the Viking website, a “linkable asset” was required. Therefore a post on the Viking blog, which carried exclusive rich content such as a gallery of images, time-lapse video, GIFs, grid designs and the data behind the project, was provided to media.

Once all the content was ready and published to the Viking blog, posts were created for social sites Imgur and Reddit to seed the project socially before the ‘official’ launch of the outreach campaign. This seeding process resulted in four initial articles on design and sci-fi blogs.

Following the August Bank Holiday weekend, outreach began to pop culture, design and other sci-fi websites, including high authority tech blogs like Mashable and CNET. Once those sites picked up the coverage it created a high volume of social sharing of the articles which resulted in a huge influx of natural coverage and links on top of the coverage that the team were already earning directly from their own outreach.

Results

The campaign has so far resulted in 147 online articles of which 86 have hyperlinked back to the Viking website.

Coverage appeared in some of the most authoritative and influential tech and design sites on the web, and was shared on those site’s Facebook and Twitter channels. This includes:

  • Mashable (Domain Authority 96/100) – 3.2 million Facebook followers / 5.7 million Twitter followers
  • CNET (DA 98) – 2 million Facebook followers / 1 million Twitter followers
  • Metro (DA 87) – 1.1 million Facebook followers / 210,000 Twitter followers
  • Bored Panda (DA 81) – 2.1 million Facebook followers / 80,000 Twitter followers
  • Trend Hunter (DA 81) – 2.5 million Facebook followers / 250,000 Twitter followers
  • Nerdist (DA 80) – 1.3 million Facebook followers / 220,000 Twitter followers
  • Laughing Squid (DA 86) – 450,000 Facebook followers / 600,000 Twitter followers
  • Design Taxi (DA 76) – 380,000 Facebook followers / 435,000 Twitter followers
  • The Chive (DA 73) – 1.5 million Facebook followers / 530,000 Twitter followers
  • ComincBook.com (DA 66) – 2.5 million Facebook followers / 50,000 Twitter followers
  • Comic Book Resources (DA 77) – 1.1 million Facebook followers / 140,000 Twitter followers

In addition, the coverage was shared socially by heavyweight business influencers such as Guy Kawasaki (1.5 million Twitter followers) and even the Post-it brand itself. Articles have also been published across the world on blogs from Hong Kong, Mexico, Brazil, Indonesia and even Peru.

Social analytics show that articles covering the campaign have been shared over 75,000 times, and that in the first 24 hours of the after the campaign went live, the Mashable article became one of the top 10 most shared articles on the web with over 40,000 shares.

Based on these analytics, we estimate that the campaign has reached over 100 million web users!

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

Tesco hires eBay’s Steve Milton as group media director

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eBay’s Steve Milton has joined Tesco as group media director, taking over from Tom Hoskin who is moving to Barclays as MD, group media relations.

Milton spent eight years at eBay, where he led EMEA comms for the auction website, with most recent responsibility for marketing and comms in emerging markets.

Before joining eBay, he spent 12 years at Unilever in several senior comms roles in London, New York and Brussels.

Milton, who started in his new role at Tesco yesterday, will manage a 20-strong team and head up all media relations, as well as local, digital and broadcast comms.

He will report to Rebecca Shelley, group comms director for Tesco.

Milton told Gorkana: “I’m excited to join Tesco. The business is going through a period of significant change, which presents a wide range of comms opportunities. My immediate priorities are to understand the business, and meet as many key stakeholders and correspondents as soon as possible.”

In August it was reported that Tom Hoskin would leave his role as Tesco’s group media director this month to become MD, group media relations at Barclays. He first joined Tesco in 2009 as head of corporate media before taking up his most recent role in 2013.

Last week it was revealed that Tesco had appointed StockWell Communications on a financial PR brief.

The X Factor: Everybody’s (not) talking at me…

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Orla GrahamThere has been a lot of talk over recent weeks about how talent show The X Factor is doing in the ratings war – but of course, TV ratings aren’t always an accurate barometer of how people actually feel about a programme.

With that in mind, we thought we’d take a look at some other data sets to see if we can get a bigger picture.

Simon Cowell’s show used to be the jewel in ITV’s crown, routinely thrashing all other programming and becoming the talk of the nation, every week until Christmas – but, recently there has been much comment and speculation on how it’s flopping in the ratings, how it might be retired in a couple of years, and how Strictly Come Dancing is continuing to beat it in terms of viewer numbers.

However, when we look at the ratings for this year so far, we can see that the show is maintaining an average of about 7.3 million viewers each week. Yes, Strictly is doing a little bit better than that so far, but it’s far from the disaster of viewers turning off in their droves that the tabloids might like to suggest.

Where we see a real dip, though, is in social media buzz for the show. Using Gorkana Social Media Pro, we’ve been tracking the conversation for X Factor since its opening weekend, and we can see quite a clear trend emerging:

The launch weekend saw a flurry of activity, with the volume of posts peaking at over 110k on Saturday 29th August, but after that interest drops quite considerably. In fact, over a third of conversation for the whole period of 24th August – 28th September was generated during that launch weekend alone.

Traditionally, social media – and Twitter in particular –  contains a mixed bag of sentiment towards the show, whilst lots of fans of X Factor congregate on the social network to tweet along as they watch the live broadcast, a significant proportion of the tweeters are engaging in a love-hate relationship with the programme, giving sardonic and often biting commentary.

The opening show of the 2015 series was no exception to this, with some of the most popular tweets being variations on this theme:

In fact, the only post generating more retweets than the two tweets above was in relation to One Direction. Additionally, @britishlogic was the second most mentioned tweeter of the weekend, behind only the official X Factor account.

If there’s one thing Twitter likes, it’s a nice dollop of cynical ridicule. But even this wasn’t enough to sustain interest in X Factor. Volumes dropped by 65% from week one to week two, and decreased a further 19% into week three.

Potential impressions also dropped by more than half from 29th-30th August to 27th September. Once the buzz from the launch weekend died down, it seemed that the mocking commentators had grown tired of the show, and the majority of the most popular posts were news stories about potential developments, and official posts from @TheXFactor:

 

Given Simon Cowell’s propensity for courting controversy and being the man Britain loves to hate, surely the fact that people don’t seem to care about his show is worse than mediocre ratings?

It’s not just social media where we see interest dropping off. By looking at other data sets that indicate interest in and engagement with the programme, we can start to put together a wider picture.

We can see, for instance, that online searches for the show have also decreased over the last few years. Using Google Trends, it is possible to see how much people have been searching for X Factor in comparison to other popular searches.

Internet searches peaked in November 2011 (when girl band Little Mix were vying for the X Factor title), and gained a maximum Google Trend score of 100, but they’ve steadily declined ever since. Last year’s peak was only 55 (in October), indicating roughly half the level of interest than in the show’s heyday a few years before.

Worse still, interest seems to be dropping off well before the show’s finale in December of each year and when we drill down into this year’s series so far, we can see a trend similar to that of social media volumes:

Again, we can see a decrease in interest of almost half from the launch weekend to week two, although interest did start to rise again on Sunday 27th September. In addition, Google’s list of ‘Trending searches’ for the UK shows very few X Factor related keywords appearing among the most popular search terms in the last month.

Whilst judges such as Cheryl Fernandez-Versini and Nick Grimshaw occasionally appear in the trending searches, particularly during week one, they appear much less frequently than we might expect.

Of course, there are other in-house data sets that can be used to give an even more sophisticated and insightful evaluation and that can measure website traffic, demographics, text and phone voting numbers for contestants, market research, etc etc. Much of the information used in this post comes from free sources and ratings, and high profile shows are regularly reported online.

There are a variety of other free or low-cost tools out there which allow you to look at top line digital trends in common and popular subjects. As in this case, these can often provide a wider context to a more specific piece of analysis and help to flesh out the results.

Overlaying these data sets gives us a much more comprehensive picture than looking at any of them in isolation. Alone, each piece of data only tells us one part of the story. But given how many different ways people consume and interact with media today, it is vital to ensure that any piece of analysis takes into consideration the wider context of what else is going on.

If we were to look at ratings, for instance, it might be possible to deduce that whilst there is a slight drop off from week one onwards, the overall average is reasonably consistent. But when we add the social media volumes and Google Trends data, we start to see a bigger picture – people might still be watching (or at least have the TV on in the background), but do they really care?

And with reduced public engagement, how long before advertisers jump ship, and the ratings do get truly dismal?

By Orla Graham, Account Manager, Gorkana

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Case Study: National Wallpaper Week for Graham & Brown

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When designer wallpaper brand Graham & Brown wanted to launch a National Wallpaper Week, Citypress set in motion a campaign to showcase wallpaper as art, which included a ‘Kinky Vintage’ edition to “get pulses racing in the bedroom” with the help of “sexpert” Tracey Cox and designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen. The results? Nation-wide coverage, National Wallpaper Week trending on Twitter and a sales increase for Graham & Brown of some 20% year on year.

Campaign: 2015 for Graham & Brown
Client: Graham & Brown
PR Team: Citypress
Timing: 5 – 11 October 2015

Overview

Wallpaper isn’t often the talk of the nation but this year, Graham & Brown wanted to challenge that idea. The wallpaper brand wanted to shine a spotlight on its industry and get people talking about wallpaper outside of the usual contexts of home décor and design media.

Objectives

Invited to launch the very first National Wallpaper Week after a competitive pitch process, Citypress was tasked to:

  • Shine a spotlight on the wallpaper industry.
  • Promote wallpaper as desirable, easy, attractive and fun.
  • Get people talking about wallpaper.

KPIs were set as follows:

  • Increase sales of wallpaper during the week.
  • Secure widespread coverage including: one national broadcast and two tabloid newspapers.
  • Get #wallpaperweek trending during the week.
  • Secure involvement and exclusive content from a minimum of five wallpaper designers.

Strategy

While there are more than 10,000 mentions of wallpaper on social media every single week, the majority of discussion is functional and focused around how-to guides, price and stockists. To get the great British public discussing National Wallpaper Week, Citypress launched a creative strategy that surprised and entertained the mass media and consumers with stories about wallpaper that put people and emotions first.

The first National Wallpaper Week positioned wallpaper as a piece of art that can influence the way you feel. We would promote wallpaper as desirable, fashionable, easy to use and, even, sexy.

Wallpapers to Inspire Different Moods

Citypress worked with the designers at Graham & Brown to launch seven beautiful wallpapers for every day of the week, each developed inspire a specific mood. The campaign launched with ‘Kinky Vintage’, a wallpaper created to get pulses racing in the bedroom. Working with TV sexpert Tracey Cox and designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, we proved that covering your walls in deep purple shades really can improve your sex life!

A different design was launched every day, throughout the week via the National Wallpaper Week social channels, as well as on its dedicated website.

We secured attendance at shopping centres around the UK for Laurence and his iconic, wallpapered Doris the Morris Minor, giving talks to the British public about the importance of choosing the right wallpaper for the right mood.

As well as Laurence, Citypress teamed up with established and up-and-coming designers such as Kelly Hoppen, Barbara Hulanicki and Julien Macdonald to share exclusive blogs on the National Wallpaper Website. Topics included their own inspiration behind their homes and individual wallpaper designs.

Citypress worked with the UK’s top home décor retailers to celebrate everything that is great and good about wallpaper during the week. Retailers including B&Q, Homebase, Very.co.uk, Laura Ashley, Debenhams and House of Fraser held events in stores, shared competitions on social media and placed editorial content in a wide range of titles to celebrate everything great and good about wallpaper.

Results

The campaign secured 110 pieces of media coverage in a single month. Coverage for the Kinky Vintage wallpaper included the Daily Mirror, Metro, The Sun, ShortList and Daily Star, while our tips, advice and product features ran in long-lead consumer lifestyle magazines.

Broadcast coverage included a dedicated feature on The One Show, where a heritage film focusing on Graham & Brown and National Wallpaper Week was presenter Alex Jones’ “favourite ever film” on the programme.

Guest Steve Coogan and presenter Matt Baker even rolled out a bespoke wallpaper print created for the show, featuring the hashtag #wallpaperweek. Chris Evans also got involved, by chatting about National Wallpaper Week to his 15 million BBC Radio 2 listeners.

The campaign reached nearly 16 million people on social media, resulting in #wallpaperweek trending on Twitter on Wednesday 7 October. The campaign was shared by 122 public Facebook pages, namely fashion and interior designers, as well as major and independent retailers.

During National Wallpaper Week, sales at Graham & Brown increased by 20%, while in the following week, sales of purple wallpaper – aka the shade designed to improve your sex life – were up 52%.

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

Agencies: Your future in the face of digital

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Tim McLoughlin, Head of Social Media at Saatchi & Saatchi, doesn’t think his job will exist in five years’ time.

At a panel discussion hosted by Lansons as part of Social Media Week LDN, Tim joined Thane Ryland, Global Head of Social Media and Analytics at Microsoft, and Russ Graham, Head of Digital and Social media at Lansons, to discuss their views on the future of agencies in an increasingly digital media landscape.

The days where an agency touts one overworked ‘digital expert’ (or a handful if you can afford it) are numbered, agreed the experts. Agencies need to consciously implement what Ryland termed ‘qualitative organisation’, or a smarter infrastructure in regards to expertise. Everyone will need to be a digital expert. And everyone will need to be a brainstorming creative.

…and that’s why McLoughlin’s not worried. He’s got that bit covered. There will always be space for something strategic at the top. *Heads on the panel nod in agreement* But perhaps more encouragingly, we’re starting to see a trend in who’s being promoted fastest within the industry – it’s the analytical and tech-literate geeks instead of sales reps. This geeks are cool with that.

These predictions about the future of the agency space are in light of what’s becoming blatantly obvious – a new crop of tech savvy clients with increasingly complex and defined digital needs. But – as all of the panelists agreed – this shouldn’t induce cold sweats in your break-out rooms. Or your table tennis rooms. Or your in-house coffee bars. (I’m not envious one bit!) Agencies are actually in a unique position because of three key assets:

  • Their creativity

  • Their wider industry expertise

  • Their ability to invest in analytical tools and services

The only thing that will kill the agency model, Ryland explained, is a lack of futuristic insight and uninspiring ideas.

So. Creativity, industry expertise and new analytical concepts. You got this. But are you thinking about:

The rise in programmatic content creation: We’re at the tip of making this concept an everyday reality, and it’ll be important that you and your agency are equipped to discuss it. Check out some examples here and here.

New forms of engagement with consumers: Ever heard of Zoella? Chances are your little sister or niece has, and would buy anything Z waves in front of her webcam. If you attend our Breakfast Briefings, you’ll know we met up with StyleHaul and Fleur DeForce just this morning to explore how brands are collaborating with Stylehaul’s fashionista vloggers. These are your new celebs and companies like Asda have already caught on.

Experts are also starting to lift their gaze eastward, as there are some truly staggering consumer audiences in countries like China and Korea interacting in new ways on platforms that rival Facebook. Imagine a consumer base that is listening / creating / sharing and expressing itself almost exclusively online.

It’s a phenomenon we would do well to observe a bit more closely, if Zoella’s fandom is any indication. Lansons’ panel also posited whether apps and digital interfaces from Asian markets would ever be successful with Western consumers. My experience with Chinese digital and social media suggests otherwise – if you’ve ever seen a BBS board or QQ’s interface, you’ll know what I mean (those Western proclivities can’t click away fast enough!). We’ve actually been hearing whispers about these engagement platforms for a while, and I do think there are valuable lessons to be learned in regards to content creation, engagement  and the monetisation of digital experiences.

And finally – the elusive darling of the hour: Analytics. You’d give a week’s holiday to be able to convincingly attribute business results to the work you’re doing….but how? (Here’s a hint: it’s not AVEs.) The panel resoundingly agreed that analytics is already a crucial component of quality communications work, and they pointed to precisely the concept I was discussing with agencies a few weeks ago at our Measurement Breakfast: the integration of external data sources. Integrate survey data! Integrate social engagement data, sales figures, digital analytics, etc – that’s the measurement that’s winning awards today but will be essential tomorrow (or more likely, 2016). Check out some case studies and examples referenced in my previous post.

So, agencies, your calling is pretty clear as far as our experts were concerned. Tell your clients something they don’t know about their consumers, their industry or their methods. Grab an eyebrow. Grab two! You absolutely have the data, the industry expertise and the tools to do so. Or at least they’ll expect you to.

By Alison Williams, Associate Account Director, Gorkana

Is it time for PR agencies to go native?

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By Dale Lovell, Chief Digital Officer at Adyoulike UK

Dale LovellNative advertising, if you don’t already know, is the current big thing in digital advertising.

Rather than the banners, boxes and pop-ups that we’ve all learned to ignore, native ads appear in-feed and match the editorial style of the website, although they’re labelled as ‘sponsored by’ or similar – think the sponsored stories on Buzzfeed, Sponsored Posts on Facebook or Promoted Tweets.

Most importantly, they provide richer, more creative, more immersive content than will ever be found in a 300×250 banner ad. Content could be anything from Netflix’s analysis of changing TV habits with Wired to Dolce & Gabbana discussing the impact of the Minions on global fashion.

Great, think PRs, but what does that all mean for me?

Firstly, PRs are under the cosh like never before to secure coverage -but it’s getting harder and harder to do so as the media landscape becomes more and more fragmented. They might do a great thought leadership piece, but if it only remains as a blog on a single site, is that going to make their clients as happy as they could be?

Native is a great way of making those great thought pieces work harder and getting them out to a much wider (but still targeted) audience. Many PR agencies already use social networks to share their work, so this is just a logical next step.

Secondly, native is, at its heart, about content. Brands are ramping up their content marketing budgets and everyone is trying to get a bigger piece of the action – PR, advertising, media and creative agencies are all fighting a turf war for that money. But the thing is, PRs are actually at an advantage over their peers when it comes to content – their whole model is already about creating eye-catching headlines, enticing prose, engaging videos and the like.

This puts them in a very strong position to provide brands with creative content, provided they can demonstrate how they use and understand it already. Native gives them that foot in the door – they’ve already handled magazine advertorials for decades and native ads now offer a similar opportunity.

In essence, native advertising allows PR agencies to extend their reach and take their ideas further. The good thing is they’re doing so while simultaneously working around the ‘creativity gap’ currently stifling the world of digital display advertising: banner blindness is already prevalent, there’s considerable growth in ad blocking software and advertisers simply cannot be that creative with the limited space available in a banner ad.

So if native allows PR agencies to seize a larger percentage of brand content budgets, widen the reach of the coverage they generate for clients and demonstrate that they’re still the undisputed kings of creativity, the question actually becomes, why aren’t they doing it?