As a keen and regular cyclist, the recent launch of the Barclays Cycle Hire Scheme has caught my attention. Cycle docking stations have been popping up all over the Capital for the last few weeks, seemingly with minimum fuss and minimum disruption (an achievement for TFL alone)! Launch day came and went last week, with numerous journalists, MPs and Olympians offering their verdict on the scheme – from the quality of the bikes (apparently very heavy at 23kg each), the ease and simplicity to register, to the number of docking stations scattered around town – upwards of 8,000 docking points at around 330 docking stations are currently operational.

The launch made a splash with Lord Mayor Boris, King of London Cycling out in force (without a helmet) singing the praises of the initiative, which I have to agree is a fantastic concept and long overdue.

Cycling is a fantastic way to get around, especially in London. OK, so there are still too many cars on the seemingly very narrow roads, but as long as you keep your wits about you, don’t jump traffic lights and follow the rules your Cycling Proficiency instructor drilled into you all those years ago, you’ll be fine.

Schemes such as this one and also the Government’s Bike to Work Scheme, which has recently provided me with a spinky spanky new bike for half the retail cost, have made cycling more accessible to the masses. Not only is it fantastic for the environment, but it also keeps us moving, which is all the more beneficial given that we are said to be the fattest nation in Europe – something we should definitely not be proud of.

Over the last four days whilst out and about, I have seen an increasingly large number of people on these new Barclays bikes, which are hard to miss with the excessive Barclays branding splashed all over them. Apparently 12,000 people have signed up to the scheme with 6,000 keys having been activated, from tourists taking a leisurely peddle through a park to businessmen nipping from A to B in their suits. The first half an hour’s hire is free, followed by incremental charges thereafter, so it’s a great way to get to a meeting or make your journey into work that little bit quicker (and better for you).  Reports so far confirmed that the most popular docking station so far is the one located outside the Blue Fin building on Southwark Street, on the South Bank.

However, I do have concerns. The lack of helmets is evident and in some cases lack of bike experience is verging on the dangerous. I know helmets are not a good look – and this coming from someone who has a constant battle with ‘helmet hair’ – however, I not only watched (but nearly got taken out) by a couple over the weekend, who were wobbling around at a junction, turned right without indicating and almost wiped out half a dozen of us as we crossed (the green man was on our side) and to top it all off (excuse the pun) were helmet-less.  It begs the question of the potential fallout when the first injury or even, I hate to say it, the first death is caused on one of these bikes – one can only hope that Barclays and TFL have an effective crisis comms plan at the ready.

So, despite having my shiny new bike, I have joined the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme. Registration was quick and easy, although not quite as instantaneous as I had hoped (it takes four days to receive your ‘bike key’ in the post) – so, not great if you were hoping to get started tomorrow. I am hoping to be able to test it out soon and maybe even try out a Barclays Cycle Superhighway or two, but from what I have heard I will need to do a bit more training as getting started and up to speed is not easy!

The verdict is out and I will report back…

By Emily Waring on August 3rd, 2010

Tags: Cycling, Environment, London 2012, PR, Sponsorship

4 comments

Anyone who knows me will be aware that I like things that pop up in city locations seemingly out of nowhere. The more random and unexpected, the better – elephants, pianos, lions, designer deckchairs… So the recent landing of 100 ping pong tables scattered across the capital is especially pleasing to the old Branston eye.

In an attempt to trend-ify (is that a real word? Am not sure) table tennis, ping pong is set to become the urban craze of London for the next month with the kick-off last Thursday of the Ping! London festival. Pop up sport for impromptu games all over the city has a neat appeal. And interestingly, Yahoo branding aside, this particular initiative doesn’t feel to be over-endorsed by brands. Almost refreshing; ironic I know given the industry in which we operate.

Great timing too; getting in there ahead of this week’s somewhat brand-cluttered London 2012 two years to go landmark. The Ping! London initiative, supported by the English Table Tennis Association (ETTA) hopes to raise the profile of the sport and get more British people to play ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games. An Olympic sport since 1988, apparently table tennis is the world’s second most popular sport after football, with over 300 million registered players.

Are you serious?

Last week’s Ping! launch party witnessed the GB Team showing off their moves and despite having lived and breathed sport all my life, I wouldn’t be able to name any of our national team. Sad but true. Not one. A different matter in Asia and for the Chinese in particular where it is considered the country’s national sport. Hence why they excel at spending lots of time on the old ping pong Olympic podium. And we don’t. Two years to go mind, all that could change.

Having given the re-positioning of ping pong some thought, it strikes me that table tennis has rather a lot going for it. The sport has universal appeal, is accessible, cheap, not too time consuming, easy to learn, can be played by all ages/genders (all 2 of them) and appeals to the child in us all. And if we needed any further convincing, and here’s the PR talk, it is played by celebrities too – Blur’s Damon Albarn & Hollywood legend Susan Sarandon (co-owner of New York’s successful ping pong club SpiN) – the names freely touted around as ping pong lovers.

It seems especially apt that the table tennis tables are currently residing in London given the sport was invented in Victorian-era England. Ping! follows closely behind Luke Jarram’s highly successful ‘Play Me, I’m Yours’ artwork, a project that has been touring globally since 2008. Last month in London, over 20 pianos were placed throughout the city for anyone to play. A creative blank canvas and one that left behind a rather touching legacy with the pianos being donated to local schools and community groups. Loved it. Hopefully the tables will follow in the pianos footsteps and be given to local youth clubs and charities to enjoy once Ping! waves farewell to the city on 22nd August.

If you’ve not already bumped into a table (bats & balls all provided too. Over 4,000 bats, fear not), keep your eyes peeled in Soho Square, Tate Britain, the British Library, Heathrow Airport…all over the shop.  A geek-chic Olympic sport that we will not only see played in our own backyard come July 2012 but one that is enjoying an uplifting revival as ideal for hip city dwellers – count me in.

Game, set and match.

By Stephanie Branston on July 29th, 2010

Tags: London 2012, London 2012 sponsorship, PR, Public relations, Sponsorship, Sport, grass roots sport

2 comments

Never realised I was such a fan of the common cephalopod mollusc before this week. Turns out I, like half the population and every red-top news editor in the land, love a good octopus – especially one with psychic powers. If there’s one nimble-legged genius seizing all the headlines this week, it ain’t the expected superstars (sic) we might all have predicted in the run-up to this year’s tournament. Not Wayne Rooney (currently sunning it up with Coleen in Barbados), Frank Ribery (dissolved mid-mutiny with the rest of the French team) or Gilardino (you’re only as good as your last World Cup win Alberto).

Nope, clearly our powers of prediction are not world-beating.

Unlike Paul. Paul the Psychic Octopus. The German star who has correctly predicted the outcome of all six of Germany’s World Cup matches. This morning, during a live television broadcast, Paul predicted Germany would beat Uruguay in tomorrow’s third place play-off match - his seventh prediction of the tournament. And more importantly for those who live in Spain and the Netherlands, Paul has plumped for Spain, the pre-tournament favourites, to lift the World Cup on Sunday evening. Viva España.

Eight arms. Eight predictions. Coincidence? I think not. Paul is good, damn good for a suckered seer, and given the level of attention on him right now, I imagine he’s praying to the bottom of his mussel filled tank that his powers haven’t deserted him at this crucial stage of the tournament.

Paul is definitely ‘da man’, albeit a hard beaked, blue blooded, eight-armed one (technically six arms and two legs but who really cares?), and even better news for us English folk – embarrassed by our team’s recent knock-out 4-1 defeat to Germany – is learning that Paul is not actually German at all. He was born in Weymouth, back in 2006, where he was apparently much more shy on the predicting front. Paul joins other fellow famous Weymoutharians such as painter Sir James Thornhill (big in the 1600s), Strictly Come Dancing’s Karen Hardy and…urmmmm…not all that many other people it turns out.

So that’s two genuine English stars who have emerged late in the day in South Africa’s World Cup:

1. Paul

2. And Yorkshire’s very own Howard Webb who will referee Sunday’s Final; the first Englishman to referee a World Cup Final since Jack Taylor in 1974. Interestingly Holland lost that game 2-1 to West Germany (the signs are not looking all that good for the Dutchies).

Our much-hyped Premiership players may have failed lamentably to emulate the heroes of 1966 but all is clearly not lost.

Paul now resides in Germany’s Oberhausen’s Sea Life Aquarium whom I applaud for their quite brilliant PR campaign. Paul has put the city of Oberhausen (twinned with Middlesbrough) on the map which, as well as the aquarium, also boasts Germany’s biggest shopping centre and Europe’s largest disc-type gasometer.  Yep.

Back to Paul. The Times of India reports, “He has eight legs but has never kicked a ball. That, however, hasn’t stopped Paul the octopus from becoming the world’s finest football forecaster.” Spain’s celebrity chef José Andrés has taken octopus off the menu at all of his restaurants until further notice. Brilliant, it’s not just me who loves the little fella. He has well over 70,000 fans on his official Facebook page. He has become an online phenomenon and one of the most talked about topics on the web. The phrases “Paul the Octopus” and “Pulpo”, the Spanish word for octopus, are both currently in the top 10 global trends on Twitter.

However, celebrity fame has come at a price. Paul has made enemies along the way as a result of his predictions and is now enduring death threats on an hourly basis. Most recently he has become the target of bitter Argentinian fans, angry that he predicted their footballing demise, who have been sending seafood recipes to his aquarium. The Spanish government is reportedly ready to step in with Spain’s Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez stating “I am thinking of sending him a protection team“. Too right. Spain’s World Cup success may depend on it.

Will Paul be right for the eighth time? Are his days really numbered? Roll on Sunday night’s big showdown to find out…

By Stephanie Branston on July 9th, 2010

Tags: Football, Public relations, Television, World Cup

2 comments

Last week The Times…(yes, you may well think I’m going to write about the newspaper changing its domain name as it prepares to become the first English national paper to start charging for its online content; however that’s not it)…newspaper ran a week long feature on the coaches that are training the stars of tomorrow, today; with Tom Daley, Jess Ennis and Becky Adlington amongst the featured athletes (you may need a new www.TheTimes.co.uk login to access these links).

What stood out for me as I flicked through the non-World Cup related pages was the photography by Chief Sports Photographer Marc Aspland.  Phenomenal images that I think are just stunning.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did…

By Caroline Ayling on June 22nd, 2010

Tags: London 2012, Olympics, Public relations

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About five years ago, try as I might to find an elephant in London to take part in a PR photo stunt we were organising, there was none available. Our need was great – promote the Chivas World Elephant Polo Championships due to be held that November in Nepal. Scotland were at the time, defending World Champions in the sport (true fact.) Anyway, London Zoo weren’t up for lending out their eles, we couldn’t locate any in the Yellow pages so alas, the photo was a no go. I don’t think Scotland retained the title either (I don’t hold us responsible for that mind).

Fast forward to June 2010 and everywhere you look in London, there are elephants. You can barely move without bumping into one.

So what’s occurring? Turns out the Elephant Parade London 2010 is a conservation campaign, in aid of the Elephant Family charity set up by Mark Shand, involving 258 brightly painted life-size elephants located over central London with the aim of raising over £2mn towards the conservation of the endangered Asian elephants. Tidy.

As it turns out, 258 elephant sculptures = London’s largest outdoor art exhibition on record.

They may not have been in town in 2005 when we really needed them but they are at least here now, for one more week.  And over the last 5 weeks, I have been slowly gripped by some unexplainable elephant obsession. Out of nowhere. Strange but true.

It all started innocently enough.

08.03, Tuesday 4 May 2010, stepping off the Leicester – St Pancras train, I suddenly realised that I’d walked past a giant elephant statue (‘Dandiphant’, I later found out). Unusual, elephant art. Not something you see everyday next to British Rail’s finest.

Throughout May, I continued to notice elephants around town (they’re hard to miss) and soon found myself whooping with joy on seeing a new undiscovered ele – which whilst on a scooter is a truly great feeling - although not one that is widely encouraged in the Highway Code as a means of responsible motorcycle driving. The elephant observing shifted up a gear – spending one Sunday afternoon cycling round London to see which ones we happened across. A great way to combine seeing the city in the sunshine with getting fit. All innocent fun.

I dropped into one of the 4 London pop-up Elephant Parade shops (it’s all about pop-ups these days) and found an official map which marked out where they could all be found. And things changed. The map proved a dangerous addition to my armoury. It became serious. I was soon on a mission to tick off (& photograph) all of them. Why I have no idea but joined by like-minded friends, and at times on my own, the past few weeks has involved dedication, effort and organisation, missed lunch hours, late nights and getting myself to places in London that I have never heard of, never mind visited before.

As a tourism campaign to get people experiencing the city of London, Visit London could do a whole lot worse. That has been one of the absolute pleasures in finding the elephants – I have got to know the city in which I have lived for over 10 years a whole lot better. I now know where one can find the Museum of London (the Docklands), Bow Churchyard, The Hempel and The Hoxton (both lovely hotels), BT’s Building (as opposed to its Tower), the National Geographic Store on Regent Street, the Royal Exchange and where you can park a scooter right next to Somerset House. I have seen Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park in full flow (fascinating), marvelled at the current installation on the Fourth Plinth at Trafalgar Square, walked the length of Baker Street (following Sherlock Holmes’ footsteps) and witnessed the beauty of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich.

I have found myself in some unexpected places at unpredictable hours. One Monday night I cycled solo to both Brixton and Elephant & Castle (an aptly named place to house one of the statues) well after 10pm, two areas I barely know and probably wouldn’t ordinarily try and navigate around in the dark, solely to find 2 elephants. And after a recent Keane gig in Camden, we employed that ‘oh so normal’ post-gig wind down technique of walking around Leicester Square, Covent Garden & Piccadilly until 1am when we ran out of elephants (20 ticked off in record time) and our feet could take no more. Dedication to the cause or just sheer madness? You decide.

It has been an adventure, albeit an exhausting mission and I have met some dedicated fellow hunters (okay, I’ll admit some have been, shall we say, a little odd but most seem fairly normal) on the way. Equally eye opening has been witnessing first hand how social media communities truly engage in real time interaction on a subject in which they are passionate. Take the Facebook group for the Elephant Family and Elephant Parade group, a hotbed of activity with over 14,000 fans. “Anyone tell me where you can find the Ella May elephant – she’s not on Baker Street and is proving elusive?” Within minutes, 6 people have already replied with the answer. Job done. Fellow elephant fans, who have never, and will never meet in real life, helping each other out in their time of need, with UGC (mainly still images) uploaded on a minute by minute basis.

As PR goes, I’m a big admirer of the campaign. A simple idea with creativity at the heart in aid of a good cause with the actual product they’re promoting (the future of the Asian Elephant) at the very core of the activity.

Add to that, a few simple PR tactics that have been very well executed:
1. Launch photocall of brightly coloured elephant herd in Trafalgar Square pre-installation – tick
2. Interviews with famous and upcoming artists & celebrities who have painted the elephants (Tommy Hilfiger, Paul Smith, Matthew Williamson, Sir Terence Conran…) – tick
3. Locate elephants at various iconic London landmarks / institutions who then add their own PR weight behind it – tick
4. Grip the public’s imagination (kids & adults alike) by introducing Cloudia (the ‘Where’s Wally?’ of the elephant world) to the herd, the elephant that is constantly on the move – tick
5. Ensure your social media ducks (sorry, eles) are all in place to enable the online community to do the rest – tick
6. Merchandise the hell out of it – produce replica elephants, books, cards etc to ensure product sales generate funds of their own – tick

Of the features in the press, one I particularly liked was the story about Gerald, the model elephant who generated a cult following after he was banned from his original home in Selfridges for being too risqué. Gerald is blue (quite literally it turns out on closer inspection), painted by controversial artist Jonathan Yeo who added his trademark collage, causing serious offense to the shoppers of W1. After a “Free Gerald” Facebook group was set up to free him from the charity’s Bloomsbury HQ, sniffing some free publicity, Chinawhite offered their nightclubbing HQ to home the pornographic beast. Bob’s your uncle, queues of people trying to get into the night spot between 1-2pm every weekday to see the elephant and tick it off their lists. Genius.

On a serious note, the joie de vivre these elephants have spread throughout London disguise the real tragedy behind the Asian Elephant’s collapse. Once ranging from China to Thailand, Indonesia, India and across Syria, these great animals are now confined to an area the size of Spain. The number of Asian elephants has dwindled even more severely than those of the African elephant, from 200,000 a century ago to a fifth of that population now.  Shocking statistics.

So my own breaking news, having confessed that I quite fancied trying to see them all before they vanished from our streets, is that I have now officially seen all 258 ‘in the wild’. Marc Quinn’s Untitled in Somerset House was my final ele. Job done, mission completed. Difficult to narrow down my favourites, there really were too many.  Special mention goes out to ‘Help!’ the fully turfed elephant, ‘Dedicated to the Wonderful Chelsea Pensioners’ elephant (too cute), ‘Union Jack ‘(Rule Britannia) and Benjamin Shine’s glossy black ‘Taxi Elephant’, ideally positioned by the Royal Exchange and powered by a solar cell so that the taxi sign lights up at night and its eyes turn into headlamps. Truly London.

Sadly the city migration is well underway and this week, the elephants can all be seen herded together at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea and Westfield Shopping Centre for general viewing before they go under the auction hammer. If you haven’t seen them yet, they are seriously worth a look. Some are absolutely stunning works of art.

As for me, I’m having a break from elephants. For a start, I don’t trust myself not to get carried away with it all and buy one of the statues at auction – and with some of the bids already exceeding £50k online, that is an experience that I’m not quite ready to blog about.

No, it’s all about lions now. Like all great ideas, copycats are out there and rife. Cue the city of Bath announcing that a giant pride of individually decorated, life-size lion sculptures are taking up residence in and around the City of Bath. With only 100 lions to find, I reckon it’s do-able in record time. Anyone who fancies a safari trip down in Bath this summer, let me know. Or if you’re a fellow (adopted) digital native, you’ll probably be able to find me on the Pride in Our City – Lions of Bath group on Facebook…

By Stephanie Branston on June 22nd, 2010

Tags: Alcohol, Digital marketing, Media, Public relations, Sponsorship, The Arts

1 comment

As the “Golden Generation” of England footballers bid for the umpteenth (and probably last) time to realise their potential at a major international tournament, fans across the country will be reaching for their Three Lions replica shirts, keeping their fingers crossed, and praying that “Wazza” really can Write The Future.

Back to the present. Before a fly-away Jabulani ball has been struck in earnest, the contest between “official sponsors” and those pesky ambushers has truly kicked off. The FA and Mars, an official partner of the England Team, are reportedly considering legal action against Nestlé, for “passing off” an association with the England team through Kit Kat’s “Fingers Crossed” campaign. Yes, this is the same Mars who undertook the infamous “Believe” ambush marketing campaign around the 2006 World Cup. For 2010, and the first football World Cup on African soil, a classic case of poacher turned gamekeeper.

Three questions, one for each lion on John Barnes’s Mars Bar :

1. Is Nestlé actually passing off an association with the England team?

This should probably be left to the lawyers, but from a layman’s / sport industry professional’s perspective, using Sol Campbell and Mansfield Town manager David Holdsworth as your “talent” is not the best way to infer an association with the England team. And despite the well observed allusions to England’s World Cup heritage – “cross your fingers for no penalties…no broken metatarsals…no tears” -and liberal use of the ambusher’s best friend (the St George’s flag), nothing suggests that Kit Kat sponsors Capello’s boys.

2. Should Mars be trying to protect their hard bought status as the England Team’s confectionary brand of choice?

A lesson for all official sponsors. Complain about the ambushers and you are giving their campaigns the oxygen of publicity. Mars clearly had good reason to turn gamekeeper and pay for the privilege of England partner status. They should be confident that their association, leveraged properly, will pay off. Otherwise, why not remain a poacher?

3. Whose current World Cup campaign is better?

No contest. Kit Kat have tapped into the very essence of the English sporting psyche, and the pervading sense of hope over expectation that grips every England football fan during international football tournaments. Their TV ad brings that insight to life in a down to earth, domestic football environment. Compare that with John Barnes re-hashing a song from 1990 in a sparsely populated park, with production values that suggest too much money in the FA’s coffers and not enough in the activation pot.

Reports suggest that Mars may have won the battle of the lawyers, and that Nestlé have agreed to curtail the campaign. Is that the final whistle on this contest? Probably not if Kit Kat’s PR team are on the ball. What price England players crossing their fingers during a crucial penalty shoot, or being caught on camera tucking into one of the 200 Kit Kat’s that have been delivered to the England training camp by the FA’s official supermarket …?

Whatever happens, fingers crossed that 2010 marks the end of John Barnes’s singing career.

By Tom Gladstone on June 11th, 2010

Tags: Advertising, Ambush campaign, Brand marketing, Communications, Content, Football, Football Sponsorship, Media, Public relations, Social Media, Sponsorship, Sport

1 comment

The weekend before Easter saw the Synergy team glamming it up and walking the red carpet for our friends at Jameson, in preparation for the 2010 Jameson Empire Awards ceremony in London.

Ray Winstone with daughters, Jamie and Lois who presented him with the Jameson Empire Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Cinema (c) Photo: Karwai Tang / Alpha Press

For those unfamiliar with the Awards, they are universally considered to be the most fun Awards in the British film calendar. Regularly attended by the top echelons of Hollywood glitterati, the 2010 ceremony was no exception with a guest list that included the casts of The Clash of Titans, Kick-Ass as well as Hollywood royalty Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, and legendary guest of honour, Sir Ian McKellen.

Synergy’s role was two-fold: international PR support enabling Jameson HQ in Dublin to successfully engage five international markets around the world to use the Jameson Empire Awards for local PR in their home nation, and creation and management of the Jameson guest hospitality programme, across 13 markets.

Central to the PR programme was the Jameson Done in 60 Seconds Award, inviting amateur film-makers to re-make 60-second versions of their favourite Hollywood blockbuster. Synergy created a central PR toolkit for each market to pick up and implement in their own region, encouraging entries from their nation and making the Done in 60 Seconds competition truly global for the first time.

As part of the Jameson guest hospitality programme, Done in 60 Seconds finalists from each market were then invited to London on Friday 26th March – two days prior to the full Awards ceremony – to attend the International Finals Party, held at 24:London. There, the panel of judges – including British directing talent Edgar Wright and Michael Bassett, Empire’s editor, Mark Dinning and British actor Jason Isaacs (who was absent on the day but consulted remotely) – viewed the sixteen final films, heralding from Turkey, Russia, Sweden, Holland, Ireland and the UK. Five finalists were chosen, who then went on to attend the Jameson Empire Awards on the Sunday night, where the final winner was to be crowned victorious.

Jameson branded Routemaster buses were specially commissioned to transport guests around London on their Movie Mania Tour

Between this event and the Awards night, Synergy put together a full guest management programme for visiting markets: the Jameson Movie Mania Tour.

It began with a behind the scenes tour of St Paul’s with private access to the geometric staircase most recently used in Harry Potter and Sherlock Holmes. Guests were greeted by a Professor Dumbledore look-a-like running down the geometric staircase as he does in Harry Potter the Prisoner of Azkaban.  The St Paul’s tour finished up in the Wren Suite were guests were treated to an exclusive performance by world famous illusionist Keith Barry.

Guests then re-boarded their Jameson Routemaster and were taken to the Bluebird Restaurant in Chelsea for a private three course lunch in the Gallery Room, before heading to Borough Market for the final part of their Jameson Movie Mania Tour.  Simon Rodway and John Ashton movie experts from Silver Cane Tours guided guests through Borough Markets movie locations, ending at Bridget Jones’s flat door, where guests were met by a Hugh Grant look-a-like. Guests then got back on the bus and headed back to The Langham Hotel.

Our Experiential team did such a top job of entertaining all of Jameson’s international guests, that Event Magazine ran a feature on the weekend last week. Have a read here.

On the night of the Awards, Synergy managed the Jameson press room, ensuring all the global markets were equipped with full video and photographic assets from the night, enabling them to bring some of their own local talent to attend the event, creating greater relevancy and PR back home (such as Croatian actress Natasa Janjic, below).

The attendance of international movie stars such as Croatian Natasa Janjic helped Jameson's global markets secure local coverage of the event (c) Getty Images for Jameson

As for the Done in 60 Seconds Award, it was our favourite Top Gun that clinched the top prize, with Cambridge accountant Mark Wong – director and star of the re-make – taking to the stage, still in costume as Maverick, and collecting his much-deserved Jameson Empire Award. Watch the final masterpiece here.

Done in 60 Seconds winner Mark Wong clutches his Jameson Empire Award for his Top Gun re-make (c) Getty Images for Jameson

But if that hasn’t given you enough of a flavour of life on the red carpet, have a look at Empire’s full videoblogisode of the event below. It certainly keeps some variety to what we do, swapping muddy rugby pitches for red carpet glamour.

Bring on the 2011 Awards.

By Lucie Bartlett on April 7th, 2010

Tags: Alcohol, Brand marketing, Event management consultants, Event management service, Film, Public relations, Sponsorship consultancy, Synergy

No comments

I do like a good April Fool’s Day story. As it turns out, so do my colleagues within Engine Towers.

Synergy’s Guinness spoof aftershave story that ran in this morning’s Metro was PR gold (I would say that…) but hats off to our advertising friends upstairs at WCRS who created BMW’s gem of an April Fool’s Day advert for today’s press.

Anything that can simultaneously get me excited about the General Election AND make me want to buy a new car is all good in my book.

Love it.

By Stephanie Branston on April 1st, 2010

Tags: Advertising, Public relations

No comments

Last week’s announcement by News International, that Times titles will become the first nationals to put content behind a subscription paywall in June this year – sister papers The Sun and News of the World will follow at a later date – marks a hugely significant change for the newspaper model as we know it. The monetising of an online model is something that newspaper proprietors have been wrestling with since they first realised that the internet wasn’t going away.

The problem is this: a digital world makes it virtually impossible to ringfence and monetise content that costs papers money to create. In addition this dilution of free content costs them potential advertising money. To rub it in, search engines such as Google are making plenty via PPC and advertising on their sites when people search for the content.

Rupert Murdoch started going on record a few years ago talking about a limited paywall on selected content. One of his papers, The Wall Street Journal, does it already with some success and he’s in discussions with Microsoft’s Bing to become an exclusive content supplier, blocking Google.

Two things then to consider – will it work and what impact might it have on us in the sponsorship industry.

So first off – will it work?

Given the decline of ad revenues and traditional circulations publishers are looking for something that will.

The real issue is that news is free – for example the BBC, whose charter currently restricts their ability to charge for online content, will always be a free source and skews the market.

However, move beyond news to detailed analysis, unique content, marquee journalists and specialist sectors (fashion, sport, business, culture etc) and people are more likely to pay for it and if they have to pay for the news to get this package they will – as the announcement by News International says -’quality journalism never matters so much as it does today’.

In effect, a Sky TV model for newspapers online – you really want the football but first you have to buy the basics. It’s a clever and bold step by News International but no one knows if it will be the long term solution to the online challenge – even if their competitors follow them.

The power of online content is around the creation and interaction of the very communities it’s aimed at. The new sites will undoubtedly go further then before in giving consumers the chance to interact but does this miss the point that consumers now have the power and desire to create their own communities – they’ve moved from passive to active.

Rather then locking their doors to them, media owners could have a more fruitful future by becoming a platform for these communities and therefore becoming joint creators of content with the very consumers advertisers are willing to pay a lot of money to target.

But what impact might it have on the sponsorship industry?

I see a short term and a long term answer. In the short term, sponsors used to placing unique content their sponsorships afford will find themselves either having to restrict their PR outlets or likely pay to get it placed – never a happy prospect.

But in the long term this change could offer real potential with brands and media owners working together towards a mutual goal. Brands really know how to target consumers while media owners know how to create compelling content.

A savvy sponsor could play this bridging role between the existing consumer communities and a media platform with a paywall. For example, a football sponsor could buy out the paywall themselves around a major event like the opening weekend of the season. The existing audience on the media platform will be absolutely on-target; after all they’ve been paying for this content up to this time.

Give this community, both existing and new, a chance to co-create content with you on a prestigious media platform and as a sponsor you’ll build genuine affinity.

However it pans out over the next year, it’s going to be about playing the game by new rules which makes it both daunting and full of opportunity.

By Dominic Curran on April 1st, 2010

Tags: Default, Media, Paywall, Public relations, Sponsorship, Sport

2 comments

Yesterday, FIFA announced the stellar line-up – an array of international and African artists – for a ‘Kick-Off Celebration Concert‘ in Soweto on June 10 to mark the opening of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Predictably, the story generated worldwide coverage. But I couldn’t help feeling that FIFA has got its PR strategy on this wrong, and could learn something from the Olympic Games.

Shakira and Alicia Keys will help kick-off the 2010 FIFA World Cup

Back in February, I blogged from Vancouver on what a huge story the Vancouver 2010 Opening Ceremony became in the week leading up to the ceremony itself. This was because the VANOC took the opposite approach to FIFA, by deliberately not revealing details of who would be performing in the Opening Ceremony, or indeed anything about what the show would be like – which naturally generated a tidal wave of media and consumer speculation and discussion, and made the Opening Ceremony one of the most eagerly-anticipated events I’ve ever encountered.

Bryan Adams and Nelly Furtado performed “Bang the Drum” at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games opening ceremony

My mind went back to this when FIFA made their announcement yesterday, and I couldn’t help but feel that FIFA has missed a trick by announcing their line-up. Had they adopted the approach taken by VANOC, I’m sure it would have created the same level of buzz and anticipation that we saw in Vancouver – maybe even more. Sure, there will be buzz around the FIFA gig, but nowhere near as much as there would have been if we didn’t know who was going to perform.

By Tim Crow on March 18th, 2010

Tags: Football, Football Sponsorship, Music, Olympic sponsorship, Olympic sponsorship consultants, Olympics, Public relations, Vancouver 2010, Winter Olympics, World Cup

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