Blog

I had to share this great new marketing campaign from Mars, it is so clever because I am one of the only people that I know that actually likes the Bounties which are included in celebrations. As a great and very clever PR stunt Mars is offering people the opportunity to change the least popular Celebration for the most popular. What a great idea to get coverage and exposure and most of all digital chatter about your brand when everyone is starting to think and talk about Christmas. I just think this is great – huge well done.

Last Weds I got the team together for the first time in ages to share in the excitement of the first CIPR Pride Awards for two years. The last 18 months have been tough for my agency as it has for many others and every business in the country. We were built on solid foundations but we certainly lost some revenue in 2020 and on one occasion last April we lost around 80% of revenue and projects within 48hrs and that was a very dark time. It took a lot of tough decision-making and hard work to pull ourselves out ... Read more

So the last few weeks have been very busy at PPR HQ and a while back we were asked to storyboard and create a new video concept to highlight the brilliant news that our client Black Sheep had been recognised as Harrogate Town FC’s official beer. Now this is my two favourite things in life beer and football and not only that Harrogate Town is actually my local club so I was delighted as was my little lad who is a huge Town fan. So we got our collective thinking caps on and then put our thoughts into this clip. ... Read more

You know I love a good quality video production and this video is shot in a stunning style to show off Samsung’s new Galaxy S21 108MP camera – which is the most powerful you can get in a smartphone. It looks amazing although why anyone would need that many pixels is totally beyond me. The video does look very cool though so well done Samsung. The bumf says: This year, we woke up with dreams like never before. Simple dreams… like meeting friends for coffee, going to the movies, enjoying live concerts, travel. So how did we bring these dreams ... Read more

I found this little Ad by dating app Bumble amusing, a nice play on first dates, and how difficult it is going to be after the lockdowns. I have to admit I am glad I don’t have to go through the dating game again but if I did I think Bumble looks like the platform to do it on. Not taking yourself too seriously is a great thing when it comes to dating because it can be pretty awkward. At the moment of writing, this video had 29,125 views which I expect to go up over the coming weeks. To ... Read more

Ikea Norway has shared this brilliant video on what they could do with old Ikea products once they have been thrown away. Their new advert aims to promote Ikea’s offer to buy back furniture that customers no longer need or want, as well as to supply free spare parts for furniture that needs fixing. The company has already started similar programs in other countries such as Canada and Scotland. According to the Norwegian ad agency behind the campaign Try, more than 3 million pieces of furniture are thrown away every year in Norway. I hate to think how many are ... Read more

As the managing director of a PR and social media agency, I do tend to spend a fair bit of my time on social, like most of us working in the industry. While social media has lots of obvious benefits with regards to staying in touch with friends, discussing current events, and sharing information, I find its value is somewhat tainted by the prevalence of trolls on the biggest platforms. In the past five years, online abuse figures have doubled. I think the issue of trolling has long past reached the point of being out of control and it has ... Read more

This is a guest post from Lian Matias, who is the Head of Content at Promo.com. Thinker, creator and enthusiastic about all things video. The advent of internet connectivity changed how we do everything. Today’s technological advancements forced every single one of us to evolve as everything is steered towards online platforms. Thus, even businesses need to pivot online to survive. Staying afloat now equates to staying visible and accessible in the virtual world where your clients are. With the digital revolution, you may have noticed that even marketing works differently. Today, digital marketing is at the forefront, with video content holding ... Read more

PR has faced a long fight to be considered an ethical profession. The industry’s association with ‘spin’, propaganda and cover-ups has led to many practitioners abandoning public relations titles altogether and rebranding as ‘communicators’. I’m sure the vast majority of PRs do strive to conduct campaigns in as morally sound way as possible however it is the case that when there are a few acting in a way that is unethical it damages the reputation of the industry as a whole. Here I will discuss why PR ethics has become a hot topic in recent weeks and why ethical practice ... Read more

Social media platforms haven’t exactly received positive press in the past couple of weeks. I wrote previously about a potential end to journalism as we know it. Tech companies are actively starting to bypass journalists – Facebook came under fire after they were accused of blocking news in Australia following the Government’s attempt to enforce a world-first pay-for-news law. The law, which has now been passed, requires technology giants, such as Google and Facebook, to pay a cut of their advertising revenue to newsrooms in a bid to save public-interest news. Facebook’s actions meant that quality journalism produced by trained ... Read more