How to Pitch to Journalists During Covid-19

Here at Sunny Bird PR, we like to think we’re the experts in communicating to journalists; whether that’s a well thought out targeted email, or a straight to the point two minute phone call, we pride ourselves on getting great coverage for our clients. And what have we learnt from our years of experience in the industry, I hear you ask? It’s all in the pitch.

So, when Covid-19 hit we had to adapt to the new norm with journalists working from home, no longer could we jump on the phones and build a connection and meeting journalists are also a no-go at the moment with many still working from home.

As a result, we had to make sure our email pitches were even more on point than usual as this was the only way we could get in touch. At the start of lockdown, that dominated the media but now, it’s still being talked about, but journalists are looking for positive stories to share. If you have a story that could be seen as negative, try and add a happy ending, include that in your pitch, put a smile on the journalist’s face, and you could be on to a winner!

We’ve done some research and found some quotes from the journalists themselves who have given some advice and tips on pitching to them in this new ‘normal’ post lockdown.

Jane Hamilton – Journalist and Editor at The Sun

Jane wrote an article on what you should be doing to be sensitive to the situation but also to be successful during the pandemic:

“Should I still pitch at all? Yes, please do! Life goes on. Life WILL go back to normal (ish). In the meantime, most media outlets are looking for a balance of stories and need positives and heart-warming tales to combat the Covid-19 gloom.”

Read the full article here-

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-pitch-journalists-during-coronavirus-crisis-jane-hamilton/?trackingId=vJCAMQ7EHi7lfL9gtCmG2w%3D%3D

Angelica Malin, Editor-in-Chief at About Time Magazine

Angelica hosts #SheStartedIt podcast, here she gives lots of insight into the industry as well as discussing all things female empowerment. She says*:

 “Be personal. There has never been more of a need to be personal in your pitches. Generic press releases won’t land well and tailoring the first line of the pitch to the journalist is key. So spend time familiarising yourself with each journalist’s latest updates on social media and research the main topics that they cover.”

You may be thinking ‘but surely we’re getting back to normal and I can go back to what I was doing?’, unfortunately not. Journalists are still working from home (believe us, we’ve tried calling!) and will be for the foreseeable. They are often only contactable by email only, and you really don’t want to annoy a journalist by calling their mobile unexpectedly! So, for now, the email pitch is the best way to get yourself featured, so make sure it’s perfect!

If you’d like some help with your pitches and how to contact journalists, get in touch with the Sunny Bird PR team – hello@sunnybirdpr.com

*https://www.wavemakernorth.co.uk/how-to-pr-during-covid-19-according-to-journalists/

Influencer of the Month

This April we’re championing beauty blogger extraordinaire Really Ree. Ree has ran her successful blog for 10 years, sharing everything from first look product launches, insider beauty industry news and a plethora of makeup and skincare knowledge. She prides herself on keeping it real for the everyday, ordinary person who just wants to look their best!

We asked Ree some questions and absolutely loved her answers, have a look:

What are the 5 words that best describe you?

Excitable, chatty, enthusiastic, friendly, loyal.

What magazine do you love reading and why?

I have to confess, I rarely read magazines now. If I do, it's the Stella magazine from my mum's Telegraph.

What is your favourite book?

Traditionally, the answer to this has always been To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. Now I think it is The Life-changing Art of Not Giving a F!

Which song makes you dance?

Anything by Britney!

What has been your best career moment?

I think it was when my L'Oreal Elvive ad was played on the big screens at Piccadilly. It's a moment I'll never get over. There have been lots of amazing moments and I'm amazed every day that I actually work with the brands I have obsessed over all my life, but that was a standout!

What advice would you give your 20-year-old self?

You haven't failed until you quit. Just keep going.

Where are you happiest?

When I'm on the evening dog walk. Archie my dog is a constant source of joy and I am like Beyonce to him.  He loves me much more than my actual son does!

Who would be your number one dinner guest and why?

I think I'd have Charlotte Tilbury. Her energy is incredible, and she likes a glass of fizz too!

If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?

To be able to know what beauty brands are launching before even they know!

Ree asked the SBPR team: what's your top motivational work tip?

Sunny – Recognise results

Unfortunately, clients don’t always thank the team for their hard work. So to motivate your team in the workplace you need to remember to recognise the results they produce. Let them know specific reasons why they did a good job.

For example, “Great job on that feature Grace, It’s already increased traffic to our customer’s website tenfold over last month.”

Lizzie - Give yourself a pat on the back. Allow yourself, and even encourage yourself, to be pleased with what you’ve done. Working from home is so much harder with no team to bounce ideas off of, and no one there to be your cheerleader, so remember to be your own cheerleader!

Grace - If you’ve had a morning of difficult work and feel daunted about doing any more, do something on your list which is going to get you a quick win, it will make you feel so much better and you’ll feel like you’ve achieved something for the day. Also, give yourself breaks… I need to do this more!

The SBPR Social Media Challenge

Every January the Sunny Bird PR team take on a social media challenge, which sees the team go head to head to win a holiday abroad!

At the beginning of this month, each team member presented their yearly review of the SBPR social media channel they manage, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. We analysed our engagement, reach, impressions and followers and pinpointed the content that worked, and the content that didn’t work so well from 2019. Using this information, and up to date research into social media trend forecasts for the year ahead, the team have now prepared their January social media strategy for each channel.

What is the Challenge?
The challenge is for each team member to organically increase all the social media statistics on the channel they manage by 100% compared to December in just one month. This means doubling engagement rates, post reach, post impressions and follower increases.

Of course, successful content is not one size fits all, each social media platform has different algorithms and measures of success. If the team are going to succeed, they will have to work hard, do lots of research, carry out lots of split testing, create bespoke content and unmissable opportunities for their audiences to engage.

Why do we do it?
With social media algorithms constantly adapting and changing, no business can afford to be complacent with their social media strategy. At Sunny Bird PR we pride ourselves in being social media experts, which means we always reflect and put into practice our own up to date knowledge across the SBPR social media platforms as well as providing this service to our clients.

Who’s doing it?
Laura is all business on LinkedIn and her tactic is: “To engage more with other users on LinkedIn to create meaningful connections and improve the engagement on our own LinkedIn page.”

Josh will be putting all of his creativity into 180 characters on Twitter where he will: “Include call to actions within each post to maintain engagement.”

Grace is going to be stunning Instagram with beautiful imagery and engaging stories: “I am going to create aspirational imagery to feature on the feed with informative captions and lots of well thought out hashtags.”

Annabel will be sharing all of our news and updates on Facebook, and asking for our community’s feedback: “My Facebook content will start conversations through sharing Sunny Bird PR’s knowledge and asking our followers for their opinions in 2020.”

How will we stay on track?

Every Monday in January the SBPR team will meet and discuss what they have achieved for their social media channel in the previous week, analysing each post and engagement, discussing how they can improve for the next week – if we want to smash our goals, we should be improving by 25% week on week!

These meetings are an opportunity to celebrate successes, offer honest critiques, and where the whole team can make suggestions for improvements. By discussing our progress as a team, it means we all gain a strong insight into each social media platform – preparing us for when we switch up our platforms in 2020.

Our next social media course is from 10AM-2PM on Thursday 20th February, tickets are available on our website www.sunnybirdpr.com/social-media-course. At this course we will share our tried and tested social media tactics to help you maximise your social media presence and use it to the best of your advantage. This half-day course will teach you everything, from paid for advertising to organic reach and all the jargon in between.  

Building A Community on Social Media

When it comes to creating a direct line of communication with your audience, there is no tool more valuable than social media.

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn aren’t just platforms for you to share your brand’s content with your audience, they also provide you with a way to communicate and engage with your brand’s followers creating your very own community. Brands that do this successfully are rewarded with organic brand champions and ambassadors as well as a sounding board offering a valuable insight into what is, and isn’t, working for their brand.

Two brands that have successfully created engaged social media communities are Jimmy’s Iced Coffee and Bliss Sanctuary for Women.

On Jimmy’s Iced Coffee’s social media accounts the team frequently share content posted by their community, and they respond to every comment in their unique and funny brand voice.

Bliss Sanctuary for Women make sure that their posts address their audience in first person, and use images of real guests who have visited their sanctuaries.

The social media shop window

You should approach your brand’s social media in the same way that you would your shop window if you had one. It is the first thing a potential customer sees when deciding whether they will engage with your brand.   

This means that social media isn’t just a shop window for content, it offers your potential customers an insight into how you deal with customer service issues too. If a potential customer browses your social media pages and sees that you are not creating a community with your audience, not answering their questions or listening to their opinions they are likely to take their business elsewhere.

So how can you build your community through social media? We have compiled some tips below to help you get started:

1.) Actively communicate

It might seem obvious, but communication is the foundation of all successful social media platforms. Brands which respond to comments, ask questions, and involve their followers with brand decisions gain not only the trust, but the respect of their followers.

2.) Be consistent with your engagement

Consistency is key when it comes to social media. Set aside half an hour at the start of every day and half an hour at the end to completely dedicate time to your social media engagement – this might be answering your audience’s comments, tagging them into posts, following new accounts or sending responses to messages.

3.) Step outside your own feed

Social media isn’t just about the space that your brand calls home, but the space that your followers, competitors, fans and collaborators curate too. Take the time every day to comment, like, share and engage with the content produced by these accounts. Both the Instagram and Facebook algorithm will prioritise your content if it detects that you are making meaningful connections with your followers – which means the more conversations you are having, the more your content will be seen.

4.) Make use of social media tools and trends

Instagram stories are more than just a feature to post quick snippets and videos. You can use stories to host polls, schedule Q&As, quiz your audience and much more. Stories that ask for involvement from the audience stand out, and when your followers see that you are asking for their opinions, they will want to be involved. 

5.) Keep it real

Making the most of real-life events and moments for social media content is an essential way to raise your brand’s value in the eyes of your customers. Showing your customers that your brand exists outside the screen builds your credibility, and keeps your brand feeling human. From working with influencers, highlighting your staff, shooting content at events and inviting your community to try products, there are many ways that you can bring your brand to life in your content.

For example, if you are a fashion brand, you could consider using a social media influencer that your community admires to promote your product. This activity could be as simple as sending an influencer a gift and asking them to share it on their social media platform.

An engaged social media community is an invaluable asset for businesses and can help to increase brand reputation, grow brand value in the eyes of the customer, and to receive constructive feedback. By dedicating your time to building your own community, we guarantee that you will see positive, tangible results for your business.

If you would like to learn tried and tested social media tactics to help you maximise your social media presence, grow your online community, and use it to the best of your advantage, then join the SBPR team on Thursday 20th February 2020 for our Social Media Masterclass.  Our half-day course will teach you everything, from building your community to increasing your organic reach and everything in between.

https://www.sunnybirdpr.com/social-media-course

6 Top Tips for Creating a Killer PR Strategy

The importance of developing a strong public relations strategy is probably something you’ve heard a lot, but what exactly is a PR strategy, how does it work and why is it important?

A PR strategy is essentially a plan of action to ensure your campaigns are well coordinated and delivered on time to ensure maximum impact for your brand. As an agency, we believe that a strategic plan can be the difference between make or break and is something you want to get right.

There are a lot of elements and steps involved in executing an effective PR campaign, from writing press releases, securing imagery and pitching it to the right journalists in time for the correct issue. It is the strategy which helps coordinate this to make sure everything runs smoothly.

At Sunny Bird PR, we create strategies for all our clients to ensure your brand or business is appearing in the press and is seen by your target audience year-round.

Here are our six steps to a fool-proof strategy:

Outline your objectives

First and foremost, outline your objectives. What do you want to be achieving through PR? Do you want to drive website traffic, increase sales or boost awareness? It’s important to make your objectives specific and measurable so you can tailor your campaign towards achieving them and monitor when they’ve been achieved. It is these objectives which will define the tools and tactics needed to implement your PR plan.

Define your target audience

Identifying your target audience is crucial if you want to be positioning your brand in front of them. Who do you want to be discovering your brand, product or service? What media do they consume, where do they spend their time and who do they talk to? Understanding who you are communicating with is crucial as it means your tactics can be targeted to resonate with a specific audience.

Research the media

This part is absolutely key. Once you’ve identified your target audience and what publications they read or websites they visit, devour that media! Find out who the journalists are, what they are writing about and identify any space where your brand might fit. This activity will help you start thinking creatively about how to position your brand to certain publications and what key messages will be most important.

Decide on tactics

Next up, you need to determine which tactics will best achieve your PR goals. For example, if you’re a fashion brand, you might want to sell more clothes by having your latest collection featured in a plethora of women’s magazines or you might want to make your tech start-up more appealing to investors by commenting on a topical debate.

There are endless tactics at our disposal depending on the objective ranging from distributing a press release to social media campaigns and organising events. Having established your goal and target audience it will be easier to assess which tactics will be the most effective in conveying your brand messages to them.

Leave yourself enough time

Now it’s time to start implementing a timeframe. This timeline can take any format you choose so long as it works for you, be it an excel flow chart or your everyday diary. This involves thinking strategically about time. Break down projects into smaller achievable tasks, decide who will do them and when by. By allocating time to tasks, you can organise your time and realistically evaluate how much time you want to dedicate to PR each month and what can be achieved in that time.

It’s also very important to consider deadlines for publications. Magazines and newspapers will have very different deadlines depending whether they are published monthly, weekly or daily. It’s imperative to identify what titles you are approaching and when they will need the information by. Generally, we advise six months in advance for the monthly titles, meaning if you would like your product appearing in December Christmas gift guides, you need to be reaching out to journalists in July.

Remember, your timing strategy can be as detailed or as vague as you like, but the important thing is it’s achievable, no deadlines are missed and it keeps you accountable week-on-week.

Set KPIs to measure results

Finally, we recommend setting yourself some targets or ‘Key Performance Indicators’ to give you something to aim for and measure the output of all your hard work. At Sunny Bird PR we set ourselves KPIs to achieve for every activity, whether that’s increasing Instagram followers or placing a certain number of articles in the national press.

Monitoring success can help you work out what tactics have been successful and what to try next time. A solid strategy will help you better understand your target audience, communicate your key messaging and most importantly grow your business!

Journalist of the Month

Rachel Tompkins is a freelance writer, journalist and editor with more than 14 years’ experience working for national magazines, newspapers, websites and apps. Rachel began her career as a writer for Take a Break magazine before going on to work on the launch of Pick Me Up Magazine in 2005. Debuting with a readership of half a million, it was the most successful magazine launch of the decade and won the BSME launch of the year. Today Rachel works as a freelancer feature writer for the national press and has taken time away from her busy deadline schedule to answer the notorious Sunny Bird PR questions.  

1.              What are the 5 words that best describe you?

That would depend who you asked! Colleagues have previously called me a terrier - because of my tenacity when chasing a story. I'm conscientious and a worrier, which means I feel an immense sense of responsibility when being trusted with someone's story. I'd like to think that my friends and family would describe me as kind and funny too.

2.            What magazine do you love reading and why?

Take a Break will always have a special place in my heart because it's where my journalism career started when I left City University. The same goes for Chat and Pick Me Up because I worked on the launch of Pick Me Up and was the Features Director of both titles before going freelance. I love their clever headlines and eye for a great story.  When I'm relaxing, I love Top Santé for some health and fitness inspiration and Guardian Weekend for thought-provoking longer reads.

3.            What is your favourite book? 

Through The Wall by Caroline Corcoran. It's out on October 17th but I was lucky enough to get a preview press copy and I literally can't put it down. It's dark women's fiction, or a psychological thriller, which is extremely relatable to me on so many levels. 

4.            Which song makes you dance?

Don't Stop Believin' by Journey, I first heard it in a piano bar in San Francisco on my honeymoon and it's become the anthem for so many nights out.

5.            What has been your best career moment? 

Getting my first job for Britain's top selling magazine felt pretty incredible at the time. Back then Take a Break sold well over 1million copies a week and I went on to learn so much there. Since becoming freelance there have been many little moments when I stop and pinch myself, for example a recent article I wrote for The Guardian Weekend about women without children. It took a lot of work to pull together and it was very moving and insightful to speak to some of the women involved. I was really proud of the end result. 

6.            What advice would you give your 20-year-old self? 

Believe in yourself and worry less. 

7.            Where are you happiest? 

At home in Oxfordshire with my family. After living in London for about fifteen years I cried the day we left. London will always hold so many fond memories, both with my career and also family and friends, but I've made a home in Oxfordshire now and I love our life here but also the fact that I can get the train into town in less than hour so I still feel connected.

8.            Who would be your number one dinner guest and why?

Can I be cheeky and say two - Prince Harry and Meghan! They intrigue me so much, I would just love to know what goes on behind closed doors with those two!

9.            If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?

To be able to fly, very quickly! That way I could whizz over and see my sister (who lives the other side of London) in seconds and catch up with friends who live far away without having to waste time getting there and back. Many of my good friends have migrated out of London like me now and one of the things I miss about living there is being able to hop on the tube and meet up with them easily. 

10.        If you had to ask us one question what would it be? 

What's the most unusual campaign or client you've worked on? 

We pride ourselves on being a creative agency and thinking outside the box to get results for our clients. Here are a few of our favourite unusual campaigns we’ve worked on…

Three Pregnant Dads

Our client The Book of Everyone came to us with the objective of launching its latest bespoke book; a personalised gift for Mother’s Day called ‘The Book of Mum’. To ensure the brand wouldn’t get lost amongst the Mother’s Day gifts already on the market, we needed to really grab the media’s in the run up to Mother’s Day – the concept of ‘The 3 Pregnant Dads’ was born. The company directors, themselves three middle-ages dads, wore “Empathy bellies” that weighed 33lbs/15kg for the duration of the month. This included; when attending client meetings, using public transport and even when heading to the pub! Everything was filmed and documented and shared with the media. The campaign secured 383 pieces of national and international coverage across 38 countries within a 3-week period. ‘The 3 Pregnant Dads’ were featured across all national titles and TV, including Lorraine Kelly, This Morning, Good Morning Britain, The Daily Mail, The Telegraph, Huffington Post and Times Magazine US amongst many others. Our 3 Pregnant Dad’s campaign led to a 2,765%, increase in sales, 2,000 shares on one Daily Mail article alone as well as a 1,850% increase in Facebook social media engagement.

Snoring Ruining the Nation’s Sex Life

In order to increase brand awareness and boost sales for our client Good Night Anti Snoring Ring we created a headline grabbing campaign. In order to secure column inches we set out to prove that the nation’s sex lives were suffering due to their partner’s snoring problems. We commissioned a survey that looked into the sex and love lives of our nation’s snorers. The survey revealed a whopping 30% of males admitted it took the spark out of their sex lives and 46.4 % of males felt embarrassed about their snoring.  One out of five males and females expressed that snoring put them off being intimate with their partner. To add a real life element we also worked with case-studies who were happy to speak to the press about how snoring affected their sex lives and relationships. On the back of our strategy we secured national PR coverage with the Daily Mail Online, The Daily Mail, The Sun, The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Mirror. Other titles included; Woman and Home, Top Santé, Prima, Take a Break, Pick Me Up, Health & Fitness, Closer, Bella, Natural Health, Chat and DIVA magazine amongst others.

What Does Your Poo Say About You?

For our client, private healthcare provider Ramsay Health Care UK, we wanted to secure national coverage and generate web traffic around Bowel Cancer Awareness Month. We started with the headline we wanted to see in the newspaper itself ‘What does your poo say about you’ and then built a strong bank of assets to support it.

We created an exclusive infographic that detailed the signs of bowel cancer in stools that are often overlooked.  We then created and executed a survey to over 1,000 people asking them if they would recognise the symptoms of bowel cancer and if they would do anything about them. This enabled us to source attention-grabbing statistics to add to our press release. Finally, we rounded off our assets with an expert comment from a Ramsay Health Care UK Bowel Cancer specialist. We approached the Mail Online and offered them the exclusive story. This resulted in the Mail Online running the piece in advance of Bowel Cancer Awareness Month. Once this was secured, we then rolled it out to further online titles, which resulted in the Express Online, Metro, Good Housekeeping, the Sun Online, The Irish Sun and The Scottish Sun. Not only did this boost the awareness of Ramsay Health Care UK within the national newspapers, but it boosted the website traffic by 208%.

The Good, The Bad and The Viral

The team have started 2019 with a creative bang (who said January blues?!) and scoured the world of PR for some inspiring and insightful PR campaigns. From a hard-hitting domestic violence campaign to gravy scented candles and gender-revealing pasta dishes, this month has it all.

So grab a cup of something warm and enjoy the team’s top picks for this month’s Good, Bad and Viral PR campaigns.

Domestic Violence Reversable Poems

Domestic violence charity Refuge launched a hard-hitting Christmas campaign aimed at turning attitudes of domestic violence on their head. Working in partnership with McCann Bristol, the charity ran a series of reversible poems, which, if read normally conjured images of a traditional family Christmas. But when read in from bottom to top the lines revealed the horrors of a household living with domestic violence.

The poetry campaign was promoted across Twitter and on the charity’s website, as part of a global initiative called 16 days of action (25 November – 10 December) to raise awareness of violence against women and girls.  It is part of Refuge’s ongoing mission to help victims of abuse, as research shows two women a week are killed at the hands of a partner or ex-partner in England and Wales, and another three women commit suicide each week as a way of escape.

Sandra Horley, chief executive of Refuge, said: "Domestic abuse is the biggest issue affecting women and children in this country today – it really is a life and death issue. Yet still too few women know how to spot the signs of domestic violence, realise that domestic abuse is a crime or know that Refuge is here to support them.

"We want women to know that, no matter what time of year, no one should suffer in silence and they should ‘turn’ to us for support."

The hard-hitting poems were featured in multiple publications including The Sun, Refinery 29, The Pool, Cosmopolitan and The Independent.

KFC Sold Gravy-scented Candles

What could cheer you up more on Blue Monday than a KFC gravy scented candle?

KFC cleverly launched a limited-edition gravy-scented candle to bring happiness to KFC fanatics on Blue Monday!

There were just 230 limited edition candles up for grabs, they were available on a first-come, first-served basis. They were also free! To accompany the delicious gravy scent, KFC unveiled a new KFChill experience which allows users to listen to sounds of their KFC Gravy Mega Box. Choosing between the sounds of frying chicken, falling fries or simmering gravy.

KFC have released a chicken scented candle and bath bomb in the USA before but this is the first time a KFC scented product has been released in the UK.

This campaign achieved coverage in national newspapers such as The Sun, The Evening Standard and The Mirror, and The Metro!

The Gender-Reveal Lasagna

Is it gross or pure genius? The launch of the gender-reveal lasagna (yes, we know this is not how you spell lasagne – but it is how they’ve spelled it so we kind of have to too!) pretty much broke the internet this month!

US restaurant and catering service, Villa Italian Kitchen, announced that they were introducing a new dish that would reveal the sex of your unborn child – the perfect addiction for your next baby shower?

The Italian creation consists of a secret pink or blue interior, made from layers of cheese, Alfredo sauces and Italian pasta. It doesn’t come cheap though, the dish is priced at $140 and serves 12 people.

Journalists from around the world took to Twitter to discuss the bizarre PR pitch that had just landed in their inbox, with one announcing: “Possibly the best subject line in an email ever: "Gender Reveal Lasagna?! – Villa Italian Kitchen Invites Guests to Celebrate their Bundles of Joy with Boatloads of Cheese!". The noise of tweets resulted in the #LasagnaReveal trending on Twitter.

Despite many negative responses to the latest way to reveal the gender of your little bundle of joy, the stunt did exactly what it set out to do and had everybody talking about it. A cheap photoshoot and some food colouring, and your brand is being talked about across the world! Plus, we’re sure they have been inundated with requests for the sought-after dish, boosting sales.

The news was featured in many publications across the UK and US including Daily Mail, The Independent, The Mirror, Grazia Daily, BuzzFeed, MSN, Metro, I Heart radio.

Clear Channel Homeless Billboard

A company called Clear Channel Sweden has teamed up with the government to protect homeless people when the weather drops to freezing conditions in Stockholm.

The company helped homeless people find their nearest shelter through innovative technology; they swapped the boring ads on billboards with directions to the nearest homeless shelter which we love. Across Stockholm, 53 billboards were activated for the program and they focused on areas that were most commonly used for homeless people. We think this is a brilliant use of technology and makes us happy that it is helping homelessness in one country, even if it is just a little.

Clear Channel International said “thanks to technology, we can develop solutions that can help people and cities”. This campaign had a positive response and featured in multiple publications including The Drum.

Uber links up with Calm to offer wellbeing exercises whilst travelling

Mindfulness and meditation is definitely a buzzword at the moment and it’s something that we’ve got involved with in the Sunny Bird PR office, with many of the team trying out the Calm app for guided meditations, which is why we love this collaboration between Calm and Uber.

The two companies have teamed together to help bring some relaxation to our hectic lives with their meditation exercises for Uber passengers. The apps have released four exercises of varying durations designed to fill a taxi journey lasting 3 minutes, 5.5 minutes, 12 minutes and 30 minutes. The campaign is accompanied by a survey that shows that 54% of Uber riders use their time in a cab to scroll through emails, social media and the news on their smartphones. Uber are aiming to turn taxi rides on their head – turning them into opportunities to relax and unwind.

This great campaign achieved articles in The Independent, Gizmodo, Metro and London Evening Standard.

Journalist of the Month

Melanie Giandzi is an official Food Tester at the Good Housekeeping Institute. Lucky Melanie spends her days taste testing the latest food and drink products from the coolest brands and penning copy for the title. Here, Melanie has taken a break from sampling the wares and compiling product round-ups to answer the notorious SBPR questions:

1. What are the 5 words that best describe you? Cheeky, caring, motivated, funny and personable.

2. What magazine do you love reading and why? I love reading all the grocer’s own in-house magazines as I love knowing what new products they are getting in and learning about what’s in season.

3. What is your favourite book? Can I say Harry Potter 1-7? 😉

4. Which song makes you dance? Tom Misch – Beautiful Escape.

5. What has been your best career moment? Deciding to change from the beauty world into food – a passion which always fills my mind.

6. What advice would you give your 20-year-old self? Save your money!

7. Where are you happiest? Having a picnic with my partner Cam at Primrose Hill.

8. Who would be your number one dinner guest and why? Frank Sinatra – I’d cook him a delicious meal in exchange for a serenade.

9. If you could have any superpower, what power would it be and why? Teleportation for sure, all my family is back home in Australia, so it would come in handy for sure.

10. If you had to ask us one question what would it be? What is your proudest moment at Sunny Bird PR?

As a team, there is a lot we’re proud of so this one took some thinking! Here are the team’s proudest achievements to date:

Lizzie: Creating Bournemouth’s Biggest Ever Street Art for a client – a giant Spiderman painted on Pier Approach which achieved 20 pieces of coverage in just two days with a reach of over four million people and exposure on TV, radio, online and in print.

Georgie: My first piece of coverage for Sunny Bird PR which was in the Telegraph - I loved winning the PR tiara and Prosecco for the piece too!

Laura: Securing 90 VIP guests to a restaurant launch in just one week and achieving 10 pieces of coverage off the back of the event.

Jess: Smashing our targets  and achieving more than 20 pieces of regional coverage for our client Ramsay Health Care UK in just one day.

Alex: Securing TV coverage on BBC Spotlight for one of our newest clients and even encouraging the presenters to get dressed up and take part in a cycling activity.

Sunny: My proudest moment to date has been hosting our PR & Publicity Reaching Millions courses which enables start-ups and SMEs, which don’t yet have the budget for PR, get their businesses of the ground!