How to... Contact a Journalist

A good relationship with the press is absolutely key for PR, without this your story will never see the light of day but how do you cultivate one of these elusive, sacred relationships? Journalists are absolutely inundated every day by 100s of emails, calls (mobile and office), direct tweets, old fashioned post and people turning up at their offices armed with product for them to try. On top of this barrage of communication on all fronts, journalists still need time to research and write their articles. So how do we get through all this noise and make ourselves heard without becoming a nuisance and being ‘ghosted’?

1. Journalists are human too

- Don’t send them blanket emails, don’t just BCC your pitch out with a generic ‘Hi’ or ‘Good Morning’ as it will end up unopened in the trash – they’ll know that you’ve sent it out to the world and its dog

- Take the time to read their articles before sending them information on your product/brand/service/story to ensure that it is suitable and refer back to one of their articles so they know that you’ve bothered to do your research

2. The early pitch catches the coverage

- Email journalists earlier in the week and in the morning because fewer journalists work on the weekend and your email should appear in their inboxes when they’re planning out their work for the week

3. Know Thy Journalist

- Going back to ‘journalists are human’, they all have their own preferred style or method of communication. Some will never respond to emails, others will only reply to emails and never take calls, some like that personal touch and can spare five minutes for you to see them face to face, others use twitter to get their stories. Unfortunately there’s no shortcut to this – you just have to learn and remember. We make a point of finding out from our journalists and here’s a peek at some of their bugbears and preferences...

We’ve spent years cultivating our relationships with journalists and have worked hard to make sure that we know them well enough to pitch the right stories to them at the right time with the assets they like best. This has paid off, not only do we get stories placed in the most coveted titles but they even like us! You can see what some journalists say about Sunny Bird PR here... https://www.sunnybirdpr.com/testimonials/

4. Keep your eyes peeled

- If a journalist says they’re going to run with your story, politely ask for an expected date so you can keep an eye out for your coverage – no one wants to go through steps 1-3 and then miss the coverage after all that hard work!

- If it’s a hard copy, make sure you get a copy when it does come out, hell, get two or three copies

- If it’s online, save it down so you always have a copy in case they take it down in the future

- Share it far and wide on all your social platforms – make sure it’s well presented if it’s a scan or an accessible link if it’s online

5. Remember your manners

- Say thank you!

- Send a handwritten, personalised card and some chocolate (that’s what we do) to the lovely journalist that featured you – if you keep them sweet they might even feature you again :) 

We hope this blog post has been useful and will fill you with confidence next time you’re approaching the press. We appreciate that it’s incredibly time intensive and there’s no short cut to creating these relationships. If you would like to get your story into the press but don’t have that much time on your hands feel free to give us a call on 01202 293095 or drop us a line at hello@sunnybirdpr.com.

PR Campaigns – The Good, The Bad and The Viral

The Sunny Bird PR team has found the best of the good, the bad and the viral PR Campaigns. This week brings a diverse mix of campaigns including making it easier to give money to the homeless, a designer who is inspiring women after the US election, a 4D tunnel that stimulates all five senses and two unique alcohol brands who want to be THE spirit people drink.

A Contactless Payment Jacket

That Helps You Give Money To The Homeless

 Amsterdam-based company N=5, has created the 'Helping Heart' jacket which features a contactless payment touch pad to help people give donations to the homeless using their contactless bank cards. By hovering your card over the pad on the jacket you are able to donate one euro to charity for the homeless.

The idea behind this concept is to make it easier for people to donate, as many people do not carry cash or change on them nowadays, preferring to use their card to make payments. Secondly, most people would love to help the homeless but many people worry that by giving money directly to them that you will inadvertently support their addictions.

The ‘Helping Heart’ jacket aims to alleviate this concern as once the donation has been made, the wearer of the coat can only redeem the money at an official homeless shelter in order to ensure that the money is never received as cash but in other benefits such as accommodation for the night, a shower or food. The money from the jacket can also be exchanged for vocational training courses and to create savings.

The jacket is currently in the prototype stage and being tested by several homeless people in Amsterdam. This PR campaign has made waves in Amsterdam and has also been featured on Mashable, Elle.co.uk and The Debrief. The gift of giving never sounded so easy, rewarding and helpful.

The ‘Dear Women Project’ Encourages Us

To Write To Women Who Inspire Us

The US election had everyone on the edge of their seats, but some weren’t that happy with the outcome. When Hillary Clinton lost the US election, women all around the world were shocked, including Chicago-based designer, Emily Asher. Emily found comfort after the shocking election results by remembering all the strong women in her life and the influential women who had become her role models.

Open letters thanking Hillary for her role in the election were being printed at the time and Emily had a thought - why shouldn’t we all write to the women who’ve inspired us?

“I started thinking about all the great women who had come before Hilary and all those in my own life whose words and faces had given me comfort and strength. I felt the power of their accomplishments and their words lifting me up. It was a feeling I wanted to bottle up and send to all the women in my life.”

This resulted in the Dear Women Project being born. The idea is to write a letter of thanks or encouragement to ten strong women in your life - family, friends, celebrities, politicians - and ask them to do the same, creating a chain of thanks and support.

Emily created a series of notecards featuring portraits of strong women from the past and present, which can be used to send letters to inspirational women, with 25% of profits going to non-profit organisations supporting women’s rights and causes. A six-month subscription to the Dear Women Project supplies two cards per month and costs $55.00 (£45). The two cards will feature different influential, famous women. Delivery is currently limited to the US but Emily is looking into delivering worldwide in the near future.

Emily hopes this campaign will encourage people to write to the women in their lives and that the handwritten notes the inspirational women receive will be kept and treasured. For more information, visit https://www.dearwomenproject.com/

This inspiring campaign has been covered by online press in the US and has also been covered by Metro, Huffington Post and Stylist in the UK.

A Kraken Valentine

It’s not always the campaigns with the biggest budgets which turn my head (in fact this is rarely the case), what I do appreciate is a campaign that’s original, knows its audience, taps into what’s going on and most importantly – makes me smile. My favourite rum brand (OK, OK, I might be biased) has achieved all of this with its latest campaign for Valentine’s Day.

Spiced rum brand, Kraken, is helping pirates and landlubbers alike to find love this year with the help of the hashtag #Rumantics and of course, the legendary Kraken Octopus featured on the front of every bottle who we now find out is called….Ken.

Also known as the ‘cupid of cephalopods', Ken is The Kraken's alternative to Paddy McGuinness or Cilla Black. Rummy singles are invited to tweet a selfie to @KrakenRumUK using the hashtag #Rumantics. A shortlist will be chosen for Ken to whittle down using his dating powers to two lucky daters who will be chosen to go on a special Kraken date together. The whole selection process will be filmed for fans to watch and will be broadcast on The Kraken's Facebook page on 10th February.

For those not chosen for the special Kraken date, some lucky folk will win Kraken Dating Kits which include everything needed to create the ‘Any Port In A Storm’ cocktail, original glassware, black roses and black candles, Kraken hoodies and a Kraken Valentine’s card. As well as gifts, guests can also attend Kraken haunts in London and Brighton over the Valentine's weekend, and enjoy a night dedicated to the festival of romance featuring a mystic character who will read love fortunes. Party-goers will also be able to win drinks and cocktail prizes.

This campaign is not designed to achieve print coverage (although it has made the trade titles); it has purely been created to drive traffic to its social media platforms. We’ll keep a beady eye on those audience figures over the next few weeks to see how this campaign blossoms.

Virgin Holiday – Tunnel to Barbados

Virgin Holidays wanted to create a disruptive, engaging experiential PR stunt to raise awareness of its direct holidays from Manchester to Barbados.

To do this Manchester based Smoking Gun PR decided to bring Barbados to Manchester for the day – with a little extra glamour brought by actress Michelle Keegan.

They did this by creating the world’s first 4D tunnel – complete with sounds and smells of the Caribbean that bought Manchester alive for one sunny day in June.

There were four main objectives for this campaign, these included:

·         Generating awareness of Virgin Holiday’s package holidays and direct flights from       Manchester to Barbados.

·         Creating an event that would build exposure across all media channels

·         Enable Virgin Holidays retail staff to capture sales leads on the ground

·         Capture the essence of the Virgin Brand – something brave with a touch of glamour!

To meet these objectives the agency commissioned a leading international 3D artist to create an illusionary tunnel which appeared overnight seemingly going to Barbados.  This painting was located in Spinning Fields, Manchester to take advantage of the great footfall in the area and on-target demographic.

Michelle Keegan was recruited to appear ‘inside’ the illusion – adding to media interest and underlining the ‘Manchester’ key message – this was to be her first corporate appearance since leaving Coronation Street adding to media interest.

The public were invited to interact with the illusion; picture sharing was facilitated on site using screens and backed up via a social media gallery, enabling further reach of the stunt, viral spread and also to enable data capture for sales leads.

Virgin Holiday retail offers were supported via the event, with branded sun glasses and water bottles being given away to help drive sharing of the event hash tag #MCRTunneltoBarbados.

Virgin Holidays’ retail staff were also on site to secure sales leads from the public.

As a result this PR campaign achieved 19 pieces of coverage including the Mail Online, OK Magazine, Hello magazine, The Mirror, Daily Star and two pieces in the Manchester Evening News – resulting in a combined circulation of 400 million.

Five tweets were also made by Michelle Keegan, #MCRTunneltoBarbados was trending on twitter in Manchester plus tweets of support were given from The Sun (Manchester office) I Love MCR, Manchester Gazette, Manchester Evening News, CityLife, Reveal & Hello!

Sipsmith Gin Host Winter Lounge Sessions

Step away from the hustle and bustle of London life and the harsh cold winter winds to find yourself in a cosy hygge embrace. Back in December, The Fellow Geronimo Pub (located near King's Cross station) joined forces with Sipsmith's, passionate pioneers of London’s artisan gin to bring back the pioneering hot gin experience for ‘ginthusists’ and to create a cosy winter drinking lounge. The purpose of the pop up event is not only to give city-dwellers a warm winter experience and share Sipsmith’s specialist winter drinks, but also to place Sipsmith into the minds of people ahead of the busy Christmas shopping season.

The brand launched the Sipsmiths pop up lounge on November 24th which was open to the general public until December 31st. Guests were able to discover some of Sipsmith’s winter warmers alongside staple favourites, in a setting that includes a roaring fire. On the launch day, the Sipsmith team were on hand to guide guests through the history of gin punches and the menu for the month. Sipsmith has done a couple of pop up lounges now, dotted all over London as they have been really successful and have received a lot of praise and I’m sure we are going to see a lot more!

Guests had the opportunity to taste a number of creations and become immersed in a brave new world of hot gin. The Fellow Geronimo Pub received lots of good reviews on its page, one being “Perfect evening for Gin lovers – I have been converted to Sipsmith”. The event didn’t get much coverage but the same event held at Ham Yard Hotel Roof Terrace in Soho, received a lot of coverage in the Metro online, Timeout London online and The Times.

Journalist of the Month

Kirsty Spence is the Food Editor at the Sun’s Fabulous Magazine, she’s taken a break from trying the best food the country has to offer to answer the infamous Sunny Bird PR questions, find out what whets her appetite…

What are the five words that best describe you? Sleep-deprived gin-crazed mum/magazine journo.   

What magazine do you love reading and why? Fabulous, of course! And it's a good job, too, as working on the production desk means I have to read everything at least 5772* times (*I may be exaggerating).

What is your favourite book? I love Bill Bryson's writing - chuckles guaranteed. The opening lines of an Alice Seabold story get me every time, and I really enjoyed the dark twists of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl. 

Which song makes you dance? Every Motown track ever! Or, er, Frozen's Let It Go - my three year old wouldn't have it any other way.

What has been your best career moment? Getting to cook with Jamie Oliver - massively inspirational and an all-round lovely fella.

What advice would you give your 20 year old self? Wear hot pants while you still can. And crop tops.

Where are you happiest? On a massage table (heaven!).

Who would be your number one dinner guest and why (they can be past or present)? My brother - he lives in Bangkok so I don't get to spend nearly enough time with him these days. He'd be my guest, but maybe I could convince him to whip up an authentic Thai green curry.

If you could have any superpower, what power would it be and why? The power to make a small child lie in at the weekend.

If you had to ask us one question what would it be? Is it gin o'clock yet?

The Sunny Bird PR team think it’s always time for Conker O’clock!

PR Campaigns – The Good, The Bad and The Viral

The time has come again where we give you a fresh new round up of good, bad and viral campaigns. This week we have looked at some wonderful workouts, a confusing tube sign, an unusual dining setting and two very different hair product endorsement campaigns.

POM #wonderfulworkouts

Health juice drink ‘POM Wonderful’ was set to launch a single serving bottle and they wanted this new product to engage with a broad female audience who had general interest in healthy, fitness and functional foods. To do this it hired Escapade PR to create a fun PR campaign that would attract great brand awareness.

To connect with its target audience the agency decided to collaborate with personal trainer and apprentice candidate Katie Bulmer-Cooke to create four ‘wonderful workout’ exercise videos.  These videos were created with the brand ethos in mind:

‘Small lifestyle changes can have a huge impact on your health and wellbeing’.

They were short in length but aimed to be powerful in content. These videos were a hit with many bloggers and YouTubers including ‘A Mummy Too’ who blogged about these short and simple exercises for her vast amount of followers to copy and try out for themselves.

This simple PR campaign gained much attraction and coverage, with 26 pieces of coverage and 145,700 impressions across Facebook, Twitter and Vimeo.

Amazon High-jacks Westminster Tube Station and Confuses Tourists

Londoners were left puzzled after tube station Westminster appeared to be renamed ‘Webminster’ overnight in a PR stunt. Amazon replaced tube signs with a new name to advertise the launch of a new London internet service to help businesses. Many confused tourists and travellers noticed the swapped signs and questioned what was going on – with many taking to Twitter to voice their concerns.

Buxton Water previously created a similar stunt whereby Canada Water tube station was renamed to ‘Buxton Water’ during the London Marathon. This stunt received a similar reception with many people highlighting the impractical nature of it when it came to tourists. The Webminster campaign was covered by The Evening Standard and Metro.

Table For One? How About 20 Strangers Instead?

With the rise of solo travel trending in 2017, we like this ‘social experiment’ (PR campaign) from KLM Royal Dutch Airlines which worked to engage solo travellers at the airport.  Unlike railway stations and trains, or even buses, where co-passengers tend to break the ice sooner rather than later, airports and flights can be cold and lonely if you're not travelling with family members or friends.

KLM decided to break the ice at the time of year most associated with being surrounded by friends and family – Christmas. KLM gave its advertising agency the following brief: instead of being preoccupied with mobile phones or books, what would it take to convince single travellers in this festive season to bond with strangers and create some delightful memories?

Enter the Bonding Buffet. Like all powerful advertising ideas, at the heart of the Bonding Buffet (seeing past the questionable name of course) lies simplicity and hearty human insight. A giant buffet table laid out with Christmas dinner - all a lofty 4.5 metres up in the upper echelons of Amsterdam Airport. The table would only come down to acceptable human reaching and eating level once all 20 seats had been filled.

The whole event was videoed and shared on social with some astounding view rates including 12.75 million views on YouTube and 57 million views on Facebook.  KLM definitely wasn’t lonely this Christmas!

The Power of Product Endorsement

Endorsing products can have both a positive and negative return, depending on who’s endorsing the product or what the product is. These two campaigns show very different approaches, both focusing on different hair products…

Lidl Bit Strange Paris Hilton

Paris Hilton’s stardom didn’t come to light in a positive grace despite her Father owning the well-known Hilton hotel chain. Moving on from her promiscuous past, Paris Hilton has been working with Lidl to promote her range of hair styling products.

Before Christmas, hotel chain heiress Paris Hilton brought out a hair styling line with budget supermarket Lidl, which included a pink hairdryer, straighteners, curlers and a heated hair brush. The American star, announced the range on Twitter, with a snappy video in which she walks through a door, looks around a bit and flicks her hair from side to side.

Fans have been left rather surprised by the move. Paris is usually seen to be used to the finer things in life, so working with German discount supermarket – Lidl – was definitely a surprising move.

“OMG, I thought this was a joke? Lol,” said one fan on Twitter. Another said “Aldi is better.”

Consumers seemed confused with Paris’ new partnership with Lidl. Could this have be due to the lack of screen time Hilton has had over the past year or could this have been a campaign where consumers could experience a glimmer of the high life by purchasing one of her products. Regardless of the intention and motivation, this new line by Paris has been featured in titles such as Daily Mail, Evening Standard, Huffington Post, OK Magazine, and Scottish Daily Record.

Kirstie Alley Takes to Twitter to Rave About Rain Lillie Castor Oil

It's not every day that a Hollywood actress promotes a small business without being paid, but that's exactly what happened to Rain Lillie Castor Oil, an organic beauty product that has received two Twitter shout-outs from Kirstie Alley.

"In LOVE with this product... NOT a paid sponsor, just a huge fan!" Alley Tweeted on November 27th. Less than an hour later, Alley followed up with, "I mean, weird pic but my hair is 50% fuller now! No extensions, NO tricks… & I'm ancient :)"

Despite Alley saying they weren’t sponsored posts, there is speculation that she was paid to write those tweets.

Rain Lillie launched back in the summer of 2015 and has claimed to not have paid any celebrities to promote the product.

Something as simple as a Tweet can bring great simple promotion to a product. However something as simple as a celebrity’s reputation can really boost sales too.

Blogger of the Month

Rhiannon Duffin is a Dorset-based, successful lifestyle and fashion blogger who focuses on seaside living, beauty, fashion and accessory brands. Rhiannon took some time out from writing her blog to write ours and answer the infamous Sunny Bird PR questions so we can all have an insight into the world of a glamorous fashion blogger…

What are the 5 words that best describe you? Honest, sensitive, articulate, funny and creative.

What magazine/blog/website do you love reading and why? Vogue for the obvious reasons and I also find the editorial shoots so inspiring. Tim Walker is my favourite photographer, the stories which he captures takes fashion to a whimsical and magical place.

What is your favourite book? I'm currently reading Year of Yes: How to dance it out, Stand in the Sun and Be Your Own Person. It has quickly become my favourite as it's amazing how three letters, one word, can have a positive outcome to your life.

Which song makes you dance? Swift's 'Shake it off' it always gets me dancing like a crazy person - I LOVE it!!

What has been your best career moment? Sitting in front of my computer and starting a blog called LifenStyle! 

What advice would you give your 20 year old self? Don't ever grow up, don't try and fit in, don't let the mean girls get to you and don't ever let the man question your integrity - You've got this girl!!

Where are you happiest? Spending time with my friends and going for beach walks. Both are chicken soup for the soul.

Who would be your number one dinner guest be and why? Lauren Conrad, I'm obsessed with this absolute babe. She's my true inspiration.

If you could have any superpower, what power would it be and why? Superhuman speed. This would save me SO much time and I'd never be late. It takes me ages getting ready in the mornings, this super power would mean early mornings are a thing of the past. Can we make this happen??

If you had to ask us one question what would it be? Why am I your blogger of the month? 

We love your style and that you’re a local blogger showcasing Dorset at its best. Perhaps more importantly we love your can-do attitude and your infectious enthusiasm which is behind your success :)

PR Campaigns - The Good, The Bad and The Viral

With the beginning of a new month upon us, we’ve got a range of new and exciting, successful campaigns to share, focusing on travel intern-ships, an interactive health billboard, a frozen food campaign that has taken a new approach to finding time for ourselves and an innovative service that everyone believed was a hoax, but is now due to launch in 2018.

Swedish Billboard That Coughs at Smokers

A Swedish pharmacy chain has used a digital advertising board to cough at passers-by who smoke. The ad board uses extremely sensitive smoke detectors and when activated it plays a video of people coughing. The idea behind the stunt is to encourage people to carry out their new year’s resolution to quit smoking.

Although the company’s intention is to encourage people to stop smoking, it seems that the stunt also unintentionally shames members of the public. Due to this, the public has been divided on whether the campaign is ethically sound. Either way, the campaign has garnered a lot of attention for the company - so in PR terms it is a success. The campaign has been featured on The Mirror Online, the Huffington Post and The Express Online. We wonder if this would be as successful if it was run in the UK?

All Aboard for the Best Intern-ship!

This campaign offers the perfect antidote to the January blues as it whisks us away to the promise of golden, Caribbean beaches, sparkling waters, food and drink and even the promise of money.

Royal Caribbean, the luxurious cruise company, has pipped the rest to the post by claiming 2017's first 'best job of the year' stunt. Although these stunts are now quite commonplace with more ‘best jobs’ around than ever before, this one does stand out from the crowd as it was promoted on instagram and is hiring for Instagram.

Royal Caribbean announced that it was looking to recruit an intern via Instagram to ‘work’ on three of its cruise ships over the course of three weeks. The lucky recruit will get free food, drink and flights and also a healthy £3,000 in cash. Their role whilst on board the cruise ships, travelling across the oceans, will be ‘a hybrid between a photographer, documentary maker and storyteller’ - that can be translated to 'taking envy-inducing pictures and sharing them on Royal Caribbean's Instagram account'.

Royal Caribbean UK Managing Director Ben Bouldin has said, ‘our cruise holidays are filled with extraordinary moments and we want to find a talented storyteller who can help us capture the unique experiences that make holidays so special.’

What’s really interesting about this campaign is that Royal Caribbean has only chosen instagram as a platform for this activity – typically the age of the average cruiser is over 50 whilst recent statistics show that 90% of Instagram users are under the age of 35. The Instagram ‘job’ comes after research reveals the platform has redefined the way people book holidays. The research behind the decision comes from a poll commissioned by Royal Caribbean to find out whether or not social media is overtaking traditional channels of inspiration such as holiday brochures and comparison sites. We’re very sure that Royal Caribbean knows what it’s doing here but we would like to understand the inner workings; is the brand attempting to draw in a younger crowd? Are under 35’s influencers on the over 50s? My money goes on wealthy families looking to take that last family holiday before their kids fly the nest, they want something fancy that everyone will enjoy and Royal Caribbean seems like a good option – they are on Instagram after all – they must be cool!

The coverage has been excellent so even if the Instagram route is flawed at least they’ve achieved a broad wave of PR off the back of this campaign. So far, we’ve spotted the piece in Condé Nast Traveller, Mirror, Metro, Express, Daily Star, CNBC and other media titles around the world.

Amazon Prime Air is Flying Sky High!

In 2013, Amazon Prime announced that it would be creating a brand new delivery service to add to its forever growing company – by flying drones through the air to deliver packages! Press and consumers all believed that this was a PR stunt to see Amazon as an innovative and forward thinking company. But not many believed that it would follow through with the idea.

Come December 16th 2016, Amazon Prime Air proved everyone wrong and launched its first successful delivery - by air - within 13 minutes! No press or consumers were invited to view the first flight, which may have been due to the possibility of the flight failing and would have looked bad on them; however Amazon filmed the successful delivery and has now shared its content with press.

While deliveries will be available seven days a week from mid-2018, the drones can only fly in daylight hours and in good weather. Currently, the trial is only open to two customers, but Amazon says it hopes to expand this service to dozens of customers in the coming months. For those customers, Prime Air is available for no extra cost. This service will offer customers a lot of benefits such as guaranteed delivery within 30 minutes and may possibly save money on delivery vans, however there are cons…

The drones can only carry items weighing less than 2.6kg and can only be delivered to those who own a large garden and who live near the delivery depot. There is currently only one delivery depot which is located in Cambridgeshire.

So is Amazon Prime Air as good as Amazon hoped after its first successful flight and being picked up by press? We’re not sure. Amazon has said however that with the official launch date not until 2018 there’s still plenty of time for any flaws to be ironed out.

On the back of the promotional video of its first flight, press such as The Daily Mail, The Guardian and The Telegraph have covered the service before the official launch next year while bloggers and technology experts have been invited to the main depot in Cambridgeshire to see the service first hand.

Will Amazon Prime Air fly sky high or will it plummet to the ground? We believe it will be a great success if it continues to trial the service over the coming year and something that Amazon can add to its building reputation.

Frozen Food and Beauty….an Unlikely Pairing?

Frozen food brand, LowLow Ready Meals, wanted to deliver a stand out one month campaign in January during the New Year diet season. The brand wanted consumers to see frozen foods as a healthy option and that it isn’t just fresh food that’s good for you.

The brand wanted to broaden the appeal of LowLow’s frozen meals across its target demographic of 30 – 54 year old women and overall build brand awareness of the range.

The unlikely part of this campaign was that the frozen food brand decided to team up with ITV’s This Morning’s celebrity make-up artist Bryony Blake to have as their brand ambassador.

We know what you’re thinking, frozen food and beauty - it doesn’t quite blend however the campaign was called ‘Take 5 and make a difference’ and its aim was to encourage consumers to spend an extra 5 minutes on themselves – whilst it took 5 minutes for the frozen ready meal to cook in the oven. This included quick and easy 5 minute beauty and make-up tips provided by Bryony.

To support this campaign the PR agency ran a social media campaign including a live Facebook chat with Bryony herself. A dedicated micro site was also created which included many ‘how to’ videos and make up tips.

Furthermore two media events were hosted ahead of the official campaign launch during which journalists could meet with LowLow development chefs, sample the range and learn about the ‘Take 5 and make a difference’ campaign direct from Bryony Blake herself.

Plus, to top it all off, competitions ran throughout January in TV Choice and across five women’s lifestyle websites.

The results? The campaign reached over 30 million potential consumers, achieved 70 pieces of coverage including OK!, Daily Mail, The Sun, Metro, Woman’s Own and Real People. The social media campaign reached 330,000 consumers and the competition attracted more than 144,000 entries.

The success of the campaign is definitely owed to using Bryony Blake as a brand ambassador, without her we’re not sure it would have achieved the same success. We’re not entirely sure on the frozen food, beauty combination however it evidently works - so hats off to this PR agency!

Journalist of the Month

Verity Mann works at Good Housekeeping and is the Deputy Head of Testing in the Good Housekeeping Institute.

The lovely Verity has kindly answered the infamous Sunny Bird PR questions to give us an insight into what makes her tick!

What are the 5 words that best describe you? Hmmm, I’d have to go for: caring, smiley, positive, enthusiastic and generous (ish).

What magazine do you love reading and why? Besides Good Housekeeping (had to get that in there…) I enjoy flicking through my local Essex Life magazine. It includes what’s going on in my local area, such as new shop or restaurant openings.

What is your favourite book? Hard to pick an all-time favourite as I love to read and there are so many! One that sticks with me, to this day, would be Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger. It was a school read and one I always remember fondly.

Which song makes you dance? Oooooh embarrassingly so many, but a definite would have to be Justin Timberlake, Rock your Body.

What has been your best career moment? Most definitely my work placement here at the Good Housekeeping Institute when I was at University. Without that, I probably wouldn’t be working here today!

What advice would you give your 20 year old self? Have more fun, be more carefree – worry less.

Where are you happiest? When with my family. We’re a close unit and I love that.

Who would be your number one dinner guest be and why? (they can be past and present?) I think Dolly Parton would make a great dinner party guest. She’s led a colourful life and I love the sound of her voice and her contagious laugh. You can tell she’d be good fun to be around and would share some interesting stories!

If you could have any superpower, what power would it be and why? I’d love the ability to heal. I’d be a very busy person though!

If you had to ask us one question what would it be? Is your favourite member of the team Louis? Be honest…

We’ve all said yes! Even though he spends most of the day lazing around waiting for tummy tickles, treats and a w.a.l.k…

PR Campaigns - The Good, The Bad and The Viral

We are kicking off the New Year with positive, upbeat campaigns as January is well known for being the most depressing month of the year – urgh! Despite us all throwing down the chocolate, cake and alcohol this month and frantically grabbing the fruit and veg, we have all chosen campaigns that relate back to food!

David Lloyd – Run For Your Bun PR Campaign

Every New Year sees an influx of ‘new year, new you’ themed PR stunts along with campaigns that have a huge emphasis on health and weight loss.

This January, health centre and gym company David Lloyd is offering its members the unique opportunity to earn their food in exchange for working up a sweat. Following new research that reveals that the average office worker spends 90% of their working day sat down and not moving, David Lloyd Clubs is launching a new café giving customers the chance to ‘pay’ for their lunch with a six-minute micro workout. The café, called ‘Run For Your Bun’, aims to encourage workers to be more active during the working day and highlight the important role that a balanced diet and regular exercise plays in a healthy lifestyle.

Diners will be invited to choose a lunch item from the menu prior to beginning a high intensity interval workout to be used as their method of payment for the meal. Once the workout has been completed, guests are then invited to take a seat in the café area and refuel with their delicious chosen lunch.

The quick ‘HIIT’ (high-intensity interval training) workout includes one-minute on a rowing machine, one minute on a spin bike and one minute on a treadmill, as well as 60-seconds of sit-ups, bodyweight squats and lunges, with 30-second rest periods between each exercise.

The lunch options at Run For Your Bun:

• Smashed avocado with cherry tomatoes, goats cheese, chilli and lime on toasted wholemeal bread
• Giant couscous with apricots, raisins, pine nuts, lemon, coriander and fresh basil with a balsamic dressing
• Grilled chicken breast burger with tomato, red onion and garlic mayo
• Pitta pockets with mixed salad and a choice of smoked salmon or grilled halloumi filling

Run For Your Bun café was open to the public on Wednesday 11th, Thursday 12th and Friday 13th January, between 11:40am and 3pm each day. The first session sold out due to the great PR coverage that this campaign has received.

A Lighter Way to Start the Year

With talk of Blue Mondays, diets and detoxing we welcomed the new outdoor advert from Maltesers. The nation’s favourite ‘Lighter Way to Enjoy Chocolate’ brand has been championing disability and promoting inclusiveness for a while now with its ‘Look on the Light side of Disability’ campaign. The campaign kicked off last year with Maltesers featuring disabled actors in its TV commercials. Mars consulted disability charity Scope while developing the ads and said it wanted to open a conversation with other brands about how to better represent the UK's diverse population through advertising.

World Braille Day is on the 4th January every year and to mark this year, Maltesers created a special build OOH (out of home) advert display at a Farringdon bus station in London, to raise awareness of the day and of course promote the brand as well. The billboard advert is made entirely of braille and is the latest addition to the campaign, which also saw the first ever TV advert to air completely in sign language.

We think it’s great that such a big name, household brand is breaking down barriers by normalising disability with its advertising and communications strategy – and even better adding a sprinkle of humour.

Whitworths: Shot Property

PR agency WPR was tasked with launching a new concept in healthier snacking – Shots by Whitworths.  Under 100 calories these were a hero product internally – and quickly became one externally too.

The challenge was to use the Shot products to secure product placement and sampling opportunities – with the overall objective of increasing awareness of the entire Whitworths snacking collection.

So, to stand out with key press contacts, the agency developed ‘snack time’ media packs – including a full range of products, complete with an alarm clock set to 11am, urging the press to remember ‘snack o’clock’. The packs were distributed through a series of one-to-one press briefings where they were well received – with titles such as OK!, Homemaker and Love It! tweeting photos of their own happy snack time moments.

In order to get the Shot products directly into the hands of consumers, WPR worked with the organisers of relevant events to distribute a total of 22,000 samples. This included product visibility at London Fashion Week, Red Magazine Fashion Evenings, Clothes Show Live, Ideal Home Show at Christmas and Prima – as well as key magazine editor events.

All this was accompanied by a strong trade focus to attract the attention of key buyers. They ensured that Whitworths’ spokespeople were leading commentary around healthier snacking and unique product offerings, during the launch period.

Following the press visits, key titles such as OK!, Healthy Food Guide, Morrisons Magazine, Your Home and Woman’s Own Diet Special all featured various flavours of the Shot products – and other snacking options within the range.

Trade wise, thanks to attendance at the Lunch! show and PR support, Shots were awarded the Gold in the innovation category.  This accolade has brought the product to the attention of even more key buyers and resulted in some brilliant new outlets for the brand.

Fair to say that Shots weren’t the only heroes for Whitworths that year.

Kellogg’s Rice Krispies Made, Shared and Gave this Christmas

Kellogg’s Rice Krispies partnered with ‘Toys for Tots’ and Instagram Star Misterkrisp (Jessica Siskin) to help give joy to children in need. Kellogg's Rice Krispies encouraged families to embrace the holiday season of giving with the "Treats 4 Toys" program. For every Rice Krispies treat they made and shared using #Treats4Toys, Rice Krispies donated a gift to Toys for Tots to help bring a little joy to a child in need.

For every original photo posted to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram between September 26th 2016, and January 1st 2017, using #Treats4Toys, Rice Krispies donated $10.00 to Toys for Tots (up to $50,000 total), which was used to help buy toys for children in the US.

So who are Toys for Tots and Jessica Siskin?

Toys for Tots Foundation is the fundraising and support organisation for the US Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots Program. The foundation was created at the request of the US Marine Corps and has supported Toys for Tots since 1947. The mission of the program is to collect new, unwrapped toys during October, November and December each year and distribute those toys as Christmas gifts to needy children in the community.

New York City-based food artist Jessica Siskin began making edible Rice Krispies Treat sculptures in December 2012. When Siskin realised that food colouring could be added to the side-of-the-box recipe, she felt an immediate impulse to make a Rice Krispies Treats shaped cheeseburger. She continued to experiment with Rice Krispies Treats recipes, techniques, and designs until Misterkrisp was born in October 2013.

Titles such as GoodHouseKeeping.com and Metro US and The Daily Mail UK have covered this generous, light hearted news story.