An interesting client meeting on Friday to discuss the possibility of entering (and hopefully winning!) one or two industry awards, primarily as a means of attracting positive publicity.
The client already had a very clear idea of which awards they'd like to win, but was somewhat less clear on what it was about their business that might justify such aspirations. This is a common mistake, which often leads companies to enter awards that the proverbial 'cat in hell' stands more chance of winning.
Believe it or not, in order to win an award, you must have done something 'award-winning' and we encourage clients with such aspirations to look first at their business, products and services to identify those elements that genuinely differentiate them from their competitors. Then look at the award schemes, categories and criteria and identify those which 'match' your particular success story - if you've done this properly, there probably won't be many.
Having done this with the client in question, we now have a realistic shortlist of awards which they might actually win!
This was also the first time this company has enlisted external help to produce awards entries. In the words of the marketing manager: "We've always cobbled them together ourselves, but we've never won anything."
Far be it for us to suggest that the two things might just be connected! Whilst there are never any guarantees, with our proven track record in producing winning award entries, I get the feeling their luck might be about to change...
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
Thursday, 21 January 2010
Reaping the awards
Finally, after months of preparation and planning, award time is here! I’m currently knee deep in compiling an award entry for a client – this gives me memories of writing my dissertation all those years ago.
Apart from having a new piece of glassware for the trophy cabinet, awards bring much more value to a client. They boost team morale, add more weight to PR and marketing activity and reassure customers that they are dealing with a quality business.
This client was the runner up in last year's awards. Let's hope we can go one better in 2010!
Apart from having a new piece of glassware for the trophy cabinet, awards bring much more value to a client. They boost team morale, add more weight to PR and marketing activity and reassure customers that they are dealing with a quality business.
This client was the runner up in last year's awards. Let's hope we can go one better in 2010!
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
Every cloud has a silver lining
Just like the weather at the moment this job can be very unpredictable!
A few days before Christmas I came up with an idea for an article for one of our clients in the supply chain and, after a few discussions with the editor, sold the idea of a feature in a sector magazine.
The article was supplied on time and I called to check it had been received. All seemed well. However, in one of today’s trade e-newsletters I discovered that a new editor has just been appointed to the publication.
A quick call to the now former editor confirmed this. It also transpired that the article hadn’t been passed on as the magazine was taking a new direction.
I immediately contacted the new editor, he seemed to like the idea as well, wanted to take a look and would let me know. I fired it over with some relevant photos and crossed my fingers.
Bingo! We’re on. He wants to run it as an exclusive in the next issue and also commented: “Great pix.”
Particularly good news as I have a meeting with the client tomorrow.
A few days before Christmas I came up with an idea for an article for one of our clients in the supply chain and, after a few discussions with the editor, sold the idea of a feature in a sector magazine.
The article was supplied on time and I called to check it had been received. All seemed well. However, in one of today’s trade e-newsletters I discovered that a new editor has just been appointed to the publication.
A quick call to the now former editor confirmed this. It also transpired that the article hadn’t been passed on as the magazine was taking a new direction.
I immediately contacted the new editor, he seemed to like the idea as well, wanted to take a look and would let me know. I fired it over with some relevant photos and crossed my fingers.
Bingo! We’re on. He wants to run it as an exclusive in the next issue and also commented: “Great pix.”
Particularly good news as I have a meeting with the client tomorrow.
Tuesday, 12 January 2010
Going Dutch!
For only the second time in more than 15 years, tomorrow, work is taking me outside the UK - to visit the head office of a client in Kessel, Holland for a plan and review session following a very successful first four months.
This news has been met with a degree of jealousy by family and friends and serves to confirm their belief that PR is a highly glamorous and jet-setting occupation. This is short-lived when I then tell them that in order to be on board a 6.55am flight from Birmingham to Dusseldorf, my 14 hour day will start at 4am!
However, whilst this prospect does not fill me with great joy, a job which, over the years, has also taken me to lunch at Claridges and The Ivy and to the International Motor Show in Geneva (now that really is glamorous!), can't be all bad! In between, there have been long stretches of hard work and trips down the M1; these much more representative of what a job in PR is all about. Would I have it any other way? Ask me at 4am tomorrow!
Monday, 11 January 2010
It's not what you know
Finally, after months of chipping away at a longstanding freelance journalist contact, my efforts have been rewarded! He called to say that he's been commissioned to write a logistics feature for the leading wines & spirits sector magazine and asked whether I can line him up with an interview with someone from my client organisation. This is no coincidence - my client is actively seeking to extend their presence in this sector and I have been knocking on the door of this well read and respected publication for some months. As the editor is more slippery than most, I also approached this freelance journalist in the knowledge that he regularly writes for the magazine proving that in PR, it's all about who you know.
Now I just need my client to come back to me...!
Friday, 8 January 2010
Some bits and bobs about us...
1. The name of the business – Quiet Storm – was decided upon after being caught unawares by a heavy rain shower in the middle of Derby, following a new business pitch. The decision was celebrated immediately in the nearest pub.
2. Since then, we have seen the name used as a regular segment on a Friday night national radio show. It is also the name of a nightclub in London, a fashion house in Naples, Florida and an American laxative brand. We thought the association with each of the first three - radio, leisure and fashion - was quite cool. Make of the fourth what you will.
3. We’re the leading PR name in the supply chain industry. You can’t drive for more than ten minutes on a UK motorway without passing, or being passed by, a vehicle sporting the name of a business on our client list.
4. We handled PR activity for Hotpoint for two years, but one of our major successes for the brand was on the advertising side. Of all the advertisements run by Hotpoint on the television and in consumer publications over a two-year period, the most successful was a double-page spread advertorial in the M&S magazine – recommended, written and produced by our good selves.
5. When required, we’re good at minimising, rather than maximising, editorial coverage. Examples where we can’t show you lots of cuttings include poor financial results, racist graffiti, slow response times to emergencies, dodgy customer damage claims, depot closures, road accidents and obnoxious security guards.
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Friday, 18 December 2009
Unite’s BA blunder could have been a stroke of PR genius.
Analysts and journalists have been quick to point out the Unite union’s ‘breathtaking strategic blunder’ in calling a 12-day cabin crew strike at British Airways over the Christmas period.
With a colleague due to fly with the airline to the USA on 24th December, we have been made only too aware of the angst, confusion, frustration and downright annoyance the issue has caused amongst those travellers directly affected by the planned action.
Union members who voted for industrial action also appear to have been taken aback by the timing of the strike – showing they are more in touch with public opinion than their union leaders.
British Airways looks to have avoided losing hundreds of millions of pounds for the moment, thanks to sharp legal minds and the ineptitude of the union in including votes from former BA employees in the ballot result.
Of course, Unite could appeal against the high court verdict, but surely even the most rabid union leader recognises that such an action would lead to even greater disaster – irrespective of the appeal outcome.
And yet it could have been so different. Having secured a clear, legitimate mandate from its members for industrial action, the union could have ‘considered its options’ – including a strike over the Christmas period.
The result would have been a day’s worth of media speculation over what that would mean for the travelling public, together with similar volumes of coverage over the union’s grievances.
Unite could then have announced that the public’s ability to travel was paramount at this special time of year and that strike action would not take place until the second half of January – giving time for families to enjoy the festive period and to return safely.
Crucially, a delay until then would hit business travellers, who provide much of BA’s revenue. But it would also give companies plenty of time to book alternative corporate flights for that period with other operators.
Business bookings with BA would start to tumble straightaway. The airline would see its budgeted, lucrative revenues for that period start to diminish. The result would be a return to the negotiating table sooner rather than later to minimise the commercial damage.
Unite would be seen as a union fighting to protect its members’ rights, rather than a bumbling Scrooge-incarnate.
The union’s message has rather been lost in the media snowstorm of the last four days.
Fortunately, the high court ruling means the travelling public will get what it has already paid for and has a right to expect.
But Unite has lost huge amounts of credibility both inside and outside its membership.
It won’t be much fun being a member of British Airway’s cabin crew in the immediate future.
The airline’s slow and painful struggle back to profitability looks set to continue for quite a while.
There are no real winners in this winter’s tale.
With a colleague due to fly with the airline to the USA on 24th December, we have been made only too aware of the angst, confusion, frustration and downright annoyance the issue has caused amongst those travellers directly affected by the planned action.
Union members who voted for industrial action also appear to have been taken aback by the timing of the strike – showing they are more in touch with public opinion than their union leaders.
British Airways looks to have avoided losing hundreds of millions of pounds for the moment, thanks to sharp legal minds and the ineptitude of the union in including votes from former BA employees in the ballot result.
Of course, Unite could appeal against the high court verdict, but surely even the most rabid union leader recognises that such an action would lead to even greater disaster – irrespective of the appeal outcome.
And yet it could have been so different. Having secured a clear, legitimate mandate from its members for industrial action, the union could have ‘considered its options’ – including a strike over the Christmas period.
The result would have been a day’s worth of media speculation over what that would mean for the travelling public, together with similar volumes of coverage over the union’s grievances.
Unite could then have announced that the public’s ability to travel was paramount at this special time of year and that strike action would not take place until the second half of January – giving time for families to enjoy the festive period and to return safely.
Crucially, a delay until then would hit business travellers, who provide much of BA’s revenue. But it would also give companies plenty of time to book alternative corporate flights for that period with other operators.
Business bookings with BA would start to tumble straightaway. The airline would see its budgeted, lucrative revenues for that period start to diminish. The result would be a return to the negotiating table sooner rather than later to minimise the commercial damage.
Unite would be seen as a union fighting to protect its members’ rights, rather than a bumbling Scrooge-incarnate.
The union’s message has rather been lost in the media snowstorm of the last four days.
Fortunately, the high court ruling means the travelling public will get what it has already paid for and has a right to expect.
But Unite has lost huge amounts of credibility both inside and outside its membership.
It won’t be much fun being a member of British Airway’s cabin crew in the immediate future.
The airline’s slow and painful struggle back to profitability looks set to continue for quite a while.
There are no real winners in this winter’s tale.
Monday, 14 December 2009
Hello! Why the funky pictures?
Hello and welcome to our new web site!
Thanks for taking a look.
We thought we'd better start by explaining about the pictures that head up each page... not the people ones, obviously - they should be fairly self-explanatory. We're on about the pictures that give you an interesting (in some cases disturbing!) insight into the people that make up Quiet Storm Consultants.
It's an old adage, but public relations is very much a people business. Clients work with us because of what we can offer to them, but also because of who we are.
To help you get beneath the highly polished, professional surface of each member of our team, we hereby present their favourite books, biscuits, hobbies, mugs and God knows what else.
To make sure you don't associate fashion shopping, high heels or golf balls with the wrong person (and to avoid future potential legal action!), we've even put collections of our favourite things next to the relevant person's profile.
It's a bit of fun. Maybe an ice-breaker. And certainly a psychologist's dream... or should that be nightmare?
Anyway, enjoy!
Thanks for taking a look.
We thought we'd better start by explaining about the pictures that head up each page... not the people ones, obviously - they should be fairly self-explanatory. We're on about the pictures that give you an interesting (in some cases disturbing!) insight into the people that make up Quiet Storm Consultants.
It's an old adage, but public relations is very much a people business. Clients work with us because of what we can offer to them, but also because of who we are.
To help you get beneath the highly polished, professional surface of each member of our team, we hereby present their favourite books, biscuits, hobbies, mugs and God knows what else.
To make sure you don't associate fashion shopping, high heels or golf balls with the wrong person (and to avoid future potential legal action!), we've even put collections of our favourite things next to the relevant person's profile.
It's a bit of fun. Maybe an ice-breaker. And certainly a psychologist's dream... or should that be nightmare?
Anyway, enjoy!
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