How do you grow a business in Europe?  

Jill Coomber, Managing Director of Integrated Marketing, Europe   

The key to great growth rests on data and insights. Really understanding the market, the key trends, the hotspots, where the ‘white space’ exists for your offer and insights into your specific audiences and their behaviours are all vital. You can ultimately see how much of a product or service you can sell into a particular geography, at what price point and with what messaging to which variation of your audience. Being able to focus and prioritise driven by this data and insight means you can scale rapidly, and drive ROI more efficiently.  

 Plan to scale as rapidly as you can build your team and infrastructure. Team experience is a vital component here. You can either recruit the talent who can bring this knowledge or hire agencies with the right skill sets.  

 Understand the power of local language. Working in a single language is often easy whilst focusing on the early adopter and innovator audiences but you reach a ceiling where language is a blocker. Translations and bringing in true localisation into play is an art rather than pure science. Again, experience plays a big part in getting this right: being able to regionalise and localise in an optimum way. Given so many products are in fact experiences nowadays getting omnichannel customer service in local language to resonate is also critical to growth.  

 How do you stay on top of the trends in Europe?  

Heike Schubert, General Manager, Germany 

 My day starts with reading two newspapers every morning, I try my best to always have my eyes and ears open to daily news from politics to culture and sport. Don’t only live in your bubble, everything can spark innovation and ideas – stay curious and don’t just stick to communications or marketing news. I listen out for conversation everywhere, from the grocery store to new podcasts so I can get a rounded understanding of everything from what is driving our economy to what gets people talking.  

 In Europe, you have to be aware of cultural backgrounds and societal norms. Self-awareness is key to help you and your business interact with stakeholders in other markets. Take steps to identify your own patterns and understanding while building up your knowledge of other cultural backgrounds. What can seem like small differences in phrasing, meanings and expectations can cause unnecessary damage and confusion. It’s not always about changing how you do things, but it is always about understanding the actual needs and desires of the opposite party. In international communications a key misunderstanding is that you have to adapt or assimilate, but that’s not what helps you in business, it’s about being transparent, authentic without prejudice or judgement of the other party.   

How do you start to build up a network for recruitment and new business in Europe?  

Jim Selman, Partner, Managing Director, UK + Ireland 

 My biggest piece of advice is don’t try to switch on talent at short notice but build up a network of entrepreneurial people over time. Investing in your network and building trust in partners and talent allows you to have a surgical understanding of their abilities which allows you to move around efficiently in the region.   

Focus on building trust and camaraderie, and as much as possible be there face to face to get to know their struggles and ambitions. Make sure your connections feel like friends and colleagues even if they aren’t directly part of your organisation, this will make sure that when things heat up your extended team have your back.   

 I always remember the Scout Motto: Be Prepared. Even if you don’t need or cannot afford to invest in a particular skill set or service now, be prepared and build up a swiss army knife of options for the day when the need and resources do come.  

How important is it to stay connected to your brand values as you expand into new territories?  

Cathy Planchard, Global President of Integrated Marketing 

 The value that we place on our company's core values is what differentiates us from other large and mid-sized agencies. These values stand the test of time and drive our approach to the business, the brands we align with, who we hire and how we think. It creates the guardrails for a healthy, productive and satisfying employer-employee relationship.    

 Keeping culture first is a high priority, but it is no easy feat. It requires a mindset and a commitment by hiring managers and leadership of all levels.  We’ve joked that we have a ‘no jerk’ policy, but we mean it. It can be so easy to look at someone's experience or background and want to make a hire, but if their perspective of how they do the work, how they treat their team, and how they approach client service is not aligned with our organisation’s values, it will cause more long-term harm than good.    

  Every market has a unique perspective and backdrop. As an example, the media landscape is incredibly different in Europe than it is in the US, which impacts how we think about the available channels of communication. But the tenets of what makes for a great story are universal: emotional and rationale resonance and empathy for the audience.  

 Be prepared!   

Every European market has its own nuances, behaviours and preferences. Every business is different, but one thing is clear: careful preparation is key. Investing in research and insights, quality localisation, strategic talent and impactful storytelling will set you up for scalable success. 

Jess Docherty is a senior digital account manager in Allison+Partners’ London office.

Marketing Week

Anyone working in the field of marketing and communications is already no doubt aware of Marketing Week. But do you tune in to its regular podcast? Each week, Marketing Week’s award-winning editorial team discuss key topics and are joined by some of the most interesting guests across the industry.

Listen on Google Podcasts.

Marketing Over Coffee

Get your weekly fix of marketing news and analysis from marketing experts John Wall and Christopher Penn. At 20 minutes in length, it’s the perfect podcast for learning something new while drinking your morning cup of joe.

Listen on Google Podcasts.

Internet Marketing Podcast

Looking to get the most from your digital and search engine marketing? Listen to the UK’s most popular internet marketing podcast as their hosts share insider tips and practical advice you can bring to your campaigns.

Listen on Google Podcasts.

The GaryVee Audio Experience

Hosted by Vayner Media CEO and public speaker Gary Vaynerchuk, this podcast includes interviews, discussions, keynote experiences and fireside chats. If you want the more personal touch with a mix of advice for entrepreneurs, this is the podcast for you.

Listen on Google Podcasts.

Duct Tape Marketing

One from across The Pond, Duct Tape Marketing is hosted by U.S. small business marketing expert John Jantsch. With interviews from authors, experts and thought leaders, this is a great place to start for smaller businesses kicking off their marketing strategies in 2020.

Listen on Google Podcasts.

The Stream UK

Get all the latest news and analysis from Allison+Partners in London with The Stream UK. We might be biased, but we think this is the best podcast on this list and a must listen in 2020. Not tuned in yet? You can catch up on all Season One below!

Andrew Rogers is an account director in Allison+Partners’ London office.

Push the Podcast

We already see clients recognise the value of podcasts, with some taking the decision to record their own. And with around 7.1 million people in the UK now listening to podcasts each week, according to Ofcom figures, it’s unsurprising that brands want to take advantage of this popular channel.

Google has also recognised this trend. It has already started making podcasts easier to find on the search platform. The company will now surface individual podcast episodes in search results. So, if someone searches for a show about a particular subject, Google will show them potential podcast episodes that match their enquiry. This will only help fuel the popularity of podcasts as a marketing channel next year.

Video on a Wider Scale

In 2020, more organisations will incorporate video into their communication of news announcements. On the mainstream news websites, there is often video content at the top of the page, where the article sits underneath it. We know images have been important for a while. But until now, video has been somewhat neglected. However, the internet is the second most popular platform for news consumption, according to Ofcom, with 66% of UK adults saying they used it for news in 2019. So, it makes sense that businesses will create their own videos to complement their own news stories.

Influencers Get Corporate

Influencers have become an integral part of most consumer campaigns. But in 2020, we will likely see the use of influencers in the B2B space become far more prevalent. B2B influencers are useful for communicating messages on a more personal level and are particularly effective as part of LinkedIn campaigns to help amplify a brand’s messaging and content. They can also be used for endorsing research, attending company events, inviting company spokespeople to be a guest on their podcast, writing blogs for the corporate website or publishing an article for an outlet they regularly write for.

Advance Employee Advocacy

The idea of social purpose and communicating what brands care about has never been more important. In 2020, we will see more of a focus on how brands can use their employees to push that goal. Trust has become more of an issue for employees too. However, problems with company culture now get exposed by news outlets and on social media (take the recent Google protests as an example). To mitigate against staff expressing detrimental opinions on their social channels, brands need to plan to mitigate that through greater employee advocacy.

The Problem of Private Social Platforms

In 2019, brands realised the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are not the be-all and end-all of social media platforms. Young people spend less time publicly broadcasting their lives online and have moved to channels such as WhatsApp group chat to share experiences of a product or brand in smaller private spaces. The challenge: how can marketers measure this? To combat the problem, marketers will need to be smart about the KPIs they want to measure at the outset of a campaign.

Becoming Data-Driven

More data than ever before will be created in 2020. But what is the point in having all this information if it cannot be used effectively? Over the next 12 months, we will see a more concerted effort by marketers to harness the power of data and greater investment in data analytics tools. Fortunately, new research from Allison+Partners - Turing Data into Marketing Gold - found 81% already invest in augmented or advanced analytics. This is in line with global trends. According to the Gartner CMO Spend Survey 2019-2020, data and analytics tops the priority list of investments for the future.

Coming up on the agenda are the Olympics in Japan, presidential elections, the next season of Love Island and more. And these key events are likely to play a key role in campaign planning. As we move through 2020, it will be fascinating to see if any of the aforementioned trends materialise or if any unexpected technologies or industry upsets emerge.


Lizzy Chesters is an account director in Allison+Partners' London office.

Select brands with the right values

More than any other generation, Gen Z deeply care about the values that brands have. It’s not just enough to have the best product, it’s now vital to also have values that people want to be associated with. This extends to the online space, where brands that fall down can expect (perhaps rightly) to be called out on social media.

For parents (and brands) getting the right gift also means picking the right company behind the brand. It used to be that you just needed to select the brand that was cool. Now you also need to pick the brand that’s woke.

Don’t forget about the environment

Gen Z are increasingly dreaming of a Green Christmas. While other generations might see Christmas as a chance to splurge and over-indulge, younger generations believe that environmental responsibility needs to extend to every day of the year.

Brands should, therefore, avoid anything this Christmas that comes across as needlessly wasteful or unsustainable. Plastic toys in Christmas crackers are increasingly becoming a thing of the past. It’s about time.

Ownership is less important

It’s been true for a while that younger audiences value experiences over physical items. This is even truer when viewed through the frame of sustainability. Many younger shoppers don’t want throwaway presents and would rather opt for digital products, such as music subscriptions or video games. Similarly, experiences (particularly highly shareable ones) will continue to be a hot trend for Christmas shopping.

Brands still matter though

That all being said, most teenagers will still be putting specific brands on their Christmas lists. Having the ‘right’ brand is still a status symbol, particularly in a world where people feel the need to always share. Take for example the VSCO Girl craze. Named after the popular video editing app, the trend requires very specific brands. Fjällräven backpacks, anyone?

Parents and brands alike need to understand Gen Z if they want to get it right this Christmas. Either that or stick to the socks. You can never go wrong with socks.

Andrew Rogers is an account director in Allison+Partners’ London office.

IKEA

The Piercing Insight

When it comes to hosting over the festive season, we all have those little voices in the back of our heads that tell us our homes aren’t presentable enough. From the chipped mug, the crack in the wall to the living room without any personality, we all fear our homes are just not up to scratch.

The Brand Connection

IKEA believes every home is worthy of a festive gettogether, with a little imagination and some clever IKEA products. The Swedish furniture monolith has also tapped into a bigger cultural trend by using grime legend, MC D Double E.

The Succinct Expression

The Wonderful Everyday.


MCDONALD'S

The Piercing Insight

Kids all over the world leave snacks out for Santa and his reindeer on Christmas Eve.

The Brand Connection

McDonald’s celebrates the magic of Christmas through the eyes of Ellie, an imaginative little girl, in an advert which illustrates scenes recognised by parents across the country. The fast-food giant also garners lots of PR with the promise of giving out free ‘Reindeer Treats’ to families on Christmas Eve.

The Succinct Expression

McDonald's is back with its 'Reindeer Ready' message – which gives it strong message penetration and allows the marketing team to spend more on the production and execution. Win win!

M&S FOOD



The Piercing Insight

M&S Food provides its customers award-winning quality and innovative food.

The Brand Connection

The delicious M&S Christmas range of food and colleagues are the stars of the show. The Christmas marketing campaign also drives earned media by including M&S Food celebrity panel members Paddy McGuiness and Emma Willis. The duo wanders through a festive market with more than 100 M&S customers and a real school choir from Wales that sings a rework of Fleetwood Mac’s Albatross, the iconic tune behind M&S' 'this is not just any' campaign. Now, where’s my nearest M&S Foodhall?

Succinct Expression

This is not just food; this is M&S Christmas food!

The winning formula for cultivating the ‘Big Idea’ sounds good, but sometimes the light bulb just doesn’t go off. Great ideas are usually the result of a combination of conversations, research, experience – and time. Allison+Partners has designed a ‘Big Ideas Lab’ to help brands connect with culture and creativity that sits in and outside of their organisations. For more information, get in touch with Jill Coomber at LondonOffice@allisonpr.com.

Gina Mossey is an account director in Allison+Partners' London office.

Make sure the story is one shared company-wide

Those who will turn out to be the real drivers of your brand purpose are your exec team and your employees. Good causes are emotive. So, the more you can get a sense of the values your entire company strongly believes in, the more heart your narrative will have.

Surveys and focus groups can work wonders here. Including members of the C-suite at key points in the planning phase will mean they are several steps ahead and truly bought into the cause when it hits the airwaves across PESO channels. Workshops work really well in the early stages of bringing stakeholders together to tackle collaborative message development and creative campaign ideation.

All of this will ultimately give an engaging and consistent narrative that will spark connections with customers and make them want to adopt and share it as their own.

Answer the “why”

This question is more important than ever to answer in the early planning stages. Ask yourself why your brand supports this cause. Does it align with your brand mission and values? Not only that, but does it fit with the vision of your leadership team? Is there real potential for your company to make a difference? Do you have the resources to put behind this to make a measurable impact?

If the answer to any of these is “no”, more needs to be put in place to be able to truly drive the initiative forward. Taking a step back to ask yourselves the difficult questions here is invaluable. Don’t be afraid to take inspiration from those who do it well or speak to contacts in other markets to get an outsider’s perspective.

Think earned-first

As an integrated agency with its DNA in earned, we practice what we preach by bringing in the earned media specialists when working with brand purpose. The story needs to be genuine and evocative for the customer, skills that PR professionals have honed for years by working with journalists to build stories that capture imaginations. If a story is powerful enough to captivate your earned media, it’ll be one that flies when it comes to driving action across paid, shared and owned channels.

Think long term

Brands that have great purpose are those that are in it for the long haul. Once you’ve taken the time to find your “white space” – where your company can really make a difference – take the time to think about active, measurable commitments you can make. With so many brands storytelling around purpose, customers are sceptical of “window dressing”. They want something tangible to prove your cause is something you care about and are committed to doing right. Shoot for a long-term initiative or partnership that can evolve over time over one-off charity gigs.

If this year’s awards season is anything to go by, stories around brand purpose are here to stay. Driving real change is a marathon, not a sprint. We can’t wait to see what both market leaders and startups alike manage to achieve in the next 12 months. To hear more musings, predictions, and trends around storytelling and purpose, check out this month’s edition of The Stream podcast here: http://bit.ly/2MOgkUm.

Gina Mossey is an account director in Allison+Partners’ London office.

There are many different things that can help with mental wellbeing at work. For example, Supermarket chain Iceland highlights the importance of enjoying a good work-life balance. The retailer looks after employees by providing mental health support for those suffering from work-related stress and offers an Occupational Health Service to provide employees with a fast diagnosis and speedy referrals for treatment.

Barclays encourages staff to tell their own stories through its “This Is Me” campaign, in order to break the culture of silence. They’ve also signed up for “Time to Change,” to support employees facing challenges and normalise mental health issues.

At Allison+Partners, we offer support and resources through platforms like our Employee Assistance Programme, which offers a variation of advice through the confidential free helpline and referrals to mental health specialists who can help with bereavement, financial issues, legal rights, housing, wellbeing, etc. They also have a great app that provides useful articles and discussion pages on a wide range of mental health topics.

Our life insurance provider offers us two confidential helplines, legal issues, and bereavement, but they also offer us four free counselling sessions that can be face-to-face with a professional counsellor. This is a great resource, as professional guidance can be the best tool for recovery but is often one that could cost the individual a lot of money or it can take time to get a referral through the NHS. The sessions are very quick and straightforward to organise, and entirely confidential.

There are so many great resources out there that employees and employers can access. The NHS recently launched its ‘Every Mind Matters’ campaign, which has a short quiz to help you better understand your own mental wellbeing. Other helpful workplace resources include Mind, Mental Health First Aid England, Mental Health At Work and Cruse.

Emily Spicer is an HR advisor in Allison+Partners’ London office.

Decide how you will be successful 

It may seem obvious, but before embarking on building executive visibility you should re-visit your company strategy, short- and long-term goals, and the audience you want to target. Update your list of top and tier-one media and identify opportunities in the press that best allows you to build visibility in the right places. Achieving a full page of coverage in a national business supplement won’t be easy, especially if you’re not from a FTSE company. But your C-Suite will still expect you to aim high. 

Prepare the executive 

Involve the executive from the start. If they haven’t had much previous experience with the press, it’s vital to get them media trained. Be clear on what you need from them and what they need from you, be it a list of topics they would never want to comment on or access to their calendar to arrange a media briefing at the drop of a hat. Let your executive know they can trust you not to put them forward for opportunities that aren’t quite the right fit for them or aren’t the right audience for their message and be clear about what the right ones would look like. This helps avoid wasting time on the wrong opportunities and maximises time on the right ones.  

Foster a thought leader 

Encourage your spokesperson to build a voice of their own first on owned channels. Whether it’s having them write a blog post once a month or ensuring they regularly post on their LinkedIn profile, having your exec develop content will put your team in a better position to sell them to media. Blogs can be repurposed and placed as bylines, videos of the executive speaking at a company event can be used to pitch the exec for a seat on a roundtable and comments on news articles can be material for an issues hijack. 

Be clear on what not to do 

Bear in mind that to get the best traction, executive content should be unique but on-brand. Remember that saying the same thing as everyone else isn’t going to grab headlines but being too provocative can undermine credibility and land you in trouble. In today’s digital-first world, it only takes one tweet to ruin a reputation that took years to build.  

Done right, building executive visibility can help develop great brand awareness, authority on topics your company wants to be known for and ultimately boost sales. However, executing it seamlessly requires a plan, preparation, and a story. 

Sarah Johns is a senior account executive in Allison+Partners’ London office. 

It needs to be collaborative, exhaustive and always on.

The Deloitte survey showed 21% of companies with board participation in the crisis management plan say the number of crises has declined over the last decade. Among companies without board involvement, only 2% believe this to be true. Senior leadership in any organisation must collaborate in the planning process and be as visible as possible during the crisis itself. As mentioned previously, a crisis is a crucial moment where trust can either be lost, mitigated or even increased depending on how those with the greatest responsibility act in front of their stakeholders. It is not good enough for communicators to have drafted and rehearsed, business leaders also need to feel a level of responsibility in the creation of their crisis response.

In EMEA, Deloitte also found almost 80% of respondents participate in crisis exercises with third parties, examine third parties’ crisis plans or both. Again, the outdated principle that only the communicators inside a client organisation should have visibility to and responsibility for their crisis plan is short-sighted and ineffective. Teams should collaborate both inside and out to plan and test their processes, not simply to ensure a joined-up approach (e.g. throughout the supply chain) but also to get a valuable external opinion.

Crises certainly aren’t a laughing matter. But sometimes there are a few wry smiles in the room when trying to wade through a scenario planning session, discussing every possible awful situation however obscure they may sound at the time. Crises have become more volatile as mass communication has evolved. These days, a relatively small issue can snowball into a massive ongoing nightmare within an hour. Therefore, regardless of what constitutes a “red light” crisis for an organisation, it is important to prepare for EVERYTHING.

Finally, it is important to be always on. This doesn’t mean walking around the office in a tin hat. But wise investment in people and technology allows organisations to regularly train, monitor and analyse to be best prepared. Crisis training is a team sport and should be conducted as such with senior leaders, communicators and other key stakeholders all practicing together.

Organisational strategy, processes, and responses should be kept in digital form and tested several times a year, so they can be easily adjusted and deployed. In a crisis, timing is everything. Training must push everyone involved to work efficiently and ensure monitoring services are up to scratch, always on and plugged into the response process. External monitoring work with human analysis is sometimes overlooked, but it may still be one of the most important tasks undertaken on behalf of an organisation.

The ever-increasing probability of a crisis means readiness is everything. The better prepared an organisation is to take on a crisis, the greater the opportunity is to not only protect its reputation but to rebuild the trust that puts the organisation in a better place.

Jim Selman is the UK MD in Allison+Partners’ London office.

1. Pick the right show: In our latest podcast episode, I mentioned the average price of a B2B trade show is roughly £350 per square meter, and that doesn’t take into account all the marketing material and human resources needed. Before choosing your show, it is crucial to think about your business goals. By considering whether you want to network, gain industry insight or capture new leads, you can whittle down your list. Similarly, looking back at the history of shows, researching the audience and reading previous reviews can help determine whether this is the right show for you. There are loads of event lists and tools, which can also help.
2. Secure a speaking slot: This is the best way to reach as much of your audience as possible and can help encourage people to visit your company’s stand. To secure that all-important opportunity, pitch a topic at the forefront of your industry to position your firm as a thought leader. And make sure you get in there early – at least eight months prior to the event itself. In addition, you can use that presentation for further PR opportunities after the event itself; turning it into a byline to pitch later, for instance, can be a great way to maximise the content.
3. Ask to see the media attendee list: Are there any journalists attending whom you want to meet? It is becoming increasingly difficult to get in front of a journalist, so approaching them at a trade show is a great way to start building a relationship that may eventually lead to future coverage. For the more popular shows, journalists’ schedules can get booked up to a month in advance, so plan ahead. If you don’t manage to meet, follow up afterwards with media who couldn’t attend.
4. Take notes of the keynote themes/topics: Making a note of what your peers discuss is a good starting point for your own thought leadership – what is your opinion? Is it different? And does your company offer a unique solution to any problems currently facing your industry? For larger industry events, consider writing a ‘round-up’ piece, which includes key takeaways and predictions for the year ahead.
5. Should you launch a new product/service? Be careful here – if you exhibit alongside FTSE 250 companies, your launch will likely get lost. Sometimes it pays off to attend a particularly niche show, where a more targeted audience will hear your voice. Alternatively, undertaking a piece of research, which can support the announcement, is a good way to generate additional interest.
6. Savvy social: Before, during and after the event, make sure your business tweets about the show. Always use the event hashtag to amplify your content and ensure influential people see it. Make sure to incorporate images into those posts, so they get as much traction as possible. Also, including relevant links to content on the event website is a great way to drive target audiences to your own website. Include your booth number and/or location at the event to drive attendees to your stand.
7. Speak to your sales team: Do they have any targets attending the event? How can you work together to secure that business? By working together, you are more likely to get that all-important new business lead, which is the ultimate measure of ROI.
8. Don’t ignore the analysts: If your company is featured in any technical research (such as Gartner or Forrester), trade shows are an excellent way to get in front of the analysts writing those papers. Contacting the analysts beforehand to arrange a briefing to discuss the benefits and uniqueness of what your company offers is a brilliant time-saver.
9. Influence the influencers: Attend their talks to gain valuable insights. If they make any comments that resonate with your company’s messages, then send them a link to relevant content on your website to try and ignite a relationship with them. It could also be beneficial to undertake a paid relationship with an influencer around an event. This would involve them promoting your organisation’s attendance across their social channels, attending double-headed briefings, support any announcement you might make and be an additional draw to your stand or presentations.
10. Maximise your mobile: The cameras on smartphones are of an incredibly high quality these days. Buying a cheap phone stand means you immediately have a camera to document the event. It’s easy to create great video just using your mobile. This content can then be used across social, website or podcasts.

Lizzy Chesters is a senior account manager in Allison+Partners’ London office.

What did you miss? 

For your content to work, it must be relevant and timely. The sweet spot is where your audience’s interests and challenges overlap with you and the client’s business objectives. 

Reflect on what you might have missed the first time around. Consider if you have taken the audiences into account: did you misjudge what they want or find important?  

The most common problem when it comes to failing content is misunderstanding the audience and what it takes to coax them into action. 

What’s your content tilt? 

So, you’ve found your sweet spot and understand what your audience wants to read about. Now what?  

It’s time to find out why the original content failed your expectations. Ideally, you want to create a piece of content that can compete with the hundreds of thousands of links on the internet that promise the same thing you are selling.  

Be sure to scan what your competitors say about the topic and find the gap – the tilt – that separates your content and gives it a fighting a chance. For instance, if your content is around the keys to a successful digital transformation, then I’ve got bad news for you, pal! 

Also, think about your headline – you only have one chance to make a good first impression. 

Raise visibility 

Help your customers find you by investing in content distribution. There are a number of cost-effective channels available, such as social media paid campaigns and email marketing.  

It’s also worth putting in the time to make sure your work is optimised to improve your online visibility. Check out these free SEO tools. Better yet, speak to one of our All Told colleagues to support your effort.  

Manage expectations 

This is the most difficult aspect of correcting failing content, and it’s also the most critical. What are you trying to achieve with this piece of content? Are you trying to drive sales or raise awareness? And, can your content really help achieve all these objectives? How do we measure success? 

If you haven’t already, this is when you need to have an honest conversation with your team to discuss what’s gone wrong and how you propose to fix it. But you also need to be forthright about expectations and what the content is likely to deliver. 

What do you do with bad, unengaging content?  

The question of whether to purge any particular piece of work depends on a number of factors – is this content useful to anyone? If I removed it from the website or archive, would anyone miss it? Does it damage the brand?  

We are not perfect and sometimes get it wrong. But the important thing to remember is all is not lost and almost any piece of work is salvageable. Start again with the basics and give your content time to do well.  

Jide Adesesan is a senior account executive in Allison+Partners’ London office. 

1. Consider the calendar

Before you nail down dates for your trip, have a thorough look through an events board to make sure your visit isn’t overlapping with other key events going on. The last thing you want to do is have to compete for a journalist’s attention and time. A helpful and reliable site to use when planning is Techmeme.

If you’re travelling internationally, be sure to consider national holidays. You don’t want to wind up booking your trip when journalists are off work.

2. Engage with journalists

When it comes to securing interest for briefings, it’s important to make sure you are pitching them effectively and meeting journalists via their preferred style of communication, whether that be email, text message or social media platforms like Twitter. Do your research before conducting outreach. If you know that a journalist is active on Twitter and their bio says they are open to receiving pitches via DM, shoot them a message on the social platform.

And yes, while the overall group is a dying breed, there are still some journalists that have a desk phone that they answer. No two journalists are the same.

3. Make the narrative relevant

It’s safe to say that no matter what media market you are working in, journalists are interested in learning how your announcement or story fits into the wider picture. You can guarantee that at some point during a journalist briefing, he or she will broach the subject of current events or introduce a recent trend. They will want to hear your spokesperson’s POV on the matter and learn how the announcement and/or company ties into what’s happening.

Do your homework ahead of the interview and prep your spokesperson for success. If the publication you are meeting with has a specific focus that fits nicely with your business’ focus or point of view, have your spokesperson reference it to show they are familiar with the publication and were thoughtful in scheduling the meeting.

4. Foster relationships

If your company executive is on social media, have them follow the journalist on Twitter and take the time to read through some of their recent coverage before the meeting. This will help him/her understand the journalist’s tone and provide insight into what topics they have written about.

Having this background knowledge can also be a good way for the spokesperson to break the ice with the journalist and relate to their interests, finding a common ground for where they can connect beyond the company news.

After the media tour is finished, it’s important to follow up with journalists on any lingering items you promised. It’s also nice added touch for your executive to handwrite or email a note to the journalists who they met with thanking them for their time. After all, the overall intent of this process is about bettering relationships with influential media.

Ellis Mendon is a senior account executive in Allison+Partners’ London office.

Start with your staff

We’ve seen a lot of companies support Pride because other companies do – we all know brands are fast followers. But the most effective brands support LGBTQ+ communities year-round and get input and feedback from their employees to make sure they get it right.

Consistent communication with employees is the crucial piece of the puzzle between brands getting it right or wrong. The more they can be involved in the process, the better-informed senior teams will be. This will help you avoid falling into the pinkwashing trap, and instead show your company really listens to the challenges faced by real people.

LGBTQ+ is more than just one category

This umbrella community contains many subgroups, and brands can ignore this at their peril. Each subgroup needs to be marketed to in a different way, as each have their own pain points about their personal, historical and cultural experiences. Language is a key component here, as a positive term for one subgroup can be quite the opposite for another. However, empathy, consideration, and kindness will speak across the community. Within any content, we need to make sure everyone is represented.

Getting the language right again brings us back to the workplace. For society to get used to modern usage, we need more training on what is positive and negative to whom. For example, “queer” is something of a reclaimed term for younger people, while older generations can find it offensive. The more educated society becomes on this, the more intelligent our ways of using these terms socially will be.

Digital targeting for LGBTQ+ groups is still in its infancy

Building on the discussion around language, the group showed digital targeting for the community isn’t as sophisticated as it needs to be. Differences in connotations between different parts of the LGBTQ+ community means positive and negative keywords are tough to define and is a bigger conversation for the global tech community to have.

The panel also advised brands to beware of “The City Bubble.” LGBTQ+ initiatives and messaging are more advanced in major cities. But brands looking to truly get their comms strategies right need to make sure those who live in less urban areas are also represented.

They also highlighted the struggle with internet users known as “lurkers.” These people view and consume content, but they do not comment or share, making it hard to ensure their views are taken into account. We need to make sure we reach and engage the people who don’t feel they have a voice. Putting efforts into physical focus groups and research will help brands navigate this.

Be wary of only using technology to communicate

The group agreed the explosion in digital platforms has been positive in terms of visibility for LGBTQ+ issues. But it’s important it complements and does not replace, face-to-face interaction with the community. One-to-one level comms are important for any strategy.

Brands can tap into this by keeping events and meet-ups a key part of their strategy, such as hosting talks from key influencers in their sectors who have links to the LGBTQ+ community, putting emphasis on current topics and issues that have relevance to the subgroups.

Making mistakes is part of the journey

A key point the panel wanted brands to take away from the event is that it isn’t the end of the road if you make a mistake. It’s likely brands will get it wrong sometimes, and they shouldn’t take it personally. They advised that rather than pulling out all the stops to defend yourselves, listen to the community and put yourself in their shoes. Taking a step back and listening to the voices that matter will help you work out where to go from there.

The event’s open and honest discussion around these issues, thanks to our fantastic panel and the questions from our brilliant audience, is a perfect example of the collaborative conversations that need to happen to drive change on a bigger scale for the LGBTQ+ community. Brands that keep this at the core of their activity will be the ones that truly lead the way.

Gina Mossey is an account director in Allison+Partners' London office.

Tech giants were seen and heard

In a philanthropic move, Square, the payments company co-founded by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, launched an initiative alongside The Entrepreneurial Refugee Network to enable refugee entrepreneurs to accept card and mobile payments to help get their businesses off the ground.

In addition, Facebook chose the event to announce it will open an engineering centre in London that will build tech tools designed to keep harmful content off its site. The company will create more than 500 new tech jobs, including 100 in AI, for the new hub by the end of 2019.

The future of 5G

Of course, it would be silly to think we could get through the week without someone mentioning 5G. Digital Secretary Jeremy Wright broke the silence, revealing the government will invest £40 million ($50 million) in 5G testbed and trial projects as part of plans to improve mobile connectivity across the UK. This latest investment round is through a wider £200 million ($250 million) project to test 5G technology that can support more than a million devices per square kilometre and speeds up to 10 times faster than 4G.

Fintech crosses borders

Leading UK fintech companies Monzo and Revolut rounded off the week with a couple of major announcements.

Monzo said it officially plans to expand to the U.S. (Los Angeles) led by CEO Tom Blomfield. From there, the firm will carry out its first launch events before expanding to other cities around the world.

Revolut reported it will open its public beta in Australia. A lucky 20,000 people on the waitlist will soon be able to use features such as money management and foreign exchange, with the fintech eventually offering these services to more people in the coming weeks.

With London being hailed as the global centre of fintech, it is great to see some of the country’s most promising businesses share their amazing expansion plans. The UK has solidified its well-deserved reputation as a major tech player on the global stage, and the next 12 months should be just as progressive and exciting as the last.

Lizzy Chesters is a Senior Account Manager in Allison+Partners’ London office.

Consider reading patterns

There is a lot of research on how we consume content on our screens. Heat maps trace where our eyes and mouses travel as we navigate through a website or app. In most cases, it follows an “F pattern,” where users focus on the top left-hand side. The first few words and sentences are important for these types of readers. Others may only scan headlines and subheadings. Think carefully about the placement of key content and make it easy for users to take the next step.

Format content for the small screen

Keep content short and simple, so it can easily be scanned. Shorter headlines attract clicks too. If you need help, tools like Hemingway Editor can show how to improve your writing. Don’t forget simple tactics, such as bullet points and headings, to break up longer pieces of content.

It’s important to check how your content actually appears on mobile. Does it fit onto the screen? Are the images too large? Is the copy easy to read? Something as simple as the fonts and background colour can affect legibility.

So much content is shared on social media now – the average person has seven social accounts, with most of them connecting via mobile. How “shareable” your content is on mobile devices is increasingly important. It can provide a great opportunity to increase views if you make it as easy as possible for people to share.

Optimise for Google

Optimising for Google featured snippets has become more important due to the changes in the way we search for content. These snippets have higher click-through rates than regular organic search results. They also feature on the first page of the search engine results page and aim to answer queries as specific as possible.

Can you make summaries of your content or numbered lists that answer the most common search queries, so they are more likely to appear as a featured snippet?

Use images and video to add value

Images and videos have become the key drivers of attracting users’ attention online. This isn’t limited to simply using more photos or pictures of your product. Infographics or appropriate GIFs are a great way to enhance your message. Be wary of size and avoid taking up too much space, as large media makes content hard to read and can distract from the main purpose of the content. Too many images can have an adverse effect and cause users to switch off.

Finally, make sure it loads quickly!

The optimum time for a web page to load is three seconds, according to Google. Any longer, and users lose patience and click away. More than half of mobile website visits are abandoned if a mobile site takes longer than three seconds to load. And for every one-second delay in site load time, conversions fall by 12%, according to Google.

Sian Hobday is an Account Manager in Allison+Partners’ London office.

Cybersecurity professionals face increasing complexity and uncertainty

What came up time and time again was how challenging cybersecurity work has become. CISOs and their teams must contend with an increasing number of threats. In fact, according to the National Cyber Security Centre, the average number of cyber-attacks on UK businesses has grown from four in 2018 to six in 2019. These threats are also more complex, as highlighted by the commons public accounts committee in The Times. Jane Frankland, author of “Women in Cybersecurity,” stressed that one way companies can deal with this complexity is by hiring more diverse teams. Non-homogenous groups can offer a wide range of approaches and perspectives, therefore often proving more adept at problem-solving than ones primarily made up of personnel from similar backgrounds.

Humans remain the weakest link when it comes to cybersecurity

Whether it’s using easy-to-guess passwords, not using multi-factor authentication or configuring the cloud incorrectly, all too often human error is to blame when it comes to cybersecurity. On the keynote stage on day 1, Dan Raywood, contributing editor at Infosecurity Magazine, chaired an excellent panel discussion on rethinking cyber defence to combat complex risks, threats and vulnerabilities. He discussed the many reasons for it but noted that humans are usually at fault. An interesting point was that it is human nature to assume you will not experience “the worst,” such as a major hack unless it has happened to you.

However, as recognised in the discussion, organisations are cottoning onto this and improving their security procedures following high-profile breaches such as the global 2017 WannaCry attack. This case was somewhat of a turning point for many organisations, serving as a widespread awareness campaign and prompting many organisations, not just those affected by this particular ransomware, to patch their systems more regularly.

Technology is key to bridging the gap

In conversation with one systems engineer, it was noted that no matter how many employees a company has in its SOC (security operations centre) team, there simply will never be enough to deal with all the cyber alerts and incidents manually. Technologies such as AI, automation, and analytics are therefore playing a vital role in helping security teams do their jobs well. For example, there was software being demoed at Infosec that enabled employees to constantly monitor for threats and gauge their risk to the organisation, and easily see which ones they needed to prioritise in order to manage their time effectively.

Infosec 2019 has been another hugely valuable opportunity for European cybersecurity professionals to review the most pressing issues facing the industry today as well as share best practices for securing networks, from cloud to endpoint. But it is not just security specialists that have a responsibility to stay secure. It is up to all of us to ensure we are doing all we can to protect our networks and all the data stored on them.

Sarah Johns is Senior Account Executive in Allison+Partners London office.

Authenticity is Key 

Consumers have become increasingly social media savvy as platforms and the concept of influencer marketing has continued to develop, often scrolling past paid promotions and #sponsored posts deeming them disingenuous.  

Engaging with those known for dedicating their lives to your cause such as raising awareness of plastic in the oceans, for example, would be a natural fit to promote your latest recycling initiative, with resulting content coming across as more authentic. Chances are, their following will also be passionate about whatever cause it is you’re promoting and find the content engaging, making them more likely to make the necessary call-to-action, whether this is buying your product, signing your petition or donating to charity. 

Celebrity Isn’t Everything 

It’s easy to get hung up on numbers, and assume the higher the following, the higher the return on investment. However, the rise of the micro to macro influencer, defined as those with between 10k-100k+ followers, has shown that an engaged audience often lies in these numbers, with followers choosing to engage in content that resonates with them and the passions and causes they align themselves with, as opposed to the following of the latest fleeting reality star who click subscribe because 1.5+ million others have. 

It’s worth noting too that your brand’s influencer army doesn’t have to be led by celebrities in the traditional sense. Those who can carry an authentic message for your brand and mission can range from industry leaders, lecturers, and business executives to politicians and charity ambassadors, again boosting the integrity of your message with backing from respected SMEs.  

The platform you broadcast your message on should also vary depending on the content, with digestible videos and memes working better on Instagram and polls or links to longer articles gaining more traction on Twitter. Once you know who your audience is, you can work out who they listen to and where they consume their content to ensure maximum exposure and awareness of your cause. 

People want to help  

Consumers can feel bombarded with paid promotions, brand collaborations and #gifted content across social media, and if it appears to be pushing materialistic products for corporate profit and gain, it’s easy to switch off. The ratio between this kind of content and influencer content looking to genuinely make a difference and raise awareness of issues in society is likely quite uneven. Focusing on cause-led content increases the chance of your message standing out, giving those scrolling something worthwhile to engage with. 

A recent survey from The Charities Aid Foundation found that whilst 59% of charities believe they are using new technology and social media effectively, only 29% are using tech effectively to increase giving and donations, which as discussed, is where influencers can help. Digital platforms and the influencers that inhabit them are key to reaching new audiences with your cause-led message and could result in unprecedented results for your campaign. 

Be a guest on a podcast 

Podcasts and traditional radio shows have plenty in common, and that includes the need for great guests. While some podcasts have the same hosts each week, many more will include guests to keep each episode fresh.  

For brands, this means opportunities to secure guest slots for spokespeople or talent. For consumer entertainment brands, placing talent on podcasts is a great way to plug their upcoming projects. For B2B brands, placing a CEO on a key trade publication’s podcast can mean speaking directly to the decision makers in your target industry.  

Importantly though, you need to do your homework and pick the right podcasts. Guest interviews work when they’re engaging and where there’s real chemistry and conversation. Pair the wrong spokesperson with the wrong show, and you’ll get a flat interview that may never see the light of day. Get the combination right and you’re in for an episode that’s entertaining while getting your key messages out there.  

Sponsor a great podcast 

Sometimes it’s best to go for the direct approach, particularly when you’re looking to drive sales or subscriptions. Sponsoring podcasts is effective, measurable, and easier than you might think. While you can go ‘door-to-door’ for some of the smaller podcasts to ask about advertising rates, most now work through bigger podcast platforms.  

Take Acast, for example, which represents some of the most popular shows including The Football Ramble, My Dad Wrote A Porno and The Allusionist. By bringing so many popular podcasts in one place, brands can now advertise at scale. New technology also means that ads can be placed into podcast episodes for a limited time period, or for different geographies. You can now, for example, run ad campaigns that target just UK listeners, even for shows produced in the US.  

Podcast advertising is highly effective, with 76% of listeners taking action after hearing a brand advertised. It’s also measurable by using a system of bespoke trackable discount codes. Most of the time, you can even get hosts to create the ads for you, making them more engaging and authentic.  

Create your own series 

Want to take things to the next level? If you have plenty to say and want to get a clear message out to the world, you might want to create your own podcast series. Podcasts make for great content and are a much more digestible way to get your thought leadership across, particularly for B2B brands. As we become increasingly time-poor, many of us prefer to listen to opinion through headphones than to read it on our screens.  

This is, of course, the more time-intensive of the three routes. You will need good content, an engaging host, and guests that create enough conversation. Podcasts also need at least one series – a single episode won’t cut it.  

The potential pay-offs though are huge. Podcasts take thought leadership to the next level or can create a series that entertains while sharing key brand messages. Take for example the Why We Eat What We Eat podcasts which were created by the meal-box delivery service Blue Apron. The show uses popular food author and historian Cathay Erway to look at a new interesting food story each week. The podcast delivers content that a foody audience will want to hear, and by building that audience creates the perfect space to share their brand messages and drive subscription sign-ups.   

Have we whetted your appetite for podcasts? Our team can help you to get onto the right podcasts, or to start creating your own. Just get in touch with the team to find out more. 

Or if you want to listen to more podcasts yourself, check out our list of the top 5 marketing and PR podcasts you should subscribe to right now.