EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2021 - and all we heard about were the cancelled holidays, ever-changing travel restrictions and complicated covid testing. And none of this was helping our hotel client, The Hilton Group. We needed to re-engage Brits with the joy and ease of domestic travel and needed something simple, fun and cost effective that would give Brits that warm and fuzzy feeling of holiday time. Our lightbulb moment came when we noticed ‘dog friend hotel’ searches on the Hilton website had skyrocketed - clearly due to the rise in dog owners during the pandemic. What better way to entice people to book a getaway if they could come with their furry friend? Oh, and it so happens that the media LOVE dogs… Bone Appétit - a brand new bespoke dog menu across Hilton properties that guaranteed wanderlust mutts and paw-rents were catered for to the highest level, Hilton-style. The impact? 100+ pieces of coverage and a six-minute review on This Morning resulting in over 2,000 searches for the new offering on the Hilton website.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, thousands of businesses in the sector closed and thousands of people started to lose their jobs. UKHospitality and its members worked tirelessly on a truly integrated campaign (harnessing public affairs, media relations and social engagement) to save the hospitality sector from the point of no return. We developed a creative campaign framework called ‘Fair4Hospitality’ to press home the value of the hospitality sector across the UK and orchestrated thousands of voices to persuade the UK Government to create and implement game-changing solutions for this crisis and head-off the almost certain collapse of the sector.

Hilton, and the hospitality industry at large, needed to innovate to serve the newly changed traveler in mid-2021. After nearly two years of irregular vacations and trips, travel companies wanted to focus on a more positive future. Yet, the traveler themselves – their tastes, their preferences, their passions – had changed during the pandemic. As a leader in the industry, Hilton saw the opportunity to utilize its expertise, applying both internal and external data to dive deep into the travel trends of the moment and more accurately predict patterns for the year ahead. The 2022 Traveler: Emerging Trends and the Redefined Traveler, A Report from Hilton was created with the objective to reiterate Hilton’s industry leadership in customer-driven innovations and to show how the company is evolving alongside travelers and their newfound preferences in the areas of food and beverage, wellness, digital innovation and sustainability. The report uncovered the rising macro and micro trends that were predicted to continue to drive traveler decisions and how their predilections will help set the travel narrative for 2022.

In 2004, Dove research found only 2% of women saw themselves as beautiful. As one of the world’s biggest beauty brands, we felt a responsibility to act and try to change beauty. We made it our mission to make a positive experience of beauty accessible to everyone by representing the real beauty of women in our advertising. But we knew we couldn’t solve the problem just by addressing our advertising, we needed to go further.   We began building the Dove Self-Esteem Project with body image experts and researchers to positively impact the self-esteem of youth. Since, the Dove Self-Esteem Project has grown to be the largest provider of body confidence and self-esteem education globally, reaching more than 82 million young people across 150 countries with no-cost tools. The Dove Self-Esteem Project is proven to help girls build a positive relationship with the way they look, and our campaigns raise awareness of the issues they face that can negatively impact their self-esteem. After new research revealed 1 in 2 girls say toxic beauty advice on social media causes low self-esteem, we created the #DetoxYourFeed campaign to empower teens to define their own beauty standards and choose their own influences. To further raise awareness, we released the ‘Toxic Influence’ film, and partnered with influential voices Gabrielle Union and Zaya Wade to encourage necessary conversations about the dangers of toxic beauty advice and share academically validated tools to help parents navigate important conversations with their kids and empower teens to #DetoxYourFeed.

In 1995, Faithless released the seminal dance anthem, Insomnia. It was the three minute soundscape to a generation fuelled on Ecstasy that stayed up all night. Our idea: work with Faithless to reimagine their iconic track as a sleep track. We made it orchestral. We slowed it down. We incorporated science. We created a dozy experience to be heightened by CBD. We took something our audience raved to and turned it into a comfort blanket for relaxation. We also made it 27-blissful minutes in length, the average time it takes us to fall asleep.

The nation’s tastiest partnership sums up the Primark x Greggs collaboration. The campaign – which aimed to create a cultural moment for both brands – was a sweeping success. It landed over 650 pieces of media coverage reaching over 95% of the Greggs core audience. The launch generated 6,535 social mentions and over 203 million impressions. The campaign delivered £1 million in merchandise sales and sold out. Greggs increased its YouGov Buzz Score by 21.4% compared to the previous period strengthening their position to number one within the QSR sector.

Asking athletes to stop exercising is the last thing you would expect a global sports brand to do. But in 2022, ASICS became the first sports brand to use inactivity for good. The ‘Mind Race’ saw the brand sponsor athletes to stop exercising, while employing cutting-edge technology to track their mental states. The results showed the world exactly what not exercising does to our minds; creating coverage and conversation in 61 markets, disrupting the global exercise/wellness conversation & measurably inspiring the world to move.

Pantene understands the power of hair to self-esteem, identity, and self-expression. We were asked to drive the purchase of Pantene Miracles Silk and Glowing range in Superdrug and increase consideration of Pantene as a relevant, purpose-led beauty brand, ensuring everyone feels visible, represented, and has access to the power of hair. We partnered with Lucy Edwards, a visually impaired, beauty-loving influencer. We created the beauty industry's first-ever Social Code of Conduct, an educational guide to capturing inclusive hair tutorials for the visually impaired. Miracles was the first brand to use Navi Lens technology in-store at Superdrug.

In 2021, evian partnered with globally renowned Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen (IVH), to create the first ever custom couture dress – the ‘Mimesis dress’ – made from recycled evian plastic bottles. The upcycled dress was a first for evian as well as IVH, presenting a key opportunity for evian to showcase not only its sustainability ambitions, but also position its brand identity within the design industry in a way that celebrated some of its key brand pillars of purity and authenticity. The freuds team identified a leading red-carpet media moment at The Fashion Awards 2021 at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 29th November 2021 as a cut-through opportunity for evian to debut the dress with its globally recognised Brand Ambassador, tennis star and sustainability advocate Maria Sharapova. To support the announcement of this partnership, evian strategically secured exclusive interviews in advance with leading global titles, including 2 interviews with Maria Sharapova in Vogue and The Daily Telegraph as well as 2 interviews with Iris Van Herpen in Dazed and Forbes, alongside a vast range of global print and online coverage, with a combined reach of over 950 million.

Following a report from the US Census Bureau that Black adults under the age of 40 are the least likely group to be vaccinated for COVID-19, BLK Dating App, a subsidiary of the Match group and the number one dating app made for Black singles, partnered with Majority, a minority-led creative agency based in Atlanta, to create the ultimate summer anthem designed to increase vaccinations within the Black community. The dating app partnered with rap icons legends Juvenile, Mannie Fresh and Mia X to rework the 1999 classic hit “Back That Thang Up” as “Vax That Thang Up” to produce an informative video that captured the spirit and energy of the iconic 90’s hit, reimagined for younger consumers. M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment North America, as BLK’s lead PR agency, executed a global media relations campaign, leveraging our relationships with culture, music, and entertainment journalists across the globe, resulting in a highly successful media relations campaign with 70 broadcast segments and over 7 billion media impressions.

License to PR proudly represented 90’s pop culture icons and original disruptors of children's TV, the Teletubbies, as they reunited for the musical comeback of the Millennium. After a career break that saw the colourful quartet take time out to pursue solo projects, they returned to drop their new album Ready, Steady, Go. The group’s first new music release since their 1997 No. 1 smash hit ‘Teletubbies say “Eh-oh!” kickstarted the campaign for their milestone 25th anniversary. Comeback King, Peter Andre, was headhunted as the band's new manager as they went head-to-head with Coldplay in the album charts before reuniting them with Simon Cowell, the A&R responsible for first signing them, on prime-time Saturday night TV, Britain’s Got Talent. The BGT audition was pre-trailered on the two Saturday evenings prior to the broadcast that was watched by 5.84million Britons, a further 3million watched a YouTube video of the audition on BGT’s official channel. The audition resulted in 27 pieces of online national and regional coverage (227.6million+ UVPM) The Ready, Steady, Go PR campaign generated 32 print (2.5million+ circulation), 103 online articles (193.9million+ UVPM) and 134 radio call outs (9.89million+ listeners) due to the humorous chart battle narrative. The Teletubbies also featured alongside Phil and Holly on This Morning (1.5million viewers) and Peter Andre's involvement secured national features and coverage across his social channels with over 5million followers. Big on pop culture parody and 90s nostalgia, the PR campaign propelled new Teletubbies music content to great heights.

DawBell’s work on the revolutionary ABBA Voyage concerts and their first studio album in 40 years was a strategically executed PR campaign to publicise ABBA’s historic comeback to a UK and global audience, achieving unbeatable coverage across all major news networks and outlets, ensuring that everyone was talking about their return, their new album and their groundbreaking new show. Every single detail had to be carefully planned; from how we utilised the band's time from launch to opening, the campaign assets, and the messaging around the concerts. The brief was to hit as many eyeballs as possible and to sustain a high level of noise to drive ticket and album sales - with no paid marketing support. From an global launch event for media and fans, to strategically placed cover features, working with the tabloid press, management of album and concert reviews and a robust burst of national and international media to ramp up the excitement in the direct lead up to opening, plus the media management and logistics for the opening performance, delivered a campaign that resulted in ABBA being at the very top of the news agenda and cemented as one of the most talked-about events of the year.

In these modern times, gaming has become a central feature in popular culture and, congruently, has sparked the rise of gaming chairs — a ubiquitous tool that provides marathon gamers and live streamers with exceedingly-functional features to support hours of high-performance screen time. As a counterpoint to the rise in gaming chairs, the world’s most unusual gin, Hendrick’s invented an anachronistic alternative designed for lounging, low-tech gaming, conversing with other human beings, and, of course, sipping signature Hendrick’s cocktails. The limited-edition Hendrick’s Gaming Chaise is the world’s longest and least technological gaming chair, and the first created specifically for unplugged play.

To reach a core youth audience and maintain mobile network, O2’s reputation as an entertainment brand we recreated The O2 in Fortnite Creative. The experience generated 357 pieces of coverage for The O2 in Fortnite Creative and 776 million Opportunities to See. That alongside over 2.2 million reach across YouTube and 493,000 Unique Reach across gaming platform, Twitch. Critically, O2 experienced a 23ppt in positive sentiment as a result of the campaign: rising from 19.1% to 42.3%.

Netflix briefed us to launch Tiger King Season 2 while positioning the service as the home of compelling documentary. We delivered over 180 pieces of coverage and 630,060,129 Opportunities to See. More importantly, 100% of the pieces featured key messaging and tune-in info. Over 90% of online pieces included click-throughs to Netflix’s YouTube page. The TikTok content we created delivered 45 million views on TikTok and 1,350,000 engagements with the content. Tune in was 220% higher than forecast within the first 24 hours of Tiger King series two airing on the Netflix.

For a once in a lifetime opportunity, Virgin Atlantic and British Airways put their longstanding rivalry to one side to celebrate the reopening of US travel, seeking to encourage our customers back in the skies. The two airlines put aside their rivalry to create a headline-worthy moment that reflected the magnitude of the story. The first flights [BA1 and VS3] departed for New York, USA, for the first time since the restrictions were lifted in a synchronised take-off on parallel runways at Heathrow. We book-ended the take-off with prior tactics at Heathrow and upon landing into the USA. Virgin hero-ed the Heathrow element, whilst BA owned the ‘reuniting’ message upon landing into New York, alongside the ‘Brits are back’ message through a stunt in the city. The event was covered by every major TV and radio broadcaster in the UK, alongside key US stations. In fact, there was not one half an hour time frame when the event was not featured on the news rounds from 6am-10pm.It featured predominantly throughout both the broadsheets and tabloids, with coverage appearing no further back than page six. A one off, unlikely partnership.

When Virgin Voyages launched Scarlet Lady in 2020, the brand was set to shake-up the cruise industry with a new premium offering to redefine travel at sea. Then the global pandemic hit, leaving the brand in limbo. We successfully exploded awareness that the Scarlet Lady - and Virgin Voyages - had returned to the high seas with a new way to voyage, which was the safest way to travel. We generated a reach of 4.5 billion globally, engaging agenda-setting broadcast, print and online titles. A considered media strategy at the heart, that reached the masses, yet was perfectly tailored to captivate specific audiences and change perceptions.

With thousands of outgrown and unwanted Little Tikes toy cars gathering moss at the bottom of gardens, or dust in cupboards under the stairs, Frank proposed a unique opportunity for Green Flag, as a leading breakdown and roadside recovery expert, to ‘rescue’ these old iconic red and yellow vehicles – as if they were real cars – so they could be recycled. The ‘Little Green Flag’ initiative meant that for each one rescued, Green Flag donated a brand new Little Tikes car to the children’s charity, Toy Project, so a disadvantaged child could have one just in time for Christmas. With over 150 pieces of coverage achieved during launch week, very high levels of engagement on social media and a combined reach into the hundreds of millions (607.5m to be exact!), from a traditional evaluation point of view, the campaign was big news. The initiative showcased Green Flag’s ESG and P credentials in a creative, fun and insightful way. It won hearts and minds, made a real social impact and improved business performance by generating new customer enquiries and preventing existing ones from switching to a rival.

Harley-Davidson is a brand built on a love for the open road, and its riders are passionate for the freedom that it offers. Yet for some riders, that freedom has come at the expense of their safety and their very identity. For Sikh men, the turban is a deeply important part of their identity. For decades, Sikhs who rode motorcycles found themselves choosing between their beliefs and their safety. Harley-Davidson – a brand with a very diverse ridership – recognized the opportunity to address an unusual challenge: how to develop an alternative to a motorcycle helmet so Sikh motorcyclists could fully embrace their passion for riding. The result is Tough Turban, a marriage of ancient traditions and modern, high-tech engineering. It’s a turban made of impact-resistant materials that also fully respects the requirements of the Sikh faith. Stepping up to this challenge an opportunity for Harley-Davidson to help a group of riders overcome a big hurdle to fully embrace their passion – and to send a signal about the importance of diversity. Supported by a website and a video that profiles Sikh riders discussing the need for the Tough Turban, the innovation generated 238.8 million earned media impressions and saw an 85% lift in purchase consideration among people who saw the campaign. The brand also open-sourced the blueprint for the turban so manufacturers anywhere in the world can produce the turbans in their own markets.

Against the backdrop of the UK hosting the UN Climate Conference, COP26, in November 2021, the Met Office took the opportunity to increase our communications on climate change to a public audience. In the lead up to and during the conference, we endeavoured to raise awareness of the clear and compelling scientific evidence of climate change. We planned a steady stream of content providing an opportunity to engage with the topic of climate change. This was aligned with our climate tone of voice through which we aim to be clear, relatable and confident. The key objective of the campaign was to make the Met Office the preferred choice for climate change information and advice so that people are informed and can make the best decisions to stay safe and thrive. Key aspects of our campaign included ‘science behind the headlines’ social media content, a COP26 video series, a new climate newsletter, live social media broadcasts and numerous news stories. As well as high levels of engagement with the campaign itself, the Met Office Public Perception Survey (November 2021) indicated that we had successfully raised the profile of the Met Office as a source of climate change information. The percentage of people who would use the Met Office for climate change information more than tripled and trust in Met Office climate change information almost doubled, indicating that we are significantly leading other providers against both of these metrics.

In April 2019, the First Minister declared that we are living in a state of climate emergency and made a legislative commitment that Scotland would reach ‘net zero’ emissions by 2045 through the Climate Change Act 2019. While the majority of people acknowledged that climate change was a threat, in the wake of a lengthy lockdown, it was a problem to deflect. There was also a limited understanding of net zero and what it meant. We needed to deliver a campaign that would educate and normalise taking action, in order to motivate people to act now. The Let’s do Net Zero campaign spanned summer 2021 and the build up to COP26 in Glasgow, rooting ‘net zero’ in popular culture, which meant normalising taking action and making it relevant to what people were doing and thinking as they were coming out of the pandemic at that time. The PR activity for the integrated marketing campaign, resulted in an opportunity to see and hear figure of 42.9 million through media coverage and engagement with influential leading voices and social media influencers in addition to a programme of social media conversations with partner organisations across five core areas; music & events, food & drink, fashion & retail, travel & tourism and home & outdoors.

We spotted an opportunity when the travel world looked bleak and through a means of quality writing, deep research smarts, and our excellent media contacts, we delivered a media relations campaign that shifted the dial – both in terms of media coverage generated and consumer visitation figures. We delivered on every angle to dominate a period of time when UK consumers were considering holidaying domestically, more than they have done in decades. The fact that this story has got longevity and still continues to deliver coverage in the media is testament to its legacy.

What if one English county held the answers to the world’s climate crisis? As leaders gathered for COP26, Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership (OxLEP) shone a light on the region’s globally-significant clean energy capabilities. OxLEP’s remit is to champion and grow the Oxfordshire economy. Its Billion-Tonne Drop campaign, entirely devised, created and curated by TALA, showed how the county, already a world leader in carbon-reducing science, innovation, policy and development, is finding solutions that could further reduce carbon emissions by at least one billion tonnes per annum. The campaign, which won official UN/HMG endorsement and funding, brought together internationally-recognised organisations such as the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy with some of the county’s 1,500 exciting high-tech start-ups and spin-outs. Through a live event, an impactful short film, and social media, it presented the radical and practical ideas being developed in the county right now to harness renewable energy – and ultimately make a difference to how we drive, fly and manage our homes. The Billion-Tonne Drop succeeded in amassing 130 of OxLEP’s target stakeholders from industry, investment and government in one of the first live panel debates to be held after pandemic restrictions began to lift, focusing their attention on the county’s significance, as well as giving participating organisations a new platform. The inclusive campaign also gave Oxfordshire young people, and those with additional needs, an active role. Part of a series of government-sponsored Green Zone events, The Billion-Tonne Drop highlighted the achievements, and potential, of this world-leading UK innovation ecosystem.

The 2021 Christmas season found South Derbyshire District Council facing the same problem plaguing many local authorities around the country – reduced footfall in town centres, local stores flagging and consumers choosing to buy online instead of supporting local businesses. The easing of COVID restrictions in summer 2021 presented the Council with an exciting but challenging opportunity. How could it best showcase Swadlincote’s unique retail, hospitality, leisure and heritage offers, in order to rebuild people’s confidence and attract visitors from the local area and beyond? Following a tendering process, the Council selected MIH Solutions as its trusted PR partner. The challenge for MIH was to help to bring vibrancy back to the high street by creating a buzz around the winter events calendar, promoting Swadlincote as a safe, exciting and thriving place to visit. Using The Snowman™ and The Snowdog sculpture trail as its centrepiece, MIH’s digitally focused campaign targeted families and young people on platforms where the team knew they would reside, based on careful research. ‘Discover Swadlincote’ was meticulously crafted to showcase the market town’s best traits and engage a UK-wide audience, encouraging people to visit and spend time exploring a unique retail, dining and tourism offer. As well as providing a vital shot in the arm to ailing businesses and engaging a local primary school in the festivities, countless families subsequently shared their experiences of how lifelong memories had been made in the process.

Global cyber-security business, Avast, wanted businesses and private individuals to care about how every single day their digital civil liberties are being eroded. Our solution: George Orwell and 1984. A text that forms part of our collective Western consciousness. We’re living in exactly the hyper-surveilled society that Orwell predicted. What better universally understood cultural device for Avast to tell its story? The thing is, Orwell called it so correctly that we really didn’t need to change much. All of the surveillance challenges we are experiencing today are precisely those predicted over 70 years ago. So when it came to the idea, we could keep things beautifully, elegantly, simple. We simply replaced four numerals. 1984 becomes 2021, on the cover and throughout the text. The multi-layered campaign included a physical print of the book, a Kindle edition, and an audiobook available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, with actor Matt Smith playing the role of Winston Smith.

One in four UK prison leavers reoffend in the first year of their release. The annual cost to the economy is a staggering £18bn. How can we help to turn prison leavers away from crime? LinkedIn partnered with social enterprise Inside Out to prove that providing employment opportunities to young prison leavers is the best way to reduce re-offending rates. The campaign centred on a unique rehabilitation project, providing prison leavers with materials and training to market the UK’s first clothing brand created, designed and hand-produced by ex-offenders. The clothes were sold in a dedicated pop-up at Westfield, Stratford. Results: - 1,000+ units sold over nine days, with £10,500 revenue generated for charity - Media coverage across BBC News, ITV News, Channel 5 News, Metro, Business Insider, The Independent, Campaign and LadBible - Three prison leavers (Project Ambassadors) have gone on to set up clothing labels - Four prison leavers are about to start paid work experience for Jellyfish

The travel industry has shown considerable creativity in the face of colossal challenges in every way other than one - its communications. Despite seismic societal changes, travel marketing was still dominated by picture-perfect (white / slim / straight couples / families) ignoring the diversity of real travellers. We posed the question ‘could Celebrity Cruises make ‘all-inclusive’ genuinely all-inclusive’? We commissioned the world’s greatest and most diverse photographers to create the first free, open-source, diversity-focused image library dubbed the #AllInclusivePhotoProject. With free access to inspiring travel imagery, travel media and marketing professionals across the globe downloaded in their thousands and we smashed through all our KPIs, forever changing the face of category communications.

Samsung is renowned for its consumer smartphones. It is less known for its B2B tech – a portfolio of rugged and enterprise edition smartphones and tablets designed specifically with businesses in mind. Our job was to take B2B into mainstream media— one of Samsung’s fundamental goals.

A first for Sitecore, Sitecore Santa merged comedy with tech in a video series launched during the busiest time of year: Christmas. The content, which was executed in three weeks, introduced the C-Ho-Ho, Santa, and his helpers, by giving viewers a workshop tour. While Santa is the jargon-speaking ‘face of the business’, Santa’s helpers work behind the scenes, to create ultimate customer experiences – just like Sitecore. Supported with paid activity, the campaign generated 1m+ impressions from a niche marketing audience; 126k more video views vs forecast; 44% higher view rate vs forecast; and 553k+ total video views.

Acid Survivors Trust International (ASTi) are a NGO lobbying International governments & industry to end acid attacks globally. ASTi released a report detailing the use of acid in the supply chains of key industries, including Fashion & Textiles - and their role in the handling, storage & safe disposal of acid. The report was launched by HRH Princess Anne at St. James’ Palace. To launch the report, we created Tear Couture. A journey inside an acid survivor’s teardrop. We collected and photographed the tears of acid attack survivors, which were turned into a VR experience where people could listen to real acid survivors testimonials, a live 3D installation of the same teardrop and tears printed in silk. At the event, representatives of the fashion and textile industries signed a pledge to to tighten their security measures within their acid supply chain networks and help end acid violence. From event held with over 75 people, CEOs and Senior representatives at Primark, The British Fashion Council, German fashion and Armani have been in contact with ASTi and are working on the implementation of programs within their corporations to educate internal teams and work closely with their supply chains to safe handle, storage and transport acid. An interview with one of the acid attack survivors from our campaign took a full page at the Metro reaching more than 2 million people.

In 1995, Faithless released the seminal dance anthem, Insomnia. It was the three minute soundscape to a generation fuelled on Ecstasy that stayed up all night. Our idea: work with Faithless to reimagine their iconic track as a sleep track. We made it orchestral. We slowed it down. We incorporated science. We created a dozy experience to be heightened by CBD. We took something our audience raved to and turned it into a comfort blanket for relaxation. We also made it 27-blissful minutes in length, the average time it takes us to fall asleep.

CHALLENGE: Schizophrenia is a mental illness affecting millions in Brazil. Those afflicted often suffer in isolation because they are so socially stigmatized – dividing families, biasing employers, discouraging treatment, and leading to a10x higher rate of suicide. Janssen Brazil set out to confront the prejudice and lead a national conversation to end the silence and humanize schizophrenia. IDEA: We gave voice to their voices, creating a moving musical anthem against prejudice. Schizophrenics are often mocked for “hearing voices,” but it was time to listen to their voices. We gave voice to amateur Brazilian musician Allyson Mariano, who wrote a song on what it’s like to live with schizophrenia. And a chorus of influencers – from a rock star to doctors and impacted family members – joined in. OUTCOMES: Listen to Our Voices” aired widely across Brazil, igniting media attention and national conversation on schizophrenia. Finally, people dealing with the mental illness felt heard and understood. The campaign galvanized patients, families, caregivers, support groups and the medical community – promising hope to millions and driving unprecedented inquiries to Janssen for treatment information · 170,000+ engagements on Janssen’s Facebook, Instagram and YouTube channels (exceeding interest on COVID-19 topics) · Google health searches for schizophrenia in Brazil were their highest in history (indexing four times the volume just five years ago) · 335 radio stations aired the song, reaching 44.9M listeners · 127M total earned social and traditional media . 457 positive organic media stories

It's 2022 yet research by Intimina, the Swedish women's intimate health brand, revealed that a third of women and girls still do not feel confident enough to talk about periods with family or friends. That's even when their periods could be a cause of pain, discomfort, anxiety or even bullying. That's why creative comms agency Cow and Intimina decided to be deliberately provocative to get period conversation normalised at the place where most family chats happen - the kitchen table. This is the story of how one limited-edition, uterus shaped cereal triggered everyone from Piers Morgan to MAGA conservatives in the USA, yet won the hearts and minds of women and girls around the world to challenge the stigma around female intimate health. Period Crunch became global news and a social media sensation covered everywhere from the Daily Mail, Metro, Lad Bible and Fox News to women's lifestyle and health media. And the cherry on the cake was when Piers eat a bowl live on TV. He said it was 'wokeness gone mad', but thousands of consumers wrote to Intimina requesting the free product, including teens who thought it was cool through to mums and dads who wanted to use it as a conversation starter with their kids. Job done.

Muscle loss is an underrecognized health concern. Did you know that 1 in 5 normally nourished older adults are at risk of low muscle mass? And 4 in 5 at risk of malnutrition have low muscle mass? This has been revealed in the SHIELD (Strengthening Health In Elderly Through Nutrition) research that Abbott has been conducting in collaboration with Changi General Hospital and SingHealth Polyclinics. With an ageing population with a high prevalence of low muscle mass, Abbott’s objective as a global healthcare provider is to inspire Singaporeans to look after their muscle health. So, the challenge was to create awareness of the importance and encourage Singaporeans to check their muscle health. To do so, we inserted the topic of muscle health into local culture with a storytelling vehicle close to Singaporeans’ hearts: Singapore hawker culture. After all, who better to inspire Singaporeans and tell a story of (muscle) strength than hawker stall owners who are on their feet all day long and need good muscle health to live life strong? Our campaign that included influencers, a creative media partnership, and earned media successfully reached Singaporeans, with more than 100,000 Singaporeans visiting Abbott’s Muscle Age Calculator website, with 5,100 taking the test to find their muscle age. We also prompted Singaporeans to search online with the terms ‘muscle age,’ ‘muscle age,’ and ‘muscle strength’, seeing a search spike throughout the campaign (August 2021 – May 2022).

Intimina is a Swedish women’s intimate health brand with a purpose to tackle stigma and to make women’s intimate health issues Seen + Heard. One in 10 women worldwide have endometriosis, yet despite the seriousness of this disease, it takes an average of eight years just to get a diagnosis. That’s eight long years of enduring terrible pain and the feeling of not being heard. The consequences of misdiagnosis can have a catastrophic impact on the lives of girls and women. Aside from often agonising pain, it can be devastating on fertility, relationships, career and self-esteem. Given the average wait for a diagnosis is eight years, Cow focused on dramatising that statistic and to give a voice to real-life case study testimonies with a poignant and disarming approach. The result was The Wait, a powerful film that features eight-year-old girls whose age symbolises the damning eight-year wait statistic – with each of the youngsters having been alive for as long as it takes to be diagnosed with endometriosis. The content and case studies generated coverage and conversation across five months with 258 pieces of global coverage and 400k organic video views. The Wait continues to remain relevant and shareable if the issue persists. Despite months since the proactive PR ended, the video continues to clock up tens of thousands of organic views every week, meaning that women and girls are still finding it independently and as they seek further information on the issue.

Multiple Myeloma (MM) is a rare but deadly form of blood cancer. For people living with MM, traditionally 60+, time is everything. But that’s the one thing they don’t have. Weeks are spent awaiting treatment and test results. Days blend into each other, and time slips by, right when it’s becoming more precious than ever. Janssen wanted to change that. As the leading company in MM, we were challenged to bring to life the company’s commitment to giving patients back some of their precious time while positively impacting the experience of both living with MM and being treated for it.

2021 - and all we heard about were the cancelled holidays, ever-changing travel restrictions and complicated covid testing. And none of this was helping our hotel client, The Hilton Group. We needed to re-engage Brits with the joy and ease of domestic travel and needed something simple, fun and cost effective that would give Brits that warm and fuzzy feeling of holiday time. Our lightbulb moment came when we noticed ‘dog friend hotel’ searches on the Hilton website had skyrocketed - clearly due to the rise in dog owners during the pandemic. What better way to entice people to book a getaway if they could come with their furry friend? Oh, and it so happens that the media LOVE dogs… Bone Appétit - a brand new bespoke dog menu across Hilton properties that guaranteed wanderlust mutts and paw-rents were catered for to the highest level, Hilton-style. The impact? 100+ pieces of coverage and a six-minute review on This Morning resulting in over 2,000 searches for the new offering on the Hilton website.

When Virgin Voyages launched Scarlet Lady in 2020, the brand was set to shake-up the cruise industry with a new premium offering to redefine travel at sea. Then the global pandemic hit, leaving the brand in limbo. We successfully exploded awareness that the Scarlet Lady - and Virgin Voyages - had returned to the high seas with a new way to voyage, which was the safest way to travel. We generated a reach of 4.5 billion globally, engaging agenda-setting broadcast, print and online titles. A considered media strategy at the heart, that reached the masses, yet was perfectly tailored to captivate specific audiences and change perceptions.

The travel industry has shown considerable creativity in the face of colossal challenges in every way other than one - its communications. Despite seismic societal changes, travel marketing was still dominated by picture-perfect (white / slim / straight couples / families) ignoring the diversity of real travellers. We posed the question ‘could Celebrity Cruises make ‘all-inclusive’ genuinely all-inclusive’? We commissioned the world’s greatest and most diverse photographers to create the first free, open-source, diversity-focused image library dubbed the #AllInclusivePhotoProject. With free access to inspiring travel imagery, travel media and marketing professionals across the globe downloaded in their thousands and we smashed through all our KPIs, forever changing the face of category communications.

Sway PR was approached by luxury wilderness experience organiser Primal to raise awareness of a new and exclusive ultramarathon in Scotland. The 120-mile run challenge, which costs £15,499 to enter, was targeted at high-net-worth individuals and offered luxury elements, including butler service, food prepared by a Michelin star-winning chef, onsite masseurs and a gala dinner at a Scottish castle. Sway PR coordinated a media preview weekend with journalists from the Financial Times, The Times and City AM. The agency also created a series of newsworthy content, such as a launch press release and human interest stories about the athletes involved, and secure interviews with target international media. The campaign has, to date, secured 170 media placements globally, with a coverage reach of more than 510 million, including 348 brand mentions and 65 embedded backlinks. Placements were secured with prominent consumer outlets including BBC News Online, Sky News, Business Insider, The Times, Daily Telegraph, City AM, The Financial Times, running specific media such as Runner’s World and Trail Running, and a significant number of international titles in countries such as the US, Australia, Singapore, Spain, Belgium, Thailand and France. As a result, more than 100 enquiries were generated, leading to £248,000 worth of bookings, with more deferring to next year’s event due to date clashes. The PR campaign directly delivered a 1,966% return on investment based on bookings for the 2022 event.

Forget the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, Mother Nature blessed the UK with a wealth of its own natural beauty. In the Summer of 2021, the Great British public had found a renewed affinity of the outdoors as international travel continued to be surpassed by the pandemic. As a well-respected hiking footwear brand, Merrell wanted to capitalise on a love for the great outdoors and the year of the staycation. As a result, the brand partnered with the Royal Geographical Society to establish the Seven Natural Wonders of the UK in a mission to inspire active native travel and uncover the best of nature's artistry on these shores. Do you know your Pistyll Rhaeadr from your Loch Coruisk and the Cuillins? Turns out many people didn't with only one in 10 UK adults having visited any of the Seven Wonders. The campaign was Merrell's most successful campaign to date with landmark coverage from BBC Breakfast to The Sun - resulting in commercial success.

When M&M’s World in Leicester Square has better reviews than the Great Wall of China, you know there’s something wrong. This is the story of how an audacious stunt in London and New York sought to land a punch on harmful reviews. The average person reads 15 reviews from strangers before booking a holiday. Plum Guide is a high-end homestay company but unlike Airbnb they don’t let customers leave reviews. Instead, their trained and experienced critics write honest and informed assessments of properties to help customers make the right choice. They believe that the opinion of experts is more valuable than that of the general public. Controversial! But with 1 in 3 being let down by reviews and people planning on spending 18% more on their holidays than 2021 we decided to send a warning, reminding people that anonymous online reviews are incredibly subjective and unreliable. We projected real 1-star reviews onto dozens of popular iconic landmarks of cultural importance in London and New York City. With “Should have been called ‘tat’ Modern” on the Tate Modern and “Filled with trash” on the Guggenheim, news quickly spread online as passers-by shared pictures before the media got hold of the story. The results were outstanding with 415 pieces of coverage in the UK and USA including the mailonline front page and a three-minute interview on Sky News.

With the help of Duolingo, we taught Scotland fans how to sing the Ukrainian national anthem ahead of their World Cup qualifier at Hampden Park. Never before in the history of football have fans sung the opposition's anthem. But on the night of the match, in an unprecedented act, thousands of fans joined together in song in sporting solidarity, humanity and love, proving that whatever language you speak, the beautiful game has no borders.

In an unforgettable year, one number stole attention from the ubiquitous 2020... and that number was 15. Spearheaded by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and International Disability Alliance, WeThe15 aims to advance the lives of the 1.2bn persons with disabilities – 15% of the world’s population. Created by adam&eveDDB in partnership with Pentagram, Pulse Films, FleishmanHillard, Porter Novelli and Portland. The campaign brought together a coalition of global organisations generating 3,000+ pieces of media coverage, 2.5bn impressions on Twitter and 9.5m interactions across social media.

As a nation we’ve got used to the WFH life; but just because the pandemic is ending, it shouldn’t mean we need to be chained to our office desks. Working with Hostelworld, Brands2Life campaigned for change, encouraging Brits to not just WFH, but WFA – Work From Anywhere. As a result, we basked in the glow of not only landing stellar coverage, but also driving sales.

Crash test collisions and dummies being flung metres in the air before landing in a crumpled heap… does any scene depict road safety risks more than this? Tin Man developed the first ever UK crash testing of e-scooters in a campaign with real social purpose for Guide Dogs. The crash test campaign created a suite of dramatic video content for media, reams of data, awareness of the dangers of e-scooters to the visually impaired community and a groundswell of support for the regulation of private e-scooter use. 18 national news and 24 broadcast features later - including a 6-minute segment on BBC Breakfast - this campaign delivered: • 142% increase in awareness that e-scooters are dangerous to those with visual impairments • 13,000 signatures to Guide Dogs’ petition • And to top it off, real social change has been made – because of this campaign, a universal sonic warning signal is being developed by public schemes to warn people with sight loss that an e-scooter is approaching.

Good News was a pop-up corner shop which aimed to drive awareness and excitement around the growing range of businesses that are B Corp certified. As the climate crisis worsens, and the UK nears its milestone of 1,000 certified B Corps, educating consumers on the movement and how they can ‘buy better’ has never been more important. Open during B Corp Month in March, Good News was brought to life through a vibrant aesthetic and featured over 300 products from 130 B Corp brands. Unlike other retail concepts, nothing was for sale - social media and storytelling was our currency of choice. Not all brands in-store had tangible products - rather than cigarettes we displayed packs of ‘fresh air’ to showcase a business specialising in outdoor holidays, a payphone for free cause-related PR advice and a good-cause lotto with social impact challenges and community-driven prizes. We also re-imagined other service-based businesses into typical convenience store items such as magazine covers and a noticeboard, replacing the usual dog walker adverts with businesses that off-set carbon emissions. Every brand was given a brief description of what made them a B Corp and defined them as a ‘better’ company. These shelf talkers also featured QR codes allowing visitors to learn more and change their shopping habits. The store played host to 20 events, 23 days of sampling, was visited by over 3,000 and reached 90m online. All products were then donated to local community initiatives.

Melting sea ice and rising global warming is an urgent threat but out-of-reach statistics and jargon mean many are naive to the speed or severity of it. No ice, no life. To turn a distant problem into a visible threat and on mainstream media and consumer consciousness, and further up government agenda ahead of COP26, Frank worked with UN Patron of the Oceans, Lewis Pugh, to take one man’s superhuman feat of physical endurance and turn it into a leading news story. Ultimately creating over 500 pieces of coverage, 106 nations joining the call to protect 30% of oceans by 2030, and the largest conservation drive in history.

On June 14th 2017 the UK experienced one of the biggest tragedies in recent years. 72 innocent people died needlessly in a fire that shouldn’t have happened. 5 years later no one has been arrested.  Leading up to the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and at a time when communities were coming together to celebrate across the country, we held a street party in the shadow of Grenfell Tower. A table was laid with 72 plates and chairs, but no guests. Each place setting carried the name of a victim from the tragedy. With the government refusing to take accountability, we felt it necessary to make a statement on behalf of the community and keep this tragedy in the news, 5 years on. The harrowing image of an empty street party was designed to emphasise how this community will never be the same and continue to demand justice. The stunt was picked up by multiple national titles as well as a feature on the BBC London 1 O'clock news. The stunt has transcended traditional media channels and we are in conversation with the V&A about it being added to their permanent collection.

A sharp increase in people crossing the English Channel has focused attention on our borders. Much of the rhetoric and angry comments seen in the media are based on misinformation and common myths e.g. that asylum seekers and refugees are just economic migrants, or that they are coming to the UK to get benefits. Our brief from charity Migrant Help was to create a PR moment during Refugee Week that would challenge and change perceptions of asylum seekers and refugees and start a conversation with the British public about refugees. We decided to tackle myths surrounding the most affected and yet much maligned audience segment – young men seeking asylum. We brought to life the story of one Ethiopian refugee Eskander through a series of giant, anamorphic 3D artworks depicting his flight from persecution and his journey to becoming an elite athlete representing Northern Ireland. We displayed the interactive artworks along the South Bank allowing the public to step into the 3D pictures and put themselves in Eskander’s shoes. The stunning photo appeared in 184 news items including 18 nationals. Best of all the public reaction to Eskander and his story gave us hope in a new generation of voters and donors who can really change perceptions and help better integration.

In an unforgettable year, one number stole attention from the ubiquitous 2020... and that number was 15. Spearheaded by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) and International Disability Alliance, WeThe15 aims to advance the lives of the 1.2bn persons with disabilities – 15% of the world’s population. Created by adam&eveDDB in partnership with Pentagram, Pulse Films, FleishmanHillard, Porter Novelli and Portland. The campaign brought together a coalition of global organisations generating 3,000+ pieces of media coverage, 2.5bn impressions on Twitter and 9.5m interactions across social media.

Online drinks retailer, The Bottle Club partnered with JBH the Digital PR Agency to create a ‘dream job’ campaign that delivered more than just links and coverage. The campaign drove traffic, enquiries and newsletter sign ups and a 47% increase in sales of their signature 'Espresso Martini in a Bottle' product.

Childproofing a house can be a passion killer - and on occasions like Valentine’s Day, cards must remain strictly PG or locked out of sight. Brands2Life worked with Moonpig to create the kid-proof Forbidden Fruits range - cards with hidden fruity messages that appear perfectly innocent until you give them a little squeeze. At a hugely competitive time, we delivered 120 pieces of coverage, including a live demonstration from Holly and Phil on This Morning, which drove an uplift in traffic to the Moonpig page and uplift in cards sold.

The nation’s tastiest partnership sums up the Primark x Greggs collaboration. The campaign – which aimed to create a cultural moment for both brands – was a sweeping success. It landed over 650 pieces of media coverage reaching over 95% of the Greggs core audience. The launch generated 6,535 social mentions and over 203 million impressions. The campaign delivered £1 million in merchandise sales and sold out. Greggs increased its YouGov Buzz Score by 21.4% compared to the previous period strengthening their position to number one within the QSR sector.

After 15 years of planning, St James Quarter was due to open its doors in June 2021– slap bang in the middle of a global pandemic. As the £1bn development geared up to launch, we were faced with an array of potential disasters: Delayed construction due to covid meant that with only 12 weeks to go, an official opening date hadn’t been set. Consumer confidence was low, after 18 months of being told to stay home, we needed to encourage shoppers back. That came with questions surrounding the safety measures in place and the impact they might have on the experience. Retail confidence had also taken a dent. Brands were nervous about opening new units in the middle of the pandemic and were keen to see what happened before committing to an opening date. But we needed to deliver. This was the biggest development Edinburgh had ever seen and a huge investment for Nuveen Real Estate, it was important we gave it the moment it deserved and delivered commercial outcomes for retailers and investors. The landscape might have been complicated but our objectives were simple: Build understanding around the four-phase opening and raise awareness of the key dates, managing expectations about what would open and when Drive excitement about the opening and communicate the breadth of the offering - ‘more than shopping’ and position as truly unique in the UK Celebrate the moment, despite world events and delays, this was a big moment for Edinburgh to celebrate.

To celebrate the Queen’s platinum Jubilee, we created a must-visit campaign transforming Mayfair into the most fashionable street party ensuring the neighbourhood boldly stood out among all the other celebrations taking place across the UK whilst attracting international attention. North Audley Street was closed to traffic for a two day majestic fête, abundant with entertainment and spectacular street floristry, decorations and the best food and drink Mayfair had to offer. The centrepiece of the event – a fashionable feast on the form of 200ft banqueting table was curated by best in class tablescapers, Lay London. Driven by PR and Comms, the event received the destination’s best ever PR results and exceeded targets in driving crucial footfall and spend in post-pandemic London.

“One’s lovin’ it” – Ready10’s creative response for McDonald’s sponsorship of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Pageant – was a multi-channel campaign that cut-through at one of the most cluttered PR times of the year. And it was that rarest of things: a PR idea that was picked up and pushed through-the-line across every channel from TV, to outdoor, to CRM, to social, and in-store. Named as campaign of the week by trade publications in three separate continents, the output included a re-recording of the iconic five note jingle with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (AKA “ba da ba ba baaa”) which replaced the original on TV end frames for four days (including a hero spot during the BGT final), plus a nationwide out of home campaign, production of bone china packaging, app promotions, TikTok duets, in-store digital takeovers across the entire 1,400 restaurant estate and still quite a bit more besides. We watched as “one’s lovin’ it” built from a PR idea into a multi-channel behemoth with eight other agencies jumping on board to amplify it and push it through-the-line to make it one of the most impactful integrated marketing campaigns in the brand’s recent history.

“JUST BRILLIANT” “this is the greatest thing going on Twitter right now!” “Whoever came up with this deserves a pay rise...” Looking to transcend ‘Caterpillargate’ and the Christmas ‘Gin War’, we offered a mistletoe ‘Olive Branch’ of peace from Aldi to Marks & Spencer. Unveiled a 10ft mistletoe branch, with an invitation to ‘kiss and make up’ between neighbouring M&S and Aldi Skegness stores. Creating a stocking load of coverage and social love, at a key shopping period. Helping the discount supermarket have its best Christmas ever, and come out looking the bigger brand.

With hot cross buns having a ‘moment’, and to coincide with Tesco unveiling its most innovative range of the sweet treats yet, we launched the UK’s first hot cross bun café for Easter. The Tesco Hot Cross Bun Café offered a one-of-a-kind dining experience for all ages, from brunch and afternoon tea to adult only fine dining, all from just £5 per head, with all proceeds going to The Trussell Trust. Every dish and cocktail served featured Tesco products with an innovative twist on the hot cross bun – from Hot Cross Bun Espresso Martinis to Hot Cross Bun Steak Tartare.

There’s no location more synonymous with refilling than a gas-guzzling petrol station. So we found the ugliest, most down-trodden one London has to offer and transformed it into ‘The Ecover Refillery’ – a destination dedicated to fighting plastic waste with refills. Turning pumps for petrol into pumps for Ecover’s environmentally conscious, plant-based, cleaning products, The Ecover Refillery attracted the attention of media, influencers and consumers from across the UK, and beyond. Over 1,000 plastic bottles we're refilled every single day during launch, with our Refill ‘petrol’ pumps in huge demand and sometimes generating queues around the block. Better yet, people genuinely turn up with their own empty plastic bottles ready to refill.

Tricor’s Global Marketing and Communication Team launched the most ground-breaking marketing communication efforts in the firm’s 20-year history. Notably, a foundational feature of the brand communications relaunch was the team’s positioning of the ‘Tricor Story’ through regional PR efforts, calling attention to its unique differentiator as a proud homegrown APAC challenger brand. Strategically, this brand narrative aligns closely with the company’s forte in providing clients local expertise and specialized knowledge in business expansion services. Through coordinated regional PR efforts, particularly in Singapore, Malaysia, HK and China as well as across APAC, Tricor showcased its dedicated, specialized team of local experts. The brand relaunch campaign raised Tricor’s share of voice, increased brand awareness, consideration and reputation, and helped drive the firm’s overall business objectives.

The Shard was conceived as a building with multiple uses: a vertical city where people could live, work, and relax. But whilst being the tallest building in Western Europe gets you noticed, it doesn’t guarantee a place in people’s hearts. So, the small but agile marketing team for REM (asset managers for The Shard) devised a campaign to harness the potential of the building’s spire lights, using them to convey stories with emotional resonance. Working with acclaimed lighting directors, we created awe-inspiring lighting sequences designed to mark emotive calendar moments and public sentiment, connecting with, and inspiring the nation. From honouring NHS workers as part of the #LightItBlue initiative and beaming a morse code thank you message across the capital; to rallying the nation behind Gareth Southgate’s Euros team, we helped put The Shard into cultural moments and conversations.

Trade Nation provides a trading platform for financial traders, with a core mission to educate each customer to become more successful when trading in online markets. The Go Up team put this educational mission at the heart of their PR strategy. The campaign enhanced brand visibility, increased authority and with a stream of high-profile coverage, delivered record customer conversions that continue to increase. The Digital PR team delivered 46 pieces of coverage in just 8 weeks with a combined audience of over 97 million, driving valuable backlinks to the website to further enhance the ranking and reach. They secured comments in major publications such as the Financial Times, TIME magazine, City AM and Bloomberg. They also co-designed a new trading simulator for the website that helped customers fine-tune their trading skills. The new digital trading product, coupled with optimum coverage and improved authority, helped Trade Nation grow from 0 to 25,000 new paying customers through organic channels, far exceeding the initial goal of 500 that the client set us at the outset of the campaign and established Trade Nation as the go-to platform for online traders and educative content.

We are Digital Growth Specialists helping ambitious brands push boundaries and drive impact. We define and deliver integrated digital strategies that transform our clients from market players to market leaders, and keep them there. We’re driven by data and innovation. We build proprietary tech and partner with industry leading tools to make smarter decisions, unlock better insights and maximise the returns on digital investment. Recognising that we are a part of something much bigger, we’re on a mission to use business as a force for good. We’re actively committed to creating a positive impact for our people, planet and community. In this campaign, we helped our long-term client standout against a highly competitive SERP landscape during a time when the pandemic was front and centre on the news agenda. We had to adopt an ‘always on’ approach to digital PR that would maintain a natural and diverse backlink profile from quality websites with relevance and authority. By thinking creatively and collaborating with internal teams, we developed an engaging content strategy that garnered impressive results in both rankings and organic traffic, with campaigns featured in places as high as the House of Commons. Learner drivers and parents alike have engaged with our campaigns which have stood for safety and driver empowerment. Winning this award would be incredible! It would provide well-deserved recognition to our dedicated team who are committed to accelerating change and results, helping our clients to grow their business faster. Our achievements wouldn’t be possible without our people!

Brits don’t like to talk about money. The pandemic and the rising cost of living have put personal finances front and centre, yet research from Lloyds Bank found that people were still shying away from even reading their bank statements. Sometimes, people need encouragement to talk about money. Lloyds Bank asked Grayling to come up with a creative way to encourage the British public to improve their personal financial health by getting them to think, and talk, about money. Our idea was a creative activation that brought people’s bank statements to life through an immersive art experience, with a valuable central message that changed how people think and talk about their finances. Through its ‘Making a Statement’ campaign, Lloyds Bank aimed to encourage and empower Britons to have honest financial conversations at home and with their friends. Our entry deserves to win because our unique creative truly changed behaviours and met all our objectives. We got people to think differently about their spending and ensured the Lloyds Bank brand and messaging was positively integrated through all aspects of the creativity and campaign process.

In Sweden, drowning is the most common deadly accident for children 1-6 years. When an accident occurs, knowledge of CPR is crucial. But a new national survey exposed the fact that a majority of parents did not know how to do CPR on children. Insurance company Trygg-Hansa have been working with water safety for over 65 years. Now they wanted to adress the issue of CPR. The brief was to develop a creative solution that could generate earned attention to educate the public about CPR. The solution became Marked for Life – tattoos for children that illustrates the critical steps of CPR. This created a new medium to communicate the message, by transforming the bodies of swimming children into living instruction manuals for CPR. So, in a critical situation, information on how to save a life would be present when it matters most. By introducing tattoos for children with life-saving knowledge during peak drowning season, the whole nation started talking about CPR, providing Trygg-Hansa a platform to reach their audience, educate and strengthen their brand position in the area of water safety.

COVID-19 changed household cleaning from a chore to a way to keep safe. But by spring 2021, pandemic fatigue was taking its toll. We developed a social-first strategy to introduce Clorox’s Scentiva® line of exotically fragranced cleaning products to millennial and multicultural consumers. Leaning into culture, we enlisted exuberant American actor/music artist Billy Porter to reframe cleaning from a chore to a new form of self-care. Creating content with an irresistible music track, we engaged millions on TikTok in a liberating YAS CLEAN! movement. Our meme exploded across culture and media as consumers transformed their homes from drab to FAB.

With lofty ambitions of breaking free from the tech pages to build awareness of its Find X3 smartphone in global markets, especially Europe, OPPO needed to leverage its sponsorship of The Championships, Wimbledon. Inspired by the Find X3’s world-first one billion colour screen innovation we launched a pioneering global media relations campaign with a European focus. To make its mark beyond the court, OPPO needed a campaign with societal significance, that transcended different cultures and times. Amid pandemic fatigue and a dull spectator experience, OPPO bucked the bland bringing one billion colours to tennis history for modern fans throughout Wimbledon.

In 1995, Faithless released the seminal dance anthem, Insomnia. It was the three minute soundscape to a generation fuelled on Ecstasy that stayed up all night. Our idea: work with Faithless to reimagine their iconic track as a sleep track. We made it orchestral. We slowed it down. We incorporated science. We created a dozy experience to be heightened by CBD. We took something our audience raved to and turned it into a comfort blanket for relaxation. We also made it 27-blissful minutes in length, the average time it takes us to fall asleep.

Fever and streaming service NOW masterminded a takeover of one of the UK’s most famous football clubs to celebrate season 3 of the hit HBO show Succession. Inspired by Roman Roy’s fictional takeover of Hearts in the show, we brought the storyline to the real world adding the Roy family’s infamous company, Waystar Royco, to the front of Hearts’ iconic maroon shirts and around Tynecastle Park stadium. We used the ‘fake’ takeover of Scottish club Hearts as an opportunity to get people talking about Succession’s Roy family and one of the show’s funniest storylines ahead of the launch of season 3 driving 1,200 pieces of media coverage.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single Bounty will be left at the bottom of a Celebrations tub. This entry details how we drove festive fame & sales for Mars Celebrations by highlighting an uncomfortable brand truth that most confectionery marketeers would shy away from: not all chocolates are created equal. By admitting that some choccies are loved more than others, our creative subverted tired festive tropes and sparked a nationwide debate, all whilst celebrating the Bounty and the Celebrations tub in an original and entertaining way. On a modest production budget, we achieved blanket nationwide coverage and millions of video views. More importantly, our campaign got people talking about Celebrations and drove product distinctiveness during the key Christmas sales period.

Fundamental to Full Fat’s diversity, equality and inclusion approach is that our DEI work will never be finished, we will always look to find new ways to grow and annually set commitments, which are driven by our internal DEI Committee (created in 2020), made up of employees at all levels with diverse backgrounds. Full Fat has implemented a series of initiatives including a pro-bono scheme, a more inclusive recruitment process and suppliers, partnerships with Taylor Bennett’s Summer Stars programme and London Living Wage apprenticeships, full team external training support, a commitment to minimising pay gaps, parental support and more.

Co-founded by Elizabeth Harrison over 23 years ago in her home state of New York, with nothing more than an old Macbook and a few thousand dollars in seed money, the kickass CEO established her agency on sheer willpower and innate scrappiness. Since its inception, H&S has been on a transformative journey. After becoming cognizant of the lack of diversity she’s consistently seen in agency life throughout her career, Harrison decided enough was enough and took actionable steps to diversify her agency and prioritize inclusion in the workplace, as well as in her recruitment practices – which were largely monocultural until the past seven years. Elizabeth realized that her retrospective approach to discovering talent mirrored that of other agencies with a similar lack of diversity. Instead of perpetuating this approach, Elizabeth took ownership of her own biases and implemented a company culture that addresses the problematic tendency to gravitate towards only like-minded individuals with similar backgrounds and experiences. She began seeking out candidates with varying backgrounds and experiences – hailing from junior, local and state universities, as well as HSBUs, plus candidates from all over the country and around the world. Diversifying the H&S talent pool expands beyond race and ethnicity to include gender identity, abilities and perspectives, resulting in an above-industry average of diversity and inclusivity. Elizabeth continues to push her agency to combat ignorance and complacency, resulting in an overall staff diversity of 71% and a senior leadership team with 72% diversity, and growing!

Hotwire is a leading global tech communications consultancy. We are fanatical about technology, with over two decades of experience in igniting possibilities by challenging ourselves, our employees and our clients. We're a diverse bunch, but we all have the same ambition; to be the most inspiring consultancy for our clients and the best agency you'll ever work with. We know allowing employees to bring their whole self to work makes Hotwire a great place for employees and clients. We aim to create an environment where everyone is free to express themselves, and that values and views are heard. Diversity and inclusion is more than ticking a box – it’s an active journey to make sure everyone feels part of one team. Hotwire is driven to ignite positive action and lasting change in the world through our business, client partnerships and consulting services. Our people programs prioritize inclusivity and belonging and give employees opportunities to support causes they care about. This includes the creation of our HIPP program, directing up to $1 million in pro bono brand marketing and public relations services to tech and tech-enabled organizations led by or supporting underserved communities and playing a key role in the creation of The Twin Cities PR BIPOC Career Explorer, an externship program designed for BIPOC students interested in the practice of public relations and communications. We also support 10,000 Black Interns, a UK program offering 2,000 internships in a variety of industries each year for five years.

Ketchum UK is redefining Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the communications industry. In 2022, Ketchum UK unveiled its new We are Ketchum: We are Progress positioning, which is about prioritising a progressive culture that recognises and celebrates our diverse team, supporting them to do culturally authentic work that sets our industry’s gold standard. From recruitment to retention, our commitment to DE&I underpins our every move. Why? Because we know there’s a connection between how we respect and treat each other and the strength of the work we deliver for clients. We strive to be the agency that reflects the diversity of the audiences we engage, and we live by our core values every day.

In Thai schools, the practice of punishing students with forced haircuts is an issue that has persisted for decades. While the enforcement of these restrictive hair rules has been relaxed in recent years, a Dove study uncovered these brutal punishments are still used today. Not only that, 8 in 10 high school students and 7 in 10 young women report that mandated haircuts have negatively impacted their confidence. With Dove’s mission to make beauty a source of confidence, the brand issued a rallying call to #LetHerGrow – an initiative committed to ending these confidence-cutting forced haircuts for good and creating a future where students can grow into the greatest version of themselves. Capturing the attention of millions through rich storytelling, high-impact media and strategic partnerships, the campaign sparked a nationwide discussion amongst the masses calling for change. Most of all, the work was grounded in action, collaborating with experts and educators while also establishing The Growth Fund to direct meaningful and sustained resources to research, education and advocacy.

“One’s lovin’ it” – Ready10’s creative response for McDonald’s sponsorship of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Pageant – was a multi-channel campaign that cut-through at one of the most cluttered PR times of the year. And it was that rarest of things: a PR idea that was picked up and pushed through-the-line across every channel from TV, to outdoor, to CRM, to social, and in-store. Named as campaign of the week by trade publications in three separate continents, the output included a re-recording of the iconic five note jingle with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (AKA “ba da ba ba baaa”) which replaced the original on TV end frames for four days (including a hero spot during the BGT final), plus a nationwide out of home campaign, production of bone china packaging, app promotions, TikTok duets, in-store digital takeovers across the entire 1,400 restaurant estate and still quite a bit more besides. We watched as “one’s lovin’ it” built from a PR idea into a multi-channel behemoth with eight other agencies jumping on board to amplify it and push it through-the-line to make it one of the most impactful integrated marketing campaigns in the brand’s recent history.

Ever thought about just packing it all in, stuffing all your belongings into a camper van and hitting the road? Well, ex-Londoners Charlie and Josh did just that, after renovating a Mercedes Vario 614D and planning a summer of fun adventures. Over Summer 2021, the couple visited all 15 of the UK’s national parks in the ultimate British road trip in partnership with Columbia Sportswear. As the brakes were put on international travel, Columbia wanted to capitalise on their partnership with the UK National Parks and target a younger "urban active" demographic. Brandnation identified the vanlife trend as a vehicle to connect with those hungry for adventure. Columbia collaborated with a vanlife micro-influencer account named Wandering Home in a content rich campaign that spanned PR, influencer, social media and retail to showcase the very best of the British outdoors.

As kids grow more interested in the video gaming industry, classic playground games are on the verge of extinction. After two decades of encouraging kids to spend more time outdoors with its “Dirt Is Good” platform, Persil discovered that the average British kid hasn’t played outside for over three months, with 36% of children having never played the classic playground game tag. We harnessed the power of the gaming world, rather than fight against it. We relaunched Tag as if it was the latest video game - reminding gamers and gaming influencers that outdoor games can be as exciting as video games.

The Competition and Markets Authority works tirelessly to ensure that consumers get a good deal when buying goods and services, and businesses operate within the law, including protecting consumers from unfair trading practices. And while most online transactions are fair and transparent, digital retail is an ever evolving and sophisticated designed environment. With more consumers shopping online than ever, tactics have emerged that are designed to exploit consumers behavioural biases in the quest for sales, including pressure selling, subscription traps, hidden charges and fake reviews. We developed The Online Rip-off Tip-off, a fully integrated, consumer focussed campaign to make consumers aware of these misleading online practices. Central to the campaign, we produced an advice led film fronted by Angellica Bell that translates the online marketplace into the real world, to highlight how to spot and avoid sneaky sales tactics.  This was supported with activity across paid, social and PR.

With the help of Duolingo, we taught Scotland fans how to sing the Ukrainian national anthem ahead of their World Cup qualifier at Hampden Park. Never before in the history of football have fans sung the opposition's anthem. But on the night of the match, in an unprecedented act, thousands of fans joined together in song in sporting solidarity, humanity and love, proving that whatever language you speak, the beautiful game has no borders.

In Thai schools, the practice of punishing students with forced haircuts is an issue that has persisted for decades. While the enforcement of these restrictive hair rules has been relaxed in recent years, a Dove study uncovered these brutal punishments are still used today. Not only that, 8 in 10 high school students and 7 in 10 young women report that mandated haircuts have negatively impacted their confidence. With Dove’s mission to make beauty a source of confidence, the brand issued a rallying call to #LetHerGrow – an initiative committed to ending these confidence-cutting forced haircuts for good and creating a future where students can grow into the greatest version of themselves. Capturing the attention of millions through rich storytelling, high-impact media and strategic partnerships, the campaign sparked a nationwide discussion amongst the masses calling for change. Most of all, the work was grounded in action, collaborating with experts and educators while also establishing The Growth Fund to direct meaningful and sustained resources to research, education and advocacy.

National Grid have partnered with Edelman to create a low energy lightbulb that glows green when their electricity supply is cleanest and greenest, letting people know when they can make smarter energy choices at home and do their part in the fight against climate change.

Good Relations was appointed by Zoopla at a critical moment for the business. A long time challenger to key competitor, RightMove, Zoopla was gearing up for a milestone campaign to launch its ‘MyHome’ platform - a major play in its bid to attract new audiences, claim market share and become the UK’s number one property destination. We developed ‘Home Truths’, a creative storytelling platform, using creative use of consumer data and Zoopla’s market-leading data and research to tap into genuine consumer insights to deliver a sustained flow of emotional storytelling. ‘Home Truths’ kept Zoopla consistently front of mind amongst a new audience of homeowners, the stories which were rooted in data delivered over 450 pieces of coverage with 50% landing in the first 5 pages of the paper. We sparked national conversation, gave Zoopla a higher share of voice than RightMove and successfully reached a new audience of motivated ‘owner-movers’.

We are Digital Growth Specialists helping ambitious brands push boundaries and drive impact. We define and deliver integrated digital strategies that transform our clients from market players to market leaders, and keep them there. We’re driven by data and innovation. We build proprietary tech and partner with industry leading tools to make smarter decisions, deliver better insights and maximise the returns on digital investment. Recognising that we are a part of something much bigger, we’re on a mission to use business as a force for good. We’re actively committed to creating a positive impact for our people, planet and community. Through this campaign, we successfully grew the online presence and visibility of our international client in the UK through a creative, data-driven campaign. The campaign was a data learning experience as every formula used was learned specifically for this campaign. We turned around this campaign within a tight deadline and timed it perfectly, capturing a range of regional publications and journalists as they were looking for halloween themed content that would excite their readers. Despite being a huge challenge, perseverance resulted in not only impressive outcomes for our client, but also new data skills and knowledge of formulas we could apply to future digital PR campaigns. Winning this award would be incredible! It would provide well-deserved recognition to our dedicated team who are committed to accelerating change and results, helping our clients to grow their business faster. Our achievements wouldn’t be possible without our people!

Despite strong brand awareness a negative perception of Nerf exists amongst some parents. With YouTube being the kid target audience’s media of choice as well as top career aspiration we expanded the role of Nerf in their lives (and their parents’ lives) as a creative tool & teacher in YouTube content creation with “Nerf Upload” - the ultimate school for 6–9-year-olds!  Nerf Upload was an IRL ‘YouTuber Masterclass’ taught by well-known creators supported by live stream, PR & influencer amplification, taking Nerf blasters into an entirely new world of content creation, driving consideration and a 5% sales uplift.

It’s a challenge isn’t it. Thinking you found the perfect brand ambassador or influencers to help drive your marketing campaign, but are you certain they have the right audience, and can you measure their impact? Let’s face it, their posts look great, they are on message, aligned with your values, and you saw good engagement metrics BUT were the right people engaging? Did the followers’ behaviour change? And did your investment deliver sales? Big questions need powerful data-led answers. Porter Novelli work with the Almond Board of California (ABC) to promote the benefits of almonds to UK consumers. The aim is to communicate how almonds are a healthy food staple, with a focus on energy and heart health – shifting perceptions from ‘just a nut’ into the healthy lifestyle ingredient. Our client wanted to understand the impact influencer content was having beyond vanity metrics – was the investment helping them to shift perceptions and drive purchase intent? So, we devised an approach to show the impact that influencers can have beyond reach, impressions and engagement. It sounds obvious, but this was a huge step-change in how we tackled understanding success of the partnerships. We were looking at the impact our content was having on consumer perceptions and in turn, demonstrating that earned influencer marketing has tangible business results. So how did we go about this?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single Bounty will be left at the bottom of a Celebrations tub. This entry details how we drove festive fame & sales for Mars Celebrations by highlighting an uncomfortable brand truth that most confectionery marketeers would shy away from: not all chocolates are created equal. By admitting that some choccies are loved more than others, our creative subverted tired festive tropes and sparked a nationwide debate, all whilst celebrating the Bounty and the Celebrations tub in an original and entertaining way. On a modest production budget, we achieved blanket nationwide coverage and millions of video views. More importantly, our campaign got people talking about Celebrations and drove product distinctiveness during the key Christmas sales period.

Diabetes is a growing global health threat but rarely receives the recognition it needs. More than 537 million people live with the condition today, and one in nine are expected to have diabetes by 2030. Despite this, not enough is being done to tackle rising cases or provide the care and education needed to mitigate associated health risks. Berkeley Communications has worked with the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) for the past five years to promote its World Diabetes Day (WDD) campaign and the importance of a coordinated global response to the rising tide of diabetes. Five years on: more than one billion people globally have engaged with the WDD message. During that time, the opportunity to see figure has risen from 80.5 million in 2018 to a whopping 7.74 billion in 2021 - a 9,515% increase. Annual campaigns have targeted audiences who shape the future of diabetes care – people living with diabetes, healthcare providers and policymakers. Backed by research, each annual WDD campaign has encouraged key audiences to support the cause and highlight the impact of diabetes – through a central campaign website, audience resources (including posters, infographics and toolkits) as well as media and video content. Our work with IDF has increased diabetes awareness - reaching 400 annual pieces of coverage in seven global regions, doubling the IDF social media following, and receiving more than 4,000 website pledges calling for action from world governments – as well as providing global access to free education and support.

This is an uprising story about one PR agency partnering with two ‘sleeping giants’ of American beer and working with them over 4+ years to create some of the most impressive, irreverent creative work the beer industry has seen… Natural Light Beer and Busch Beer are two storied, affordable beers that make up the Value proposition at Anheuser-Busch in North America. The partnership began in 2017, when M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment (MCSENA) was brought on board for a small media relations project for Natural Light Beer around supporting young Americans struggling with college debt. Fast forward to May 2022: MCSENA has developed a long-standing partnership with the Value Beer Portfolio team at Anheuser-Busch, turning a small project into a creative crusade that oversees Natural Light and Busch. MCSENA has directly concepted, or supported the execution of, 90+ PR programs for Busch and Natural Light (with many campaigns winning, or being shortlisted, for numerous awards including The Drum, PR Week, Cannes Lions, The Webbys etc). Since 2018, MCSENA has helped Anheuser-Busch Value meet and exceed aggressive YOY impression and article KPIs, supporting and coinciding with a massive growth in the demand and sales of American value beer.

TALA has delivered a comprehensive communications programme for the National Memorial Arboretum continuously since 2007, establishing this ground-breaking visitor attraction’s external relations practices and becoming an integral and close-knit part of the site team. The Arboretum is now firmly established in the national consciousness with YouGov polling in July and November 2021 revealing that 48% of the public are aware of the National Memorial Arboretum and perceive it as a significant place associated with remembrance, alongside other locations such as the Cenotaph. Alongside stage managing media at landmark national events attended by royalty, senior members of government and the Armed Forces, TALA has secured invaluable profile-raising opportunities on everything from Britain’s Got Talent to CBeebies. The Arboretum has also been selected as the host location for numerous shows, including most recently a dedicated episode of BBC Countryfile helping the Nation reflect on Remembrance Sunday. Ultimately, our work on a series of integrated campaigns, built around powerful storytelling rather than big budgets, has helped increase visitor numbers by 500%. In 2018 the multi-award-winning site was named “Large Visitor Attraction of the Year” by VisitEngland. TALA continues to provide round-the-clock support and expert counsel to the Arboretum’s marketing team and senior leadership, helping to drive footfall, manage crises and protect the reputation of this iconic location as it continues to grow and develop. It is the collective will of the entire agency team to continue the work for our friends and partners at the Arboretum for many years to come.

With a strong partnership spanning more than four years, firstlight have helped propel City & Guilds into the spotlight as the authoritative voice of skills. A hard-working press office, closely aligned to the news agenda and external environment, has showcased C&G’s insight and created fresh perspectives on newsworthy topics – from business and people recovery post-pandemic to lifelong learning through the lens of an ageing workforce. And using hooks such as National Apprenticeship Week and A level / GCSE results days, the team have undertaken targeted activity to promote the value of apprenticeships and vocational qualifications as viable alternatives to university. On top of this, creative campaigns have led to strong results, not only in the media but real-world impact too. Reports and an FOI request on the apprenticeship levy led to a huge media splash as well as meetings with government stakeholders and the DfE around levy use. This led to changes to the way businesses can use the levy, such as the 20% funds transfer to SMEs, which has directly driven a higher uptake of apprenticeships in the UK and helped shift perceptions around their use. The programme has achieved >1650 pieces of coverage in four years, including over 200 in tier one national titles or broadcast. And importantly, the firstlight team has operated as an extension of the client team – providing senior counsel to both the comms and exec teams and providing a crucial point of consistency during times of change for the business.

Hillarys first approached 10 Yetis in 2016 for help executing a digital PR campaign that would increase brand awareness, boost SEO and drive traffic. Blinds are not the most exciting product on Earth and Hillarys, being well aware of this, were more than happy to let us get creative inside the realms of homes, lifestyle and sleep (blackout blinds help sleep… see what we did there?) to produce exciting hero content. Tactics included more traditional press releases and newsjacking, but prioritised concept images, microsites/widgets and other hero content that would help cement Hillarys as the go-to retailer of blinds, shutters and curtains. Teaming up with numerous experts over the years, PR campaigns focused on all manner of topics, from adapting homes for people to live more sustainably and how to survive living underwater or on Mars, to futuristic blinds for home security. The best performing widget that we created for the brand was the ‘Sleep Calculator’; an online tool that gave users multiple bedtimes based on their desired wake-up time. The widget, hosted on the Hillarys website, generated more than 500 backlinks for the brand over the years and has received almost 60,000 organic page visits. This mixed bag of PR tactics produced fantastic results, leading Hillarys to extend their retainer contract year upon year. More than 3,500 pieces of coverage were secured in just over 6 years, with 83% of all online coverage containing a backlink; the equivalent of 45 pieces of coverage and 25 backlinks per month.

Few agencies can celebrate a 45 year client relationship - but for Outside Organisation + Roger Daltrey and The Who, 2022-23 marks that milestone. The association began in 1978 as founding clients of Alan Edwards’ new agency. Four-and-a-half decades later - and many seismic music and media industry shifts experienced - this collaboration still hits all the right PR notes. As well as representing Roger and The Who, Outside also handles the legendary rocker’s annual charity fundraising gigs for the Teenage Cancer Trust. Key to this successful musical, PR, and media collaboration has been the trust earned over the years between Outside and Roger and Outside and journalists. Roger has rarely been out of the spotlight - as all three industries underwent huge transformations, an ever-evolving strategy kept him relevant. This client relationship must be one of only a handful in PR to have outlasted, overcome, and survived so much significant change: from the arrival of the CD to the advent of downloads/streaming to the shift from print to web and then, most recently, the catastrophic shutdown of the music industry due to the pandemic. But it has endured thanks to Outside going where Roger needs to go, whether talking about politics, touring, or the hardships faced by musicians due to loss of revenues from streaming. With unrivalled coverage success both nationally and globally, Outside has been at Roger’s side throughout all the highs and lows, culminating in a record £1.4m raised by 2022’s TCT gigs after a two-year hiatus.

Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) is the first and only research centre of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) outside the US and is its largest international research programme. Despite its presence in Singapore for over a decade, SMART was not widely known in the country. This was the major challenge the institute faced. As its PR agency since 2019, Blue Totem Communications strategised an awareness-building campaign to help put SMART on the map. Apart from the broad aim of fostering positive awareness among key stakeholders, comprising government bodies, research partners, institutions, the science community, relevant trade industries and internal staff, Blue Totem also resolved to bring the importance of SMART’s work to the public, highlight its achievements and programmes to attract collaborators, and communicate SMART’s key messages to the right audience. Within a few months, we achieved extensive coverage in prominent local and international media through the strategic use of well-crafted press releases, creative content for social media, a steady cadence of media pitching, and strategically planned timelines. Over the following years, we inhabited the role of being SMART’s in-house PR team, and built on the momentum we created. We achieved success by continually tweaking and adjusting our strategies to optimise results and accommodate shifting goals. When COVID-19 hit, SMART rapidly shifted its research focus to solve its challenges, and we provided timely and critical PR efforts with swift and decisive responses.

We supported the oppressed LGBTQIA+ people of the world for this year’s Pride, by creating the world’s most important lip-sync on TikTok. #RealVoicesofPride called for people all over the world to lend their profiles to those that couldn’t show up themselves, for fear of persecution. The lip-sync allowed oppressed people to share their true voice with the world safely for the first time, using other people’s faces and profiles, powerfully communicating their right to exist. Because pride should never be silenced.

In a bid to end rising online violence, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) launched ⓑodyright, a new 'copyright' for human bodies. The campaign aims to raise awareness of the lack of rights individuals have over their image online and push tech companies and policy makers to take online abuse as seriously as copyright infringement.

LinkedIn Changemakers sought to go back to the roots of influencer marketing. We partnered with those with genuine authority and credibility, irrespective of their social media following, to affect meaningful change in the world of work. The campaign backed the underdogs, to elevate them, giving them a bigger, more powerful platform to share their stories, through a collective narrative: #ConversationsForChange. We wanted to champion the inspirational to show that everyone can make a difference through the power of community, content and conversation on LinkedIn.

COVID-19 changed household cleaning from a chore to a way to keep safe. But by spring 2021, pandemic fatigue was taking its toll. We developed a social-first strategy to introduce Clorox’s Scentiva® line of exotically fragranced cleaning products to millennial and multicultural consumers. Leaning into culture, we enlisted exuberant American actor/music artist Billy Porter to reframe cleaning from a chore to a new form of self-care. Creating content with an irresistible music track, we engaged millions on TikTok in a liberating YAS CLEAN! movement. Our meme exploded across culture and media as consumers transformed their homes from drab to FAB.

Pantene briefed PrettyGreen and What They Said to launch the new Miracles Hydra Glow range, with a focus on a revolutionary NPD, an Overnight Beauty Reset Serum giving 7 days of repair in just 8 hours. Totally transformed hair…whilst you sleep. Our Job? Build OMG hype amongst a beauty loving audience to drive incremental sales in Boots during launch January - February 2022.

On 11 February 2022, we launched Hidden Black Stories - a suite of new AR experiences in Trafalgar Square as part of Snap’s ongoing commitment to lend its platform to underrepresented communities and showcase the power of AR as an advocacy tool. We worked with experts chaired by the BCA to select statues & stories for contextualisation & ensure Snapchat approached this topic in a thoughtful & measured way. Hidden Black Stories is the third in a series of dynamic lenses created by Snap. Ultimately this campaign set out on a mission to turn AR, augmented reality, into BR, black reality.

We found that one of the most iconically British things you can do is put your crisps in your lunchtime sarnie. And people feel strongly about it. Plain, Salt and Vinegar... Cheeky Monster Munch? Opinions are divided. Battle-lines have been drawn. But universally, one thing hacks Britain off. When your crisps crumble up and fall out of your lovingly made sammie. So - with a brief to remind Britain about the joys of pairing crisps with sandwiches at lunchtime - we invented Sandwich Crisps. Perfectly flat, square crisps, exactly the same size as a piece of sliced bread.

Soap & Glory struggled to connect with their youngest audience in traditional media, so we helped the audience build a branded space in media that they already loved. But while most brands are buying their way into the metaverse, the space is built - not bought. Soap & Glory helped talented young creators in the RecRoom metaverse to co-create an eye-popping paradise that their community fell in love with. ‘Soap & Glory Land’ quickly became the number one space on RecRoom globally, with over 70k players in the first month. Fans shared 25k images from the space online, and the community downloaded and placed branded assets into 2k user-generated rooms across the platform.

Netflix briefed us to launch Tiger King Season 2 while positioning the service as the home of compelling documentary. We delivered over 180 pieces of coverage and 630,060,129 Opportunities to See. More importantly, 100% of the pieces featured key messaging and tune-in info. Over 90% of online pieces included click-throughs to Netflix’s YouTube page. The TikTok content we created delivered 45 million views on TikTok and 1,350,000 engagements with the content. Tune in was 220% higher than forecast within the first 24 hours of Tiger King series two airing on the Netflix.

Wendy’s signature sass is so beloved, even brands have become our fans on Twitter, seeking us out to engage with them and hitch a ride on the fast-moving social train we’ve created. So, to “celebrate” *wink, wink* brands, fans and every Twitter account in between, Wendy’s created a fake National holiday – National Roast Day - to give everyone the chance to be roasted by the queen of QSR herself. After four years, the holiday has gotten so big, multinational brands now reach out, asking Wendy’s to call out their worst flaws in front of the entire internet. By doing so, they instantly give Wendy’s the attention of all their followers, turning their fans into ours. With the only loss being a smidge of pride, it’s a win, win for both parties. This past Roast Day 2022, Wendy’s fiery, quick wit garnered 130 million earned media impressions, over 30 million organic social impressions and an overall 6.2% engagement rate. Not too shabby for a little redhead in pigtails, huh?

Global cyber-security business, Avast, wanted businesses and private individuals to care about how every single day their digital civil liberties are being eroded. Our solution: George Orwell and 1984. A text that forms part of our collective Western consciousness. We’re living in exactly the hyper-surveilled society that Orwell predicted. What better universally understood cultural device for Avast to tell its story? The thing is, Orwell called it so correctly that we really didn’t need to change much. All of the surveillance challenges we are experiencing today are precisely those predicted over 70 years ago. So when it came to the idea, we could keep things beautifully, elegantly, simple. We simply replaced four numerals. 1984 becomes 2021, on the cover and throughout the text. The multi-layered campaign included a physical print of the book, a Kindle edition, and an audiobook available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, with actor Matt Smith playing the role of Winston Smith.

Telekom Netz: so many mysteries, so many questions. The Telekom Netz experts have the answers to almost all of them. The press officers open doors and offer a unique, unbiased view of the Telekom Netz on YouTube. The corporate bloggers have travelled all over Germany, accompanied the LTE coverage along the ICE line, climbed into sewers, documented the reconstruction of the telecommunications structure after the flood disaster in the middle of Germany in July of 2021, brought amateur sports to television, examined the network during the Telekom Extreme Tour and followed the digitisation of schools. Telekom's communications team follows all the important points concerning network expansion and conversion. All of it: made by hand. The press officers track down the stories, write the scripts, organize the filming date, conduct the interviews and the cameras and edit video. The result is an honest glimpse of Telekom, which you won't find anywhere else.

71% of the LGBT community own a pet - a higher proportion than any other group. Mental health in the LGBT community is suffering, exacerbated by the lockdowns and isolation that the pandemic has brought to our lives... 52% of LGBT people experienced depression in the last year - 42% said they felt at some point that life wasn’t worth living. DREAMIES (Mars Petcare), aligned with the LGBT Foundation, to assist this pet loving community, offering somewhere to turn for those battling mental health challenges, and to showcase how pets can help to improve overall mental health.

In 2021South African Insurance giant Hollard was faced with a dilemma – internal research showed many of its staff, new and long-standing, were not familiar with the “Hollard purpose”. Worse, this dynamic company, which usually runs energetic in-office staff education campaigns, had few staff working in its headquarters because the Covid-19 pandemic meant most people were working remotely. We met this challenge by devising a digital game that overcame “digital fatigue” and inspired more than 1 000 Hollardites to explore their personal sense of purpose, along with the Hollard purpose. It was a rousing success.

Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) is one of the world’s largest seed-to-shelf agribusinesses. The Branding & Production team, representing more than 100,000 of our people globally, personifies the company’s spirit of creativity and problem-solving through various communications and internal campaigns. One of our recent successes was the Photography Challenge in October 2021. The pandemic created a global industry-wide sense of gloom and doom. And so, a need for a creative and positive engagement was felt. To motivate our employees in an effective yet measurable way, we created a campaign that conveyed the theme, Celebrating Employee Resilience #workingasone. Under this, we built a safe space for our employees to tap into their creative side through a photography competition. Through photos, employees can express their perspectives on the different facets of our business – from biodiversity, to people at our plantation, to technology, to our sustainability efforts too! This competition provided a creative outlet and solution for building an image repository of the company’s operations. The campaign was well-received by our employees and we were excited to learn how many talented photographers we had among us! We have so far collected around 2,000 photos that are now part of our image bank and used in many collaterals, such as the company’s annual and sustainability reports. We have even used these for our corporate wallpaper. The campaign garnered 1,009,382 impressions, 52,676 engagements and 2,241 new followers on the company’s Instagram.

With more than 58,000 employees, Lloyds Banking Group is one of the largest and most complex organisations in the country. With 250 years of history delivering for customers and businesses, we’re extremely proud of the work we do to help Britain prosper. Our purpose of Helping Britain prosper remains constant, but as our world evolves, we needed to create a more sustainable and inclusive future for people and businesses. Our new purpose principles would help inform our business decisions and our refreshed values would help guide how we work together. And with a new Group Chief Executive, and an exciting refreshed strategy to share, we created a communications plan designed to meet these challenges, based on simplicity of messaging, inspirational storytelling, and interactive visuals, all backed up by constant evaluation as we gauged the reaction of our people and shaped communications based on their feedback, levels of understanding, and desire for specific information.

Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) is one of the world’s largest seed-to-shelf agribusinesses. Our Branding & Production team, which represents more than 100,000 of our people globally, personify the company’s spirit of creativity and problem-solving through a wide variety of communications and internal campaigns. One of our recent successes was the International Women’s Day campaign in March 2022. The objective of this campaign was to create a gender-inclusive workplace and acknowledge the metaphorical “invisible women in agribusiness”. The month-long campaign invited nominations of women who were leaders in their own right. We received more than 1,000 nominations globally within two weeks! We awarded gold and red e-capes to our nominees and nominators to encourage excellence and an unbiased culture. We then launched the ‘GARword’, a growing vocabulary that replaced gender-biased words and phrases with unbiased ones and was acknowledged by our industry peers on LinkedIn. Our quiz, ‘Are You Gender Biased?’ garnered 591 clicks on social media. We also created a multi-lingual playlist on Spotify to cheer our diverse audience! Our blog, which carried an interview with one of our nominees, was the perfect way to summarise the campaign. A post-campaign analysis of our nomination demographics helped us understand the gendered behaviour within our organisation. With an objective to create a nudge in people’s mindsets, the campaign strategy relied on a structured 360-degree approach that used multiple media (from LinkedIn to WhatsApp) and engagement ideas to impact our diverse global audience!

Volvo Cars wanted to launch its gender-neutral parental leave policy in way that created fame, fostered internal pride, and resonated globally. H+K insights showed parental leave for all positively impacts gender equality, yet most fathers take less time than allocated due to perceived stigmas. Our Time To Take It campaign, rooted in behavioural science, normalised taking parental leave – “driving” employees to actually take their time. In just 22 business days, the team developed a suite of employee, media and social assets, including a film and language impact study, that built advocacy. Within the first week of launch, we achieved 257 articles (87.1m) with 100% reporting at least one key campaign message. More importantly, a year on since launching the policy, all regions and major plants are using the offer and there is a greater use by men – notably moving the company towards equal parenting take-up.

Global cyber-security business, Avast, wanted businesses and private individuals to care about how every single day their digital civil liberties are being eroded. Our solution: George Orwell and 1984. A text that forms part of our collective Western consciousness. We’re living in exactly the hyper-surveilled society that Orwell predicted. What better universally understood cultural device for Avast to tell its story? The thing is, Orwell called it so correctly that we really didn’t need to change much. All of the surveillance challenges we are experiencing today are precisely those predicted over 70 years ago. So when it came to the idea, we could keep things beautifully, elegantly, simple. We simply replaced four numerals. 1984 becomes 2021, on the cover and throughout the text. The multi-layered campaign included a physical print of the book, a Kindle edition, and an audiobook available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, with actor Matt Smith playing the role of Winston Smith.

Africa’s Business Heroes prize competition is the Jack Ma Foundation’s philanthropic initiative in Africa.​ The competition is aimed at supporting and inspiring the next generation of African entrepreneurs across all sectors, building a more sustainable and inclusive economy for the future of the continent.​ Over a ten-year period, Africa’s Business Heroes (ABH) will recognize 100 African entrepreneurs and commit to allocating grant funding, training programs, and support for the development of an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Each year, the ABH prize competition and show features ten finalists as they pitch their business to win a share of $1.5 million in grant money. Jack Ma, Founder of Alibaba Group and the Jack Ma Foundation, created the prize after he made his first trip to Africa in 2017 and was inspired by the energy and entrepreneurial potential of the young people he met.​ The Jack Ma Foundation assigned APO Group to develop and execute a strategic media relations plan that would help increase brand awareness and understanding of the Africa’s Business Heroes prize competition, build thought leadership around ABH participants, and at the same time generate maximum media coverage and applications from across Africa.

Our primary objective was to position Maersk not only as a logistics firm, but to develop its corporate position as a firm that provides technological solutions and leads innovation, primarily for a business audience in Latin America. To do that, we needed to address not just logistics media, but mainstream news, technology, business, innovation and sustainability media – a significant challenge for an organisation with such strong associations with the singular space of logistics. And one more challenge – a global supply chain crisis influenced by Covid-19, which Maersk and the shipping industry was right at the heart of. So navigating choppy waters and mindfulness of potential crises were essential aspects of what we had to do. However, amid chaos there is also opportunity.

Asking athletes to stop exercising is the last thing you would expect a global sports brand to do. But in 2022, ASICS became the first sports brand to use inactivity for good. The ‘Mind Race’ saw the brand sponsor athletes to stop exercising, while employing cutting-edge technology to track their mental states. The results showed the world exactly what not exercising does to our minds; creating coverage and conversation in 61 markets, disrupting the global exercise/wellness conversation & measurably inspiring the world to move.

The Papa X Cheddar campaign playfully took the world’s most popular cheese and elevated it to cult fashion status with its own Gen Z inspired collaboration. Designed to launch a new range of Cheddar pizzas worldwide and rooted in Papa Johns’ Better Pizza. Better Ingredients ethos. Hailed as the brand’s most successful international product launch of 2021, the hype from this multi-layered global campaign captured the minds and hearts of franchise owners, media and Gen Z customers worldwide, whilst also reaping significant commercial returns - $1.26m in incremental sales, 5% of pizza sales in participating markets and 80,000 new customers.

As the pandemic sent the world into turmoil, it created a shortage of computer chips and an increased reliance on technology. Meanwhile, Intel was losing ground to its competitors. In 2021, Pat Gelsinger returned as CEO, declaring “The Geek Is Back” and brought a new plan for the future, centered on securing Intel’s manufacturing supply chain and regaining status as a global technology powerhouse. Intel challenged WE to build a campaign that would share its new vision across 22 key markets, increasing its share of voice globally and showcasing how the brand enriches people’s lives with technology. Data and insights showed that international coverage was largely reactive news cycles, that local teams didn’t feel trusted by or connected to HQ, and that Intel had lost favour with its business-level audience. In response, WE developed ‘Supercharge’ to foster proactive, cohesive major storytelling and flip the narrative internationally from reactive to proactive. From creating research led campaigns on topics such as D&I, to conducting worldwide executive storytelling workshops, to delivering a data-centric and consistent approach to measurement, we flipped Intel’s news cycles from reactive to proactive through 2021, a complete transformation in a year. The campaign resulted in a 29% increase in corporate message pull through YoY and over 700 Intel led major story top tier media features, contributing to 40% of the share of voice in tier one coverage, compared to 17% for the nearest competitor in 2021. Additionally, 70% of local stakeholders felt more trusted by HQ.

How can PR for a UAE headquartered client drive the elimination of diseases of poverty up the national health agenda, reaching target countries such as Cameroon and Pakistan? With a series of beautifully produced purpose led films translated into four languages which shed light on the successful eliminators alongside those still affected by preventable diseases. Gong Communications partnered with the Global Institute for Disease Elimination (GLIDE) for a new media venture which included the production of a series of webisodes featuring leading health professionals on the front line in the fight against neglected tropical diseases, malaria and polio. Visibility for the webisodes was achieved via a website redesign and SEO for an improved user experience, a PR launch at Dubai EXPO and via social media. The new online resources have achieved 150,120 video play thrus on social media, led to a 187% increase in web users to GLIDE’s website and reached 90 million readers and listeners through related coverage across BBC Focus on Africa and more. These webisodes and a more inclusive website are helping GLIDE attract further investment and partnerships to tackle preventable diseases around the world. The full series of interviews with 11 leaders in healthcare from around the world can be viewed on GLIDE’s website. Viewers can discover how the world’s leading healthcare experts are collaborating across borders and specialisms to explore innovative medical solutions to eliminate neglected tropical diseases, polio and malaria, which affect more than one billion people – one sixth of the world’s population.

Intimina is a Swedish women’s intimate health brand with a purpose to tackle stigma and to make women’s intimate health issues Seen + Heard. One in 10 women worldwide have endometriosis, yet despite the seriousness of this disease, it takes an average of eight years just to get a diagnosis. That’s eight long years of enduring terrible pain and the feeling of not being heard. The consequences of misdiagnosis can have a catastrophic impact on the lives of girls and women. Aside from often agonising pain, it can be devastating on fertility, relationships, career and self-esteem. Given the average wait for a diagnosis is eight years, Cow focused on dramatising that statistic and to give a voice to real-life case study testimonies with a poignant and disarming approach. The result was The Wait, a powerful film that features eight-year-old girls whose age symbolises the damning eight-year wait statistic – with each of the youngsters having been alive for as long as it takes to be diagnosed with endometriosis. The content and case studies generated coverage and conversation across five months with 258 pieces of global coverage and 400k organic video views. The Wait continues to remain relevant and shareable if the issue persists. Despite months since the proactive PR ended, the video continues to clock up tens of thousands of organic views every week, meaning that women and girls are still finding it independently and as they seek further information on the issue.

The Norwegian Postal Service has connected people for 375 years, and will continue to do so regardless of orientation or gender identity. A fight that is truly a matter of the heart and a central part of their purpose. Diversity is one of the key pillars for Posten, and as a diverse workplace with great variation in terms of age, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and ethnicity, they embrace that they have a responsibility to work actively with diversity, inclusion, equality, and other fundamental human rights. Not only in Norway, but inspire the world. Even though the right to love whomever you want is a fundamental human right, and is not considered a political issue in free democratic societies in 2021, this is not the case in many countries around the world. The 4-minute short film (ad) was created to spread virally and to be distributed, discussed and shared through media around the world, using PR to promote same sex relationships, fighting ageism and sparking discussion about tradition on a global scale. This year's Christmas campaign from Posten, called "When Harry met Santa", has, according to calculations from Google, reached over 1,2 billion people in 150 countries across the globe. It was praised for its interpretation of Santa Claus as gay, and the four-minute Christmas Ad has been viewed over 2.5 million times on YouTube, gone viral in all social media on all continents, and received the attention of tens of thousands of media worldwide.

Food start-up Next Gen Foods launched TiNDLE, ridiculously good chicken made from plants, in the UK, on April 29th 2022. TiNDLE’s UK launch was designed to raise brand awareness and credibility in the new market through a series of influencer-led activations leveraging owned, earned and paid channels and partnerships. TiNDLE created experiences for influential and mission-aligned KOLs to drive customers to the TiNDLE pop-up later on that month. By delivering, with the blue TiNDLE cab, a mouth-watering experience at the doorstep of 5 KOLs (with a combined following of over 200k). This allowed TiNDLE to provide them with their first mind-blowing #TiNDLEMoment and to share fun and engaging content that created ‘FOMO’ and inspired their followers to try TiNDLE. By delivering 30 TiNDLE x GET PLUCKED DIY burger-kit, TiNDLE reached a smaller community of high-engagement micro/nano-influencers. These influencers were able to provide a credible and genuine voice that endorsed TiNDLE. This garnered a reach of 360k followers and 50 social media posts. These influencer-focused activations culminated in a hugely successful three-day pop-up in the heart of Soho in collaboration with SIDES by the internet-phenomenon, The Sidemen. A key highlight of this activation were the conversations had with passers-by, listening to their feedback and how they came to know of TiNDLE. Through these conversations, TiNDLE were given an insight into the positive, cumulative impact of each influencer-focused activation in full force – showing that influencer marketing truly can make a difference.

McDonald’s were fashionably late to the vegan party; but they were the best dressed when they made their entrance with the McPlant! It was three years in the making, but when McDonald’s finally launched its hotly anticipated plant-based burger, the McPlant, it had meat eaters, flexitarians and vegans chomping at the bit to get their first bite. To herald the news, we created a broad and balanced line up of influencers to create content focused on the iconic taste of the new plant-based McDonald’s. From high profile celebrities to an army of influencers spread across the nation, we ensured reach and relevancy to meat eaters, plant-based pioneers and everyone in-between. The combination of securing the right influencers and co-creating compelling content - supported by earned media relations - successfully saw McPlant momentum reach every corner of the UK, generating over 980 pieces of earned media coverage and engaging social content that generated over 27m impressions on Twitter alone.

Pantene briefed PrettyGreen and What They Said to launch the new Miracles Hydra Glow range, with a focus on a revolutionary NPD, an Overnight Beauty Reset Serum giving 7 days of repair in just 8 hours. Totally transformed hair…whilst you sleep. Our Job? Build OMG hype amongst a beauty loving audience to drive incremental sales in Boots during launch January - February 2022.

Robbie pranking Rio! Ally pranking Jermaine! A chance for the Welsh and the Scots to put one over an English rival to kick-off Heineken’s ‘Finally Together, To Be Rivals’ platform as an Official Partner of the UEFA Euros. Cow had to develop a big creative idea during hard lockdown with pubs closed and football played behind closed doors. As the situation eased, they turned to talent to celebrate rivalry and togetherness, but had just ONE take to get it right. With 43 pieces of national coverage, including TV and radio, 16.4 million views and 85% SOV, they delivered the best performing brand campaign of any of the UEFA Euros Official Partners - and the most successful earned PR and social campaign Heineken UK has ever done.

The Institute of Physics (IOP) wants to inspire young people who’ve never considered themselves as potential physicists. But the subject has an image problem. IOP research shows that many teens are given incorrect information about the subject by parents and teachers that’s based on their own biases. These range from “it’s boring” and “it’s not creative”, to “you need to be a genius like Einstein to do it”. Also, if you’re a girl, or from a working-class background, or from the LGBTQ+ community, or from a Black Caribbean community, IOP research shows that you’ll hear people say things like “it’s not for the likes of you”. The Institute of Physics (IOP) asked GKP to develop a campaign that would appeal to a diverse range of young teenagers (12-15 year olds) and their parents, to encourage more young people from groups currently underrepresented in physics to not drop the subject at school at the earliest opportunity. A diverse range of influencers were recruited to deliver authentic TikTok content that generated high organic audience engagement – over 1.3 million views, more than 115,000 ‘likes’, and a 9.8% engagement rate – and provided a strong news hook too. This activity demonstrates how an organisation founded in the Victorian era can successfully work with modern day influencers to bring its subject matter to a diverse audience that it didn’t have any direct access to.

As kids grow more interested in the video gaming industry, classic playground games are on the verge of extinction. After two decades of encouraging kids to spend more time outdoors with its “Dirt Is Good” platform, Persil discovered that the average British kid hasn’t played outside for over three months, with 36% of children having never played the classic playground game tag. We harnessed the power of the gaming world, rather than fight against it. We relaunched Tag as if it was the latest video game - reminding gamers and gaming influencers that outdoor games can be as exciting as video games.

Our campaign to position Bumble as the safest dating app for women led us to campaign on behalf of women online everywhere: calling for cyberflashing to be treated in the same way as flashing IRL. In all, the campaign delivered over 484 pieces of coverage. As importantly, 100% of pieces featured key messaging highlighting Bumble’s call to action, with over 70% of online pieces including click-throughs to the campaign pages on Bumble.com. In March 2022, the U.K. government announced that it would make cyberflashing a criminal offence under the proposed Online Safety Bill.

We set out to increase representation for women’s rugby during the Women’s Six Nations for GUINNESS. We created first-to-market collaborations with Twitter and Wikipedia and brought new allies to women’s sport amongst both fans and media outlets. In so-doing we delivered 314 pieces of editorial coverage during the course of the Women’s Six Nations Championship. Of those, 93% were positive in sentiment. 33% of all online rugby media coverage was dedicated to the women’s game in April 2021 – surpassing the target of 30% we set ourselves and 800% up on the previous year.

One in four UK prison leavers reoffend in the first year of their release. The annual cost to the economy is a staggering £18bn. How can we help to turn prison leavers away from crime? LinkedIn partnered with social enterprise Inside Out to prove that providing employment opportunities to young prison leavers is the best way to reduce re-offending rates. The campaign centred on a unique rehabilitation project, providing prison leavers with materials and training to market the UK’s first clothing brand created, designed and hand-produced by ex-offenders. The clothes were sold in a dedicated pop-up at Westfield, Stratford. Results: - 1,000+ units sold over nine days, with £10,500 revenue generated for charity - Media coverage across BBC News, ITV News, Channel 5 News, Metro, Business Insider, The Independent, Campaign and LadBible - Three prison leavers (Project Ambassadors) have gone on to set up clothing labels - Four prison leavers are about to start paid work experience for Jellyfish

Our 2021 Go Carton campaign inspired consumers to make a small decision that has a big impact, persuaded food and drink producers to opt for cartons, and convinced policy makers that cartons should form a central part of waste and recycling policies. 78% of food and drink producers now say they’re considering repackaging into carton, a major supermarket deal to put organic own brand milk into cartons was won, and a government decision to include cartons as a core material stream in plans for more consistent household recycling collections was secured. Now, more sustainable packaging will be chosen and recycled.

This campaign has fundamentally shifted the way people view one of the most common forms of neurodiversity in the workplace. By recognising dyslexic thinking as a skill on LinkedIn, we have given the 1 in 5 people in the world who are affected by dyslexia the confidence to embrace their unique way of interacting with co-workers and employers. With a 1562% increase in positive online sentiment towards the word “dyslexia,” we’ve definitively proven that dyslexic thinking is exactly the kind of skill needed to push humanity forward, and it’s now being recognised as the positive force it should be thanks to becoming an official entry on dictionary.com.

Unilever is banning the word ‘normal’ from its beauty and personal care products to create a radically inclusive new era of positive beauty.

This is the story of how rapid grocery delivery company Jiffy, took the brave CSR step of tackling the menace created by its own riders, in order to make our roads safer for everyone. With rapid delivery cyclists a menace, breaking rules to deliver at pace, Londoners had had enough. Change was needed. We created the first CSR initiative to encourage riders to obey the rules with help from Olympic cycling gold medallist Ed Clancy. Ed spent time with Jiffy riders even doing deliveries to understand their challenges. We then created the ‘On Yer Bike’ CSR platform, based on Ed’s advice for cycling within the rules. This creative educational content became mandatory training and on-boarding requirement for all Jiffy riders. But we didn’t stop there. We shared the training with competitors, Getir, Gorillas and Zapp as well as TFL, The Mayor’s Office and the Department of Transport and made it freely available to everyone on social channels. Finally we became the first brand to put the brakes on how quickly our riders were required to deliver by removing the 20 minute delivery window. We launched the initiative in National Bike Week with research showing that Brits were fed-up with the menace of rapid delivery cyclists but still wanted deliveries within minutes. Our social engagement doubled and we secured 120 pieces of national coverage.

ScottishPower is proud to be helping the UK reach net zero emissions by 2050. It is committed to tackling climate change and leading the UK to towards a cleaner, electric future. Its focus is on 100% renewable electricity along with smarter power grids – investing £6million every working day to help make net zero happen. With the eyes of the world on Glasgow during the UN COP26 Climate Change Conference, ScottishPower – as a Principal Partner of COP26 – needed a powerful CSR PR campaign to take the nation on the net zero journey and to raise critical awareness of action needed to fight climate change. ScottishPower’s COP26 message as a leader in helping the UK to meet its decarbonisation goals landed across 860 media articles and 1.8 billion impressions. A 380% uplift in brand media coverage helped deliver key objectives and smashed the targets set. We boosted UK public awareness of ScottishPower’s involvement with COP26 and its role in developing clean energy to power the UK’s zero carbon future as part of the global fight against climate change. ScottishPower won’t stop here. Long-term success is acceleration of action taken to tackle the climate crisis facing us all. ScottishPower will continue to use its expertise and position to inspire and enable others on their journey and pursue the goal of together creating a better future, quicker for everyone.

Grabbing attention is as important as grabbing balls. To mark its third year of Movember partnership and to raise awareness of self-checking for testicular cancer, KP Nuts enlisted a special guest to gate-crash the sports changing room and deliver an uncompromising health message. The UK’s first Queen of Drag, The Vivienne, took centre stage in a scroll-stopping content series to educate the nation…whoever you are, if you have testicles, you need to check them regularly for any lumps, bumps or anything unusual. Although comedy is strategically the perfect way for our target audience to start tough conversations, there is a fine line in not trivialising such an important health message. So the content was carefully scripted to make people laugh but be empathetic to the serious message of the campaign. The campaign successfully delivered editorial and social content conveying important messages on testicular health; it engaged a new, younger demographic; and it drove positive associations between KP Nuts and Movember. Above all, the campaign broke down barriers and raised awareness of the importance for anyone with testicles to check them regularly.

There’s no location more synonymous with refilling than a gas-guzzling petrol station. So we found the ugliest, most down-trodden one London has to offer and transformed it into ‘The Ecover Refillery’ – a destination dedicated to fighting plastic waste with refills. Turning pumps for petrol into pumps for Ecover’s environmentally conscious, plant-based, cleaning products, The Ecover Refillery attracted the attention of media, influencers and consumers from across the UK, and beyond. Over 1,000 plastic bottles we're refilled every single day during launch, with our Refill ‘petrol’ pumps in huge demand and sometimes generating queues around the block. Better yet, people genuinely turn up with their own empty plastic bottles ready to refill.

Our campaign to position Bumble as the safest dating app for women led us to campaign on behalf of women online everywhere: calling for cyberflashing to be treated in the same way as flashing IRL. In all, the campaign delivered over 484 pieces of coverage. As importantly, 100% of pieces featured key messaging highlighting Bumble’s call to action, with over 70% of online pieces including click-throughs to the campaign pages on Bumble.com. In March 2022, the U.K. government announced that it would make cyberflashing a criminal offence under the proposed Online Safety Bill.

On June 14th 2017 the UK experienced one of the biggest tragedies in recent years. 72 innocent people died needlessly in a fire that shouldn’t have happened. 5 years later no one has been arrested.  Leading up to the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and at a time when communities were coming together to celebrate across the country, we held a street party in the shadow of Grenfell Tower. A table was laid with 72 plates and chairs, but no guests. Each place setting carried the name of a victim from the tragedy. With the government refusing to take accountability, we felt it necessary to make a statement on behalf of the community and keep this tragedy in the news, 5 years on. The harrowing image of an empty street party was designed to emphasise how this community will never be the same and continue to demand justice. The stunt was picked up by multiple national titles as well as a feature on the BBC London 1 O'clock news. The stunt has transcended traditional media channels and we are in conversation with the V&A about it being added to their permanent collection.

When M&M’s World in Leicester Square has better reviews than the Great Wall of China, you know there’s something wrong. This is the story of how an audacious stunt in London and New York sought to land a punch on harmful reviews. The average person reads 15 reviews from strangers before booking a holiday. Plum Guide is a high-end homestay company but unlike Airbnb they don’t let customers leave reviews. Instead, their trained and experienced critics write honest and informed assessments of properties to help customers make the right choice. They believe that the opinion of experts is more valuable than that of the general public. Controversial! But with 1 in 3 being let down by reviews and people planning on spending 18% more on their holidays than 2021 we decided to send a warning, reminding people that anonymous online reviews are incredibly subjective and unreliable. We projected real 1-star reviews onto dozens of popular iconic landmarks of cultural importance in London and New York City. With “Should have been called ‘tat’ Modern” on the Tate Modern and “Filled with trash” on the Guggenheim, news quickly spread online as passers-by shared pictures before the media got hold of the story. The results were outstanding with 415 pieces of coverage in the UK and USA including the mailonline front page and a three-minute interview on Sky News.

Ford’s Very Gay Raptor was developed as a reactive social post, calling out a homophobic comment describing Ford’s most ‘badass’ vehicle – the Ranger Raptor Truck as ‘very gay’.   After an overwhelmingly positive response to this ‘clapback’ calling for Ford to make it real, that’s exactly what we did.  The Very Gay Raptor made its IRL debut at Cologne’s Christopher Street parade – alongside a group of Ford employees, as a symbol of Ford’s commitment to drive out discrimination. Within hours it was trending on Twitter and within two weeks had achieved 200+ million social and media impressions.

In 1995, Faithless released the seminal dance anthem, Insomnia. It was the three minute soundscape to a generation fuelled on Ecstasy that stayed up all night. Our idea: work with Faithless to reimagine their iconic track as a sleep track. We made it orchestral. We slowed it down. We incorporated science. We created a dozy experience to be heightened by CBD. We took something our audience raved to and turned it into a comfort blanket for relaxation. We also made it 27-blissful minutes in length, the average time it takes us to fall asleep.

Robbie pranking Rio! Ally pranking Jermaine! A chance for the Welsh and the Scots to put one over an English rival to kick-off Heineken’s ‘Finally Together, To Be Rivals’ platform as an Official Partner of the UEFA Euros. Cow had to develop a big creative idea during hard lockdown with pubs closed and football played behind closed doors. As the situation eased, they turned to talent to celebrate rivalry and togetherness, but had just ONE take to get it right. With 43 pieces of national coverage, including TV and radio, 16.4 million views and 85% SOV, they delivered the best performing brand campaign of any of the UEFA Euros Official Partners - and the most successful earned PR and social campaign Heineken UK has ever done.

CHALLENGE: Schizophrenia is a mental illness affecting millions in Brazil. Those afflicted often suffer in isolation because they are so socially stigmatized – dividing families, biasing employers, discouraging treatment, and leading to a10x higher rate of suicide. Janssen Brazil set out to confront the prejudice and lead a national conversation to end the silence and humanize schizophrenia. IDEA: We gave voice to their voices, creating a moving musical anthem against prejudice. Schizophrenics are often mocked for “hearing voices,” but it was time to listen to their voices. We gave voice to amateur Brazilian musician Allyson Mariano, who wrote a song on what it’s like to live with schizophrenia. And a chorus of influencers – from a rock star to doctors and impacted family members – joined in. OUTCOMES: Listen to Our Voices” aired widely across Brazil, igniting media attention and national conversation on schizophrenia. Finally, people dealing with the mental illness felt heard and understood. The campaign galvanized patients, families, caregivers, support groups and the medical community – promising hope to millions and driving unprecedented inquiries to Janssen for treatment information · 170,000+ engagements on Janssen’s Facebook, Instagram and YouTube channels (exceeding interest on COVID-19 topics) · Google health searches for schizophrenia in Brazil were their highest in history (indexing four times the volume just five years ago) · 335 radio stations aired the song, reaching 44.9M listeners · 127M total earned social and traditional media . 457 positive organic media stories

In Sweden, drowning is the most common deadly accident for children 1-6 years. When an accident occurs, knowledge of CPR is crucial. But a new national survey exposed the fact that a majority of parents did not know how to do CPR on children. Insurance company Trygg-Hansa have been working with water safety for over 65 years. Now they wanted to adress the issue of CPR. The brief was to develop a creative solution that could generate earned attention to educate the public about CPR. The solution became Marked for life – tattoos for children that illustrates the critical steps of CPR. This created a new medium to communicate the message, by transforming the bodies of swimming children into living instruction manuals for CPR. So, in a critical situation, information on how to save a life would be present when it matters most. By introducing tattoos for children with life-saving knowledge during peak drowning season, the whole nation started talking about CPR, providing Trygg-Hansa a platform to reach their audience, educate and strengthen their brand position in the area of water safety.

As part of its long term ambition to better service all women in sport, adidas became the first major sportswear brand to create a line of period-proof activewear. Going beyond a traditional product launch, H+K designed a campaign tackling the taboo around periods in sport through education and product innovation, while also starting an overdue conversation about the challenges faced by women in sport. We created a (PE)riod Lesson Plan, available to download for free with the aim of educating those who menstruate and keeping more girls and women in sport. A brand first from adidas, the resource has since been translated into 20 languages and distributed to schools, sports clubs and NGOs, globally. The result was over 1,000 pieces of coverage, sell-out product on the day of launch, and a global conversation addressing the needs of previously under-serviced consumers.

As world leaders gather in Scotland for the UN’s COP26 summit, one important item was missing the agenda. The effects of climate change on brain health. According to research, global temperatures could have a direct effect on a range of neurological conditions, such as epilepsy, stroke and others.      UCB Pharma alongside EPICC (Epilepsy Climate Change) decided to create news about it during the COP26, in Glasgow.    We created a one-off ‘living’ newspaper bringing together the leading voices in the field, making the EnvironMental Issue the first newspaper to clean the air and help people with neurological conditions.       More than just bringing the subject to people’s attention, the EnvironMental Issue was produced using algae ink that reduces CO2 from the atmosphere, printed on recycled fiber and manufactured using wind power. The overall carbon impact of the project has the long-term equivalent of removing 15 tonnes of C02 from the atmosphere.    With approximately £14,000 investment we produced 2000 printed newspapers and its online version, creating 370K impression and impacting over 300K people. But more importantly, because of the EnvironMental Issue Boris Johnson committed to invest more funds to research the impact of climate change on brain health. He made his promise on live TV during the Prime Minister's Questions, with an estimated audience of 120K people. The EnvironMental Issue has also been recognised as: Best Campaign of COP26 - PR Week Top 15 PR Campaigns of 2021 - Brand Republic

On June 14th 2017 the UK experienced one of the biggest tragedies in recent years. 72 innocent people died needlessly in a fire that shouldn’t have happened. 5 years later no one has been arrested.  Leading up to the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and at a time when communities were coming together to celebrate across the country, we held a street party in the shadow of Grenfell Tower. A table was laid with 72 plates and chairs, but no guests. Each place setting carried the name of a victim from the tragedy. With the government refusing to take accountability, we felt it necessary to make a statement on behalf of the community and keep this tragedy in the news, 5 years on. The harrowing image of an empty street party was designed to emphasise how this community will never be the same and continue to demand justice. The stunt was picked up by multiple national titles as well as a feature on the BBC London 1 O'clock news. The stunt has transcended traditional media channels and we are in conversation with the V&A about it being added to their permanent collection.

Boris Johnson’s two years and 348 days tenure as Prime Minister were turbulent to say the least! After weeks of speculation following scandal after scandal on July 5, 2022, when news broke that Chancellor Rishi Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid had tendered their resignations, Madame Tussauds Blackpool’s PR agency Influential, who had unveiled a new wax figure of Boris Johnson in March 2022, knew they had to be quick-off-the-mark to news-jack the opportunity and be ready if this was to be the final nail in the coffin and the end of Boris’ time in Number 10. By quickly planning and liaising closely with key media contacts, in anticipation of Boris resigning, the team hatched a plan to simply position his wax figure outside the local Job Centre and capture it on camera. Within hours of the resignation announcement, the image of Madame Tussauds Blackpool’s figure of Boris outside the Job Centre was everywhere! Between 7 to 11 July, 2022, blanket coverage was achieved for our stunt. Social media went wild as searches for ‘Boris Johnson Madame Tussauds’ surged by 100 per cent.

Affinity Water and Pier launched ‘SOS: Save Our Streams’ to encourage customers to waste less water and help protect England’s precious chalk streams, which are more endangered than the Bengal tiger and the black rhino. Setting our sights high with an ambitious water-saving target of 21 million litres per day by 2025, the sheer scale of our campaign had never been achieved in the UK before. With the equivalent of asking 1.8 million households to save 140 million cups of tea every single day, we knew our approach had to be bold and unlike anything the water industry had seen before. Over 3.6 million people in the south of England rely on Affinity Water’s supply and with early research showing their customers were using 9% more water per person per day than the national average, we had a huge behaviour change challenge on our hands. To convince customers to alter their water wasting ways, we were determined to do something truly disruptive to ensure our ‘ask’ wouldn’t fade into the background. Tackling the challenge head-on, Pier created and delivered ‘Stand-up for Our Streams’; a live comedy gig headlined by Sandi Toksvig IN a chalk stream. As the official launch pad for the campaign, an ambitious client and inter-agency team went on to deliver the UK’s largest water-saving effort to date and through a truly integrated approach incorporating ATL media, social, experiential and PR.

We found that one of the most iconically British things you can do is put your crisps in your lunchtime sarnie. And people feel strongly about it. Plain, Salt and Vinegar... Cheeky Monster Munch? Opinions are divided. Battle-lines have been drawn. But universally, one thing hacks Britain off. When your crisps crumble up and fall out of your lovingly made sammie. So - with a brief to remind Britain about the joys of pairing crisps with sandwiches at lunchtime - we invented Sandwich Crisps. Perfectly flat, square crisps, exactly the same size as a piece of sliced bread.

When M&M’s World in Leicester Square has better reviews than the Great Wall of China, you know there’s something wrong. This is the story of how an audacious stunt in London and New York sought to land a punch on harmful reviews. The average person reads 15 reviews from strangers before booking a holiday. Plum Guide is a high-end homestay company but unlike Airbnb they don’t let customers leave reviews. Instead, their trained and experienced critics write honest and informed assessments of properties to help customers make the right choice. They believe that the opinion of experts is more valuable than that of the general public. Controversial! But with 1 in 3 being let down by reviews and people planning on spending 18% more on their holidays than 2021 we decided to send a warning, reminding people that anonymous online reviews are incredibly subjective and unreliable. We projected real 1-star reviews onto dozens of popular iconic landmarks of cultural importance in London and New York City. With “Should have been called ‘tat’ Modern” on the Tate Modern and “Filled with trash” on the Guggenheim, news quickly spread online as passers-by shared pictures before the media got hold of the story. The results were outstanding with 415 pieces of coverage in the UK and USA including the mailonline front page and a three-minute interview on Sky News.

With the help of Duolingo, we taught Scotland fans how to sing the Ukrainian national anthem ahead of their World Cup qualifier at Hampden Park. Never before in the history of football have fans sung the opposition's anthem. But on the night of the match, in an unprecedented act, thousands of fans joined together in song in sporting solidarity, humanity and love, proving that whatever language you speak, the beautiful game has no borders.

With a brief to raise awareness of the breadth and quality of Burger King’s plant-based range, and truly show its commitment to becoming 50% plant-based by 2030, we knew we needed to behave like no fast-food brand had ever dared to behave before. So we turned Burger King’s busiest restaurant – its flagship in Leicester Square – completely plant-based and vegan for a whole month, launching with a multi-phased strategy designed to dominate share of voice.

Popeyes challenged Manifest to make its UK launch a smash hit, giving us the perfect opportunity to bring its famous fried chicken to a market that had been watching and salivating for so long. In 2019, Popeyes "broke the internet" stateside, its cult status generating hype; it was time for the British to believe the hype too. Our mission was to make the UK launch – and subsequent restaurant rollout – a media sensation. Strategically, we brought Popeyes to the UK as its 51st state – positioned as the cultural cousins of Americans with a shared love of fried chicken. Our launch message, Believe the Hype, was a call to action with three key messaging pillars: Fame: “You better believe it’s worth it”, Flavour: “Believe the taste” and Fans: “Don’t believe us, believe them”. We wanted to achieve virality, and boy did we succeed. Our creative video content with Buzzfeed’s Seasoned vertical - a strategic partner our target audience could trust - racked up 2.4 million views and over 57,000 likes. Our hot wings were labelled “KFC-beating” by Eater and “in a different league” by The Sun. Time Out warned to “expect big, big queues”, and The New York Times wrote about the “hundreds of customers [who] waited in line for hours” to try the Chicken Sandwich. With headlines for days, the 177 pieces of coverage created a feeding frenzy, with hours-long queues outside Popeyes for months.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single Bounty will be left at the bottom of a Celebrations tub. This entry details how we drove festive fame & sales for Mars Celebrations by highlighting an uncomfortable brand truth that most confectionery marketeers would shy away from: not all chocolates are created equal. By admitting that some choccies are loved more than others, our creative subverted tired festive tropes and sparked a nationwide debate, all whilst celebrating the Bounty and the Celebrations tub in an original and entertaining way. On a modest production budget, we achieved blanket nationwide coverage and millions of video views. More importantly, our campaign got people talking about Celebrations and drove product distinctiveness during the key Christmas sales period.

Frank and innocent Drinks created history by unveiling Trafalgar Square as a lush, green garden space in a bid to highlight the benefits of de-urbanisation. In a never seen before experiential event, one of London's most iconic concrete spaces was treated to a wild, makeover in order to get the nation rewilding in support of innocent's Big Rewild environmental initiative. Following a robost media strategy and execution, widespread coverage followed including 18 nationals and 18 TV broadcast pieces. As a result, 80,000 members of the public visited, delivering over 32k social media engagements and a 150% increase in web traffic to the innocent site. This is a campaign which demonstrated talkability at its finest. Outside of creating a stunt that nailed blanket coverage, and the positive response from the public who came down in their droves, most significantly however, is the lasting environmental impact. From the education of the thousands of attendees (plus those visiting the website), to the action driven through the mass seed giveaway. If even half of the 3m seeds are planted, the impact of the carbon offsetting and biodiversity benefits will be seen for years to come.

With the help of Duolingo, we taught Scotland fans how to sing the Ukrainian national anthem ahead of their World Cup qualifier at Hampden Park. Never before in the history of football have fans sung the opposition's anthem. But on the night of the match, in an unprecedented act, thousands of fans joined together in song in sporting solidarity, humanity and love, proving that whatever language you speak, the beautiful game has no borders.

The Norwegian Postal Service has connected people for 375 years, and will continue to do so regardless of orientation or gender identity. A fight that is truly a matter of the heart and a central part of their purpose. Diversity is one of the key pillars for Posten, and as a diverse workplace with great variation in terms of age, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and ethnicity, they embrace that they have a responsibility to work actively with diversity, inclusion, equality, and other fundamental human rights. Not only in Norway, but inspire the world. Even though the right to love whomever you want is a fundamental human right, and is not considered a political issue in free democratic societies in 2021, this is not the case in many countries around the world. The 4-minute short film (ad) was created to spread virally and to be distributed, discussed and shared through media around the world, using PR to promote same sex relationships, fighting ageism and sparking discussion about tradition on a global scale. This year's Christmas campaign from Posten, called "When Harry met Santa", has, according to calculations from Google, reached over 1,2 billion people in 150 countries across the globe. It was praised for its interpretation of Santa Claus as gay, and the four-minute Christmas Ad has been viewed over 2.5 million times on YouTube, gone viral in all social media on all continents, and received the attention of tens of thousands of media worldwide.

Our campaign to position Bumble as the safest dating app for women led us to campaign on behalf of women online everywhere: calling for cyberflashing to be treated in the same way as flashing IRL. In all, the campaign delivered over 484 pieces of coverage. As importantly, 100% of pieces featured key messaging highlighting Bumble’s call to action, with over 70% of online pieces including click-throughs to the campaign pages on Bumble.com. In March 2022, the U.K. government announced that it would make cyberflashing a criminal offence under the proposed Online Safety Bill.

To battle inequality in the workplace, Race Equality Matters launched The Fuh-Net-Ic Filter, a tool to share how to pronounce names.

Our objective for this campaign was clear; to deter violence against women and girls. Achieving it meant working very closely with our client, the police and the media to publicise West Yorkshire’s use of proven technology to a wider national audience. The campaign focussed on publicising the first ever domestic abuse conviction achieved through the use of forensic marking, in order to ensure potential abusers were aware of and afraid of the SmartWater technology. Mainstream awareness was central to the initiative's success as, while securing a conviction is positive, the true goal is to never reach that point. Abusers should recognise they will be caught and be too scared to commit acts of domestic violence in the first place. Conducting this campaign in the aftermath of the tragic murder of Sarah Everard required us to to move forward with a high degree of tact, sensitivity and judgement to tell this important story while keeping all stakeholders happy. There was significant pressure from the media to make the victim available for interview. However, from the outset we all agreed we would do nothing that could potentially expose victims to additional risk. We therefore had to tread very carefully in identifying the right journalist and media partner to break this story. And then to work diligently with them to build the story so that it could work for print, radio and broadcast without profiling the victim.

On June 14th 2017 the UK experienced one of the biggest tragedies in recent years. 72 innocent people died needlessly in a fire that shouldn’t have happened. 5 years later no one has been arrested.  Leading up to the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and at a time when communities were coming together to celebrate across the country, we held a street party in the shadow of Grenfell Tower. A table was laid with 72 plates and chairs, but no guests. Each place setting carried the name of a victim from the tragedy. With the government refusing to take accountability, we felt it necessary to make a statement on behalf of the community and keep this tragedy in the news, 5 years on. The harrowing image of an empty street party was designed to emphasise how this community will never be the same and continue to demand justice. The stunt was picked up by multiple national titles as well as a feature on the BBC London 1 O'clock news. The stunt has transcended traditional media channels and we are in conversation with the V&A about it being added to their permanent collection.

The travel industry has shown considerable creativity in the face of colossal challenges in every way other than one - its communications. Despite seismic societal changes, travel marketing was still dominated by picture-perfect (white / slim / straight couples / families) ignoring the diversity of real travellers. We posed the question ‘could Celebrity Cruises make ‘all-inclusive’ genuinely all-inclusive’? We commissioned the world’s greatest and most diverse photographers to create the first free, open-source, diversity-focused image library dubbed the #AllInclusivePhotoProject. With free access to inspiring travel imagery, travel media and marketing professionals across the globe downloaded in their thousands and we smashed through all our KPIs, forever changing the face of category communications.

Asking athletes to stop exercising is the last thing you would expect a global sports brand to do. But in 2022, ASICS became the first sports brand to use inactivity for good. The ‘Mind Race’ saw the brand sponsor athletes to stop exercising, while employing cutting-edge technology to track their mental states. The results showed the world exactly what not exercising does to our minds; creating coverage and conversation in 61 markets, disrupting the global exercise/wellness conversation & measurably inspiring the world to move.

"You can go through life without ever having the chance to impact the life of a stranger. We were lucky to have that opportunity." On February 24th 2022, the world changed overnight. Russian forces invaded Ukraine in a move that would subsequently kill thousands and displace millions of innocent Ukrainian citizens. Three weeks later, our agency got a phone call to work on the most important campaign we might ever do. If, in the next five minutes, someone asked for your help in rescuing 54 kids from Ukraine, the chances are you’d say yes. What would then follow is a series of physically and mentally exhausting events that would see you having to perform at your best and requiring you to pull in every PR resource and asset at your disposal; that would need you working across three countries and with four governments; that would require your team to solve challenges they’ve never thought about before at pace and at scale. But you’d know that if it goes to plan, 61 people will flee death and destruction and reach safety. We got that call and we said “yes”. This is the story of Project Light and the nine days that changed us forever.

While the holidays are widely considered a time of joy, for one in two Canadians who suffer from anxiety, depression, or loneliness, it’s not the most wonderful time of the year. Rather than fighting the holiday spirit, we set our message within it, using a holiday icon as a trojan horse for media and social influencers to give focus to the “ugly” side of the season. Our Ugly Truths Holiday Sweaters flipped the tacky garment on its head, highlighting three statistics that tell a different story.

A major transformation in how we fly is being imagineered by Embraer to achieve net zero by 2050. Embraer, has pledged to solve this enormous industry challenge and their goal was to share their vision with the global aviation community. In late November 2021, they unveiled four concept regional aircraft powered by new propulsion technologies and renewable energies. Gravity Global was tasked with launching this exciting programme – and how it was presented to a worldwide audience needed to be as bold and innovative as the concept aircraft. As well as creating the ‘Energia’ name and an eye-catching aircraft livery, the Gravity team developed a full campaign including PR, content and social, culminating in a spectacular webcast event, broadcast live from studios in Sao Paulo and London! Each of the Energia aircraft were shown as 3D holograms for impact. This campaign deserves to win, as it achieved its objective of positioning Embraer as a leader in aviation sustainability and by using the latest digital techniques captured the imagination of the aviation industry without having to show physical aircraft. The programme successfully achieved market engagement for the Energia programme, improving positive sentiment for Embraer and leadership in sustainability from 28.71% to 70.88%

When Virgin Voyages launched Scarlet Lady in 2020, the brand was set to shake-up the cruise industry with a new premium offering to redefine travel at sea. Then the global pandemic hit, leaving the brand in limbo. We successfully exploded awareness that the Scarlet Lady - and Virgin Voyages - had returned to the high seas with a new way to voyage, which was the safest way to travel. We generated a reach of 4.5 billion globally, engaging agenda-setting broadcast, print and online titles. A considered media strategy at the heart, that reached the masses, yet was perfectly tailored to captivate specific audiences and change perceptions.

This is the story of how rapid grocery delivery company Jiffy, took the brave step of responding to the menace created by its own riders, in order to make our roads safer for everyone. With the roads more dangerous than ever, Londoners blamed rapid delivery grocery brands for their disregard for rules and demanded change. We created the first social good initiative to help riders deliver speedily AND safely with help from three times Olympic cycling gold medallist Ed Clancy. Ed spent time with Jiffy riders even doing deliveries to understand their challenges. We then created ‘Clancy’s Crash Course’, his top tips for cycling speedily within the rules. This creative educational content became mandatory training and on-boarding requirement for all Jiffy riders. But we didn’t stop there. We shared the training with competitors, Getir, Gorillas and Zapp as well as TFL, The Mayor’s Office and the Department of Transport and made it freely available to everyone on social channels. Finally we became the first brand to put the brakes on how quickly our riders were required to deliver by removing the 20 minute delivery window. We launched the initiative in National Bike Week with research showing that Brits were fed-up with the menace of rapid delivery cyclists but still wanted deliveries within minutes. Our social engagement doubled and we secured 120 pieces of national coverage.

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation, the fastest-growing foundation of open source software developers and supporting companies, created a branding campaign, “Resilience Realized,” to mark open source’s response and success to the global pandemic and to applaud the many people who came together to rise above and work through the unknown. Resilience Realized is authentic to CNCF because it goes to the heart of the open source and cloud native technologies culture. The community enables the best ideas, no matter where they come from, to come together to drive software innovation faster than ever, no matter what the conditions. In the open source world, developers can work from anywhere, and contribute to any open source project. Open source and cloud native are not bound by geography. Developers can work from home, work, train stations, rooftops, etc. And throughout the pandemic, they did, realizing their resilience through new ways of working to innovate and activate to meet the needs of the nation and companies deeply stressed and unfamiliar with the uncertainties of the pandemic. Open source work during the pandemic not only kept companies on track with their ability to create and deliver products and services, but open source work contributed to battle the pandemic in terms of vaccine development, exposure notification and vaccine passports. CNCF, with its agency, Speakeasy Strategies, spread the campaign to in-person events, virtual conferences, social media, and media coverage, to give credit to all of those who contributed.

Adapting quickly to change is something WPP is well-versed in. The company was well on its way to responding to clients’ changing needs before the pandemic hit; implementing its creative transformation roadmap that would nurture 50,000 employees on data and AI skills. Overnight, client demand for data-driven innovation doubled, and employees working in siloes worsened as the global workforce remained at home. Rather than throw out the roadmap, and crumple under the weight of the situation, the team pivoted the strategy and deployed two streams of activity that were mutually reinforcing: 1) bringing together its global community of data and AI specialists to share knowledge; and 2) educating a wider pool of employees on the basics with courses, forums, and bespoke content. In a short timeframe, WPP was able to meet client needs in the face of adversity, reaping rewards including new business, services, and training opportunities. This award-winning approach has set WPP apart as a provider of truly innovative and accessible training opportunities. Rather than slow its progress, the WPP team pulled together to turbocharge its goals, hone its strategy and pivot rapidly to respond to new needs in an unprecedented environment. A highlight was training employees on AI with AI avatars, delivering a truly meta experience.

In 2020, Whole Earth – the UK’s number one peanut butter – sponsored Team GB for the Tokyo Olympics, devising an ad campaign around the emotive strapline ‘With you the Whole way’. To amplify this campaign – as well as the brand’s DNA of natural protein with no added sugar - we devised a PR stunt for an endurance adventurer to travel the ‘Whole way to Tokyo’ - fuelled only by natural power (cycling, sailing and peanut butter!). COVID caused us to pivot the endurance challenge to 2021, ahead of the rescheduled Olympics. With global travel still restricted, we challenged our adventurer to cycle the equivalent 10,000km from London to Tokyo without leaving the UK, visiting namesakes like Moscow in Scotland and finishing in Stokeyo (aka Stoke on Trent) - the closest UK sound-alike to Tokyo. With the nation’s morale at an all-time low, and no family or supporters able to accompany our GB athletes to Japan, we had a big job to do: raise people’s spirits, build support for Team GB, ensure we still grabbed headlines and simultaneously promote Whole Earth and its natural protein benefits. Overcoming multiple logistical/COVID challenges along the way (e.g. our adventurer getting ‘pinged’), the campaign succeeded, generating 578 items of media coverage, as well as helping drive incremental sales and retail listings, ensuring Whole Earth retained its number one category position.

Roland DG, a Japan-based global manufacturer of large-format inkjet printers, tasked Fight or Flight with promoting its latest garment printer – the Texart XT-640S-F – across five European markets. For just £10k. We appointed fashion designer Fabia Goff to create Europe’s first Dress Release - a press release ornately printed onto a beautiful dress. The campaign delivered: • 60+ articles across target markets, including a feature in PRWeek’s “Campaign of the Week” • 10,998 organic impressions on LinkedIn, 1,255 engagements and an engagement rate of 11.4% (against a 2% industry average) with no paid budget • The all-time best performing post on Roland DG’s channels

Crash test collisions and dummies being flung metres in the air before landing in a crumpled heap… does any scene depict road safety risks more than this? Tin Man developed the first ever UK crash testing of e-scooters in a campaign with real social purpose for Guide Dogs. The crash test campaign created a suite of dramatic video content for media, reams of data, awareness of the dangers of e-scooters to the visually impaired community and a groundswell of support for the regulation of private e-scooter use. 18 national news and 24 broadcast features later - including a 6-minute segment on BBC Breakfast - this campaign delivered: • 142% increase in awareness that e-scooters are dangerous to those with visual impairments • 13,000 signatures to Guide Dogs’ petition • And to top it off, real social change has been made – because of this campaign, a universal sonic warning signal is being developed by public schemes to warn people with sight loss that an e-scooter is approaching.

In 1995, Faithless released the seminal dance anthem, Insomnia. It was the three minute soundscape to a generation fuelled on Ecstasy that stayed up all night. Our idea: work with Faithless to reimagine their iconic track as a sleep track. We made it orchestral. We slowed it down. We incorporated science. We created a dozy experience to be heightened by CBD. We took something our audience raved to and turned it into a comfort blanket for relaxation. We also made it 27-blissful minutes in length, the average time it takes us to fall asleep.

When World Animal Protection tasked Cow to create alow-budget PR + social campaign to highlight the cruelty and environmental impact of factory farming to coincide with COP26, the creative team at Cow went back to childhood. That’s because our idealised sense of what a farm looks like – contented animals grazing outdoors in green, rolling pasture and jolly farmers – is formed at the earliest stages of learning in songs, books and toys. And in order to show the problem through the eyes of a child we had to build it. Welcome to the Factory Farm Play Set: the worst toy in the world. A hyper-real, modern adaptation of the popular children’s toy, complete with cruel, unnatural conditions, no natural light, workers in hazmat suits and an environmental hazard warning on the packaging. A social experiment was devised and captured to see what happened when children were left alone to play with the toy and if they would try to ‘fix it’. The results were poignant and uplifting, posing the question ‘If children can see factory farming is wrong, why can’t we?’ Supported by unpaid influencers on social, FFPS became one of the most talked about and shared environmental campaigns during COP26 and beyond, with earned U.K and global coverage in the likes of The Guardian, The Independent, Daily Star, Euronews and NowThis and over 3.1 million organic views of the film. Despite launching in November 2021, it continues to generate social share and coverage globally.

In Sweden, drowning is the most common deadly accident for children 1-6 years. When an accident occurs, knowledge of CPR is crucial. But a new national survey exposed the fact that a majority of parents did not know how to do CPR on children. Insurance company Trygg-Hansa have been working with water safety for over 65 years. Now they wanted to adress the issue of CPR. The brief was to develop a creative solution that could generate earned attention to educate the public about CPR. The solution became Marked for life – tattoos for children that illustrates the critical steps of CPR. This created a new medium to communicate the message, by transforming the bodies of swimming children into living instruction manuals for CPR. So, in a critical situation, information on how to save a life would be present when it matters most. By introducing tattoos for children with life-saving knowledge during peak drowning season, the whole nation started talking about CPR, providing Trygg-Hansa a platform to reach their audience, educate and strengthen their brand position in the area of water safety.

It's 2022 yet research by Intimina, the Swedish women's intimate health brand, revealed that a third of women and girls still do not feel confident enough to talk about periods with family or friends. That's even when their periods could be a cause of pain, discomfort, anxiety or even bullying. That's why creative comms agency Cow and Intimina decided to be deliberately provocative to get period conversation normalised at the place where most family chats happen - the kitchen table. This is the story of how one limited-edition, uterus shaped cereal triggered everyone from Piers Morgan to MAGA conservatives in the USA, yet won the hearts and minds of women and girls around the world to challenge the stigma around female intimate health. Period Crunch became global news and a social media sensation covered everywhere from the Daily Mail, Metro, Lad Bible and Fox News to women's lifestyle and health media. And the cherry on the cake was when Piers eat a bowl live on TV. He said it was 'wokeness gone mad', but thousands of consumers wrote to Intimina requesting the free product, including teens who thought it was cool through to mums and dads who wanted to use it as a conversation starter with their kids. Job done.

A BASKETBALL COURT MAY HAVE BOUNDARIES, BUT THE SPORT ITSELF KNOWS NO BOUNDS. IT IS ONE OF THE MOST DEMOCRATIC SPORTS; ALL YOU NEED IS A BALL, A PAIR OF SNEAKERS, AND A SURFACE. COURTING GREATNESS IS A COMMUNITY INITIATIVE BY REEBOK THAT CELEBRATES PROSPECTIVE PLAYERS THROUGH EMPOWERING IMAGINATION. ITS PURPOSE IS TO FACILITATE THE CREATION OF PLAYING SPACE ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET. KILLER CROSSOVERS, POCKET PASSES AND WICKED JUMPSHOTS THE WORLD OVER… OUR MISSION IS TO MAKE SURE THESE MOVES ALWAYS HAVE A HOME. PERHAPS YOUR LOCAL PARK IS ALWAYS TOO CROWDED, OR PERHAPS IT DOESN’T EXIST - THROUGH THIS DIGITAL TOOL, ANY EMPTY WALL, TELEPHONE POLE, FENCE OR VACANT LOT CAN BECOME A BASKETBALL COURT. IT IS AN INVITATION TO CREATE, AND IN DOING SO, BE GREAT. CREATIVITY UNLOCKS MOVEMENT. IMAGINATION BECOMES GREATNESS. IF BASKETBALL IS LIFE, THEN LIVE WHEREVER YOU CHOOSE. THIS IS COURTING GREATNESS.