Today marks Six Months to Go until the London 2012 Olympic & Paralympic Games begin. H+K Strategies’ Andy Sutherden, Global Head of Sports Marketing + Sponsorship; Rowland Jack, International Sports Consultant and Tim Luckett, Head of Issues + Crisis Management, EMEA came together to film this short piece about Olympic readiness.
Here are 5 Top Take Away Points that Official and un-official Brand Sponsors should be thinking about:
1. Sponsors should start rehearsing and testing their crisis plans and responses now
2. The London 2012 Olympics is the first real Digital Olympics – sponsor ambassadors must be ready to converse in the digital space. There will be a huge emphasis on the social media side of the Games
3. Journalism has gone full circle – they are digging around for stories on supply chains, sustainability, manufacturing etc. Your business with the Olympics will not be the only thing under scrutiny but your business in general
4. Management of Olympic venues are being let to different contractors so plans for post Olympics are well underway
5. Sponsors of London’s Olympics will now be assessing whether they will continue with their programmes, evolve in some way or withdraw from sponsorship completely
Although we are ready on so many levels, it is clear that there is still many areas that sponsors need to give great attention and forward planning to.
To get a full understanding of how ready London is for the biggest event we have ever hosted, watch the video
Welcome to the new blog from the CR + Sustainability team in London. We thought about giving you our predictions for the year, but with so many lists out there, you are probably sick of them already. When we were discussing it, we kept coming back to five areas that fascinated us and we wanted to watch develop in 2012.
So here are our ‘ones to watch’. They may turn out to be trends or they may not. What we will aim to do over the course of the year is to write about how they change, grow or whatever…
1. Austerity living takes off
We wonder if this is the year, that living differently in an age of austerity becomes cool. In our minds, this is not about depriving yourself, it’s about living in a way that saves you money, but can be fun and makes you feel good because it was smart. It could be sharing more things rather than buying, splitting weekly shops with friends to save money and avoid throwing anything away or making money out of the things you no longer need. We may have already seen some signs of this in the study by Young and Rubican published just before Christmas.
Times are tight for companies and individuals, whether or not we fall back into recession. We’re all having to make do with less and make that go further. This is good for sustainability, so maybe tough times will help build the case for sustainability for both businesses and for individuals. Will organisations think twice about cutting back a team who can help deliver efficiency and cost savings? Or companies who invest in this area succeed in making their businesses more robust? Ironically this could be an opportunity for the leaders to push harder and get even further ahead. On the other hand, it may force a race to the bottom with companies simply offering cheaper and cheaper goods regardless of the environmental impact.
5. A new game changer emerging in 2012
For many years the sustainability business leaders have been companies such as M&S, Unilever and SAB Miller . It seems to us that it is time for another leader to emerge. We have a hope that it will come from the tech sector. As we can see from Greenpeace’s Greener Guide to Electronics, tech companies are moving in this direction. Treehugger this month reported from CES 2012, that “consumer electronics manufacturers have a long way to go before the industry can be called “sustainable”… But companies have come a long way in even just the last few years in designing for recyclability and efficiency”. With risks piling up around areas like the supply chain and e-waste, 2012 could be an opportunity for a game changer to emerge.
Last week, H+K Strategies held its first D2 event of the year which was also our first sector-specific D2 for the healthcare sector. Demystifying digital in the healthcare sector provided a wealth of interesting and insightful tips for healthcare communicators to use in the future.
H+K was joined by Kantar Health, Orital Consultancy, H+K Denmark, Kai Gait (former digital commerce marketing manager, GSK)and Google+ each of whom gave presentations highlighting the key challenges, developments and tips for healthcare PRs looking to extend their communications strategy into the digital sphere.
Kantar Health informed our attendees key stats about healthcare consumers. 47% of people write comments about brands, mainly to share or offer advice. Further to this, 70% of people surveyed said they are influenced by ‘social comments’, mainly from other users rather than from the brand. This insight reiterates the importance of social media and the challenges that brands must to respond to, listen to and engage with.
Arve Overland from H+K Denmark talked about Mobile Health. Digital’s move to mobile apps is an area in which the healthcare industry needs to assess whether the platform is right for them. Healthcare app devices generated $718m in 2011, although this figure is impressive, how can PR’s ensure they are creating a good mobile app in a cluttered environment.
Does it solve a problem – is there a need?
Does it extend product offering onto phone?
Does it provide information, reference or education?
Tomorrow, H+K Healthcare takes centre stage in Soho Square, with H+K Strategies‘ first-ever sector-specific Demystifying Digital (#HKD2). With a formidable list of participants and speakers from major platforms as well as industry leaders from the public and private sector, the event is poised to make a real difference to our understanding of what’s possible and where we should be heading with healthcare digital communications this year. Kantar Health and Orital will talk about how patients and physicians really use the internet, Google will help us understand how we can make the most of Google+ and key note speaker, Kai Gait, Former Digital Commerce Marketing Manager, GSK will share specific examples of how to add value to our work with healthcare communities through digital initiatives. If you’re not able to come along tomorrow, don’t forget to follow #HKD2 on Twitter or check out the blog for a post-event summary.
We’ll be back on the blog after the event to let you know how it all went!
I’ve been enjoying the entertaining farewells to 2011. Videos, memes, and pretty much anything digital. But I think the more important part of any happy new year reflection is gazing forward at 2012. I won’t detail my theory on the future of agencies in general, or give advice like this. Instead, my crystal ball shows very clearly the immediate future of my own agency. Because — as with any business based on talent — our fate is clearly written in our open job opportunities.
PLEASE PASS THE LINKS BELOW ON TO SUPER SMART, NICELY AMBITIOUS FRIENDS. While the specifics are all about H+K Strategies 2012, I truly think you’ll find this list serves as an accurate prediction of the marketing and communication industry as a whole. Happy New Year.
Stay with me after the jump, or go straight to the job specs:
The failure of Egypt, the champions of the past three tournaments, to qualify for the 2012 African Cup of Nations, alongside the absence of regional heavyweights Cameroon and Nigeria, has thrown the tournament wide open.
However, the list of qualifiers for the tournament has thrown up a number of surprise names, not least Libya and Sudan, as well as (less surprisingly) Tunisia and Morocco. Alongside Algeria (who just missed out of qualification) and Egypt, all these nations have experienced significant upheavals and protests during the Arab Spring and in the case of Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, regime change.
It seems implausible that national footballers can remain unaffected by such political turmoil. Yet in many ways the performances of the North African national football sides in 2011 have reflected the political actions of the Arab Spring in each nation. With the exception of Egypt, the statistics also show that all of these North African nations have dramatically improved their results on the football field since the beginning of the Arab Spring in each nation as compared to results from the 12 months prior.
Launching the world’s first snore absorption room; creating the world’s biggest shave; reinterpreting art with technology; revealing the best place in the UK to bring up a family… As 2011 draws to a close, we take a look back month by month at some H+K Strategies campaigns and work throughout the year.
January: City & Guilds Million Extra
You're hired: Karren Brady+ City & Guilds' Chris Jones
To start the new year, preparations to launch City & Guilds first ever Apprenticeship Summit went underway early on. The aim of the campaign was to help ensure one million Apprenticeship starts by summer 2013.
In January, we commissioned a report to identify the barriers employers face in hiring apprentices with the findings discussed by key political and business leaders at the Summit, hosted by Apprentice star Karren Brady.
Nearly 100 pieces of coverage resulted from this campaign as well as a request from Professor Alison Wolf to receive a copy of the full report after seeing the articles to include in her Government review of 14-19 education.
February: Intel Remastered
Shortlisted for various industry awards, our Technology team created an exciting art campaign- Intel Remastered to showcase the creative application of Intel technology. The project saw 13 modern artists reinterpret iconic masterpieces using digital technology and techniques.
Pushing the boundaries of art and creating one of the most talked about art events on the year, the stories and inspiration behind classics such as Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ and Da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper’ were retold and presented to a digital-savvy audience.
We recently hosted a sustainable brands roundtable, here at H+K, in association with Forum for the Future. A diverse group of sustainability marketeers attended (Burberry, Alliance Boots, Cafedirect, Dyson and eBay to name a few), some brands were just stepping into this space and some had been carrying the flag for years, but the desire to mainstream sustainability was felt throughout the room.
Forum for the Future has been exploring the role of brands as agents of transformative change for some time, most recently through the launch of Consumer Futures. This research highlighted that there are huge opportunities for brands to engage with consumers on sustainability. It’s clear that most companies are only beginning to explore what sustainability means for their brand, and what their brand can do for sustainability. At the roundtable, we had a productive and lively discussion about what brands need to do individually and collectively. Three take outs from the session were the need for brands to:
1) Be brave: There are huge (commercial) opportunities out there for brands on this agenda if they’re prepared to be brave and do things differently
2) Be authentic: It’s crucial to find what’s authentic to the brand (e.g. quality/ durability in the case of the Patagonia/ eBay partnership) and to play to those strengths, rather than blindly trying to sell ‘green’ credentials to an audience who aren’t looking for that
3) Be open: Don’t do this in
a vacuum. Sharing challenges, stories and best practice openly with non-rival brands can be hugely inspiring and empowering. It’s only by coming together that we’ll stand any chance of overcoming some of the systemic barriers that exist.
There are of course plenty of challenges to overcome before brands and sustainability can work together to deliver a sustainable future, from the ways in which marketeers are incentivised through to the tensions in that small phrase, sustainable consumption.
Overall it was really encouraging to see the enthusiasm for brands wanting to push the boundaries in this area.
We now even have organisations like 
