Hill+Knowlton Strategies

There was once a time when sparkling wine was a treat for only the most significant of occasions – New Year’s Eve, birthdays, weddings etc. – unless of course you were a Formula 1 driver. If Champagne was a bit out of your price range then you could reach for the Cava or the Prosecco, but whichever variety of sparkling wine you chose, momentous occasions would be accompanied by much fumbling and straining followed by that loud, satisfying pop. A toast really doesn’t feel quite like a toast unless there’s an elegant long glass of something fizzy in your hands.

We like fizzy wine

However, new market research this week predicted that the Britain will soon become the world’s biggest importer of champagne and sparkling wine in the next five years. People are increasingly drinking champagne and other sparkling wines as a fairly standard way to end the week or as a default request at a bar. We in the H+K Food + Drink team are certainly not immune to this trend and many have experienced the wrath of the team for not buying enough bottles of Prosecco on a Friday night. The H+K Healthcare team behind the app Apple a Day blog are equally enthusiastic about the fizzy stuff.

The variety of sparkling wines available in the UK today has also increased, and southern England is becoming world renowned for the quality of its sparkling wine (as discussed previously on the Food Bites blog). There are currently over 400 active vineyards in the UK, but it is the chalky soils of the South Downs that are attracting the most attention. Experts say that the same seam of chalk running underneath the Champagne region extends across the channel to the Downs. This gives some English sparkling wines the same characteristic qualities as some of their more famous Gallic counterparts.

Having the wine of your life: Tamara Ecclestone's bar bill. Image via http://bit.ly/Te70In

So, now that sparkling wine has been turned into everyday humdrum bar-fodder, what can you do to add some fizz into your nights to really impress your friends? Well, if you’re looking for something really spectacular, you could always try to the master the art of “sabrage” – the ceremonial opening of a Champagne bottle with a specially made sword. Of course, if you have more money than sense you could always just take after the young rich socialites of this world and work your way up the list of wonderfully-named super-size champagne bottles: the Jeroboam, Rehoboam, Methuselah, Salmanazar, Balthazar or the gigantic 15 litre Nebuchadnezzar.

However, if you don’t have £30,000 to spend on a night out, but still want a glass or two of bubbly, try to savour it and remember the words of Napoleon:

“Champagne! In victory one deserves it; in defeat one needs it.”

In the past few weeks, we have talked about the growing trend for articles and blogs, which are digging deeper into social media and digital within the healthcare industry, providing more specific and detailed insight as the industry continues to grow in this space, and it looks like this trend is set to continue,

We have selected some must-reads for anyone with an interest in digital communications in the healthcare industry. This article on PMLive’s Smart Thinking blog addresses this issue specifically, stating that while we all tend to judge how well pharmaceutical companies are doing in social media by looking at their presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, there are in fact many other ways of using social media that should be considered, including what is known as social innovation.

Although Twitter and Facebook are obviously parts of this, they are not the whole story, the blog argues. Other aspects of social media such as social bookmarking, wikis, virtual social worlds and crowdsourcing are also part of the equation and further inspection suggests pharma companies might not be as far behind as some people think when it comes to these less obvious forms of digital innovation. Indeed, the blog suggests that there are in fact plenty of examples of internal social media projects within the industry that are on a par with other sectors, with three of the top ten pharma companies (GSK, Janssen and Merck) using the enterprise social network service Yammer.

The article pulls out some encouraging examples of social media innovation within the pharma industry which back this up. Definitely worth a read.

Another article that caught our eye here at An Apple a Day was this one from Pharmafile, which covered some of the platforms more traditionally associated with digital and social media engagement such as Twitter and Facebook. The article looks at the ‘received wisdom’ that suggests pharma should be joining the online conversation and asks some very important questions about what sort of conversations are appropriate and inappropriate, as well as conversations actually worth engaging in.

As social and digital media continue to secure their place on almost everyone’s agenda, communications professionals will increasingly be expected to show they are capable of answering these sorts of questions and provide genuine insight, to ensure they are not just suggesting digital for digital’s sake, but are actually able to identify the most appropriate and effective solution to meet specific objectives.

(image: Cancer Research UK: Cell Slider)

In other news, Cancer Research UK has teamed up with Amazon, Facebook and Google to create a mobile game for analysing genetic mutations. Data is integral to finding a cure for cancer, however the challenge is getting the data investigated by human rather than machine eyes in order to be properly analysed. With this in mind, Cancer Research UK has teamed up with these US tech firms to try and build an engaging, fun and user-friendly mobile game, which can be used on the move. The charity has already developed a web-based game called Cell Slider where users look through archived tissue samples.

Finally, if you work in the oncology disease area, this interview on the Cancer Network website is really worth checking out. Dr Michael A. Thompson, an oncology specialist who writes a blog for ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology) Connection, talks to Cancer Network about the use of social media by oncologists, providing some great insights into the dissemination of research results, clinical trials, and other oncology news using social media.

The agency has been a hive of activity this week, client work and pitches galore!  Here’s just a few things we have been up to….

Yesterday marked the sixth international Rare Disease Day and to celebrate this milestone, the H+K Healthcare team was busy carrying out a number of activities. Rare Disease Day is coordinated by European Rare Disease patient group, EURORDIS, and organised with rare disease national alliances in 24 European countries. The theme for this year’s Rare Disease Day is ‘Rare Diseases without Borders’ and with that in mind, the H+K team supported the launch of a new idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) community on EURORDIS’ social network platform, RareConnect. It provides a safe environment for people living with rare diseases to share stories, access quality information and communicate with people in other countries and across language barriers (owing to its translation service in five European languages). The launch marks a significant step towards forming a pan-regional coalition of IPF patient groups, a goal H+K has been helping to achieve steadily over the last two years. Please do take the time to have a look at the IPF pages and feel free to share it on Twitter and Facebook by clicking on the relevant icons: https://www.rareconnect.org/en/community/idiopathic-pulmonary-fibrosis

Members of the team have also been working to support the publication of a report on Rare Disease which featured in The Independent on Rare Disease Day. The report included an article, highlighting the new developments on the horizon for patients with IPF and included interviews with two experts in the field.

H+K’s work in support of Rare Disease Day helps to give rare diseases, such as IPF, the attention they deserve as they are often overlooked.  Good job guys!

The Belvita team in Food+Drink has been busy following up with leading experts this week, after hosting a successful round table meeting at the Savoy Hotel with five of the UK’s top media medics.  Hosted by BBC Radio 5 Live’s Dr Rob Hicks, our guests participated in a briefing on the science behind Belvita Breakfast, by the brand’s marketing and nutrition teams as well as an open discussion around modern breakfast habits.  Guests included Channel 4 Embarrassing Bodies’ Dr Dawn Harper and Dr Pixie McKenna; The Sun’s Dr Carol Cooper; This Morning’s Dr Gill Jenkins and Dr Roger Henderson who regularly appears on a number of broadcast programmes. The feedback was strong with attendees being impressed by the wealth of nutrition science behind the brand.  Nutritious and yummy!!

Our Energy + Industrial’s team hosted an event at the Royal Geographical Society for Statoil on the topic of natural gas last night.   The panel was chaired by Anthea Pitt, Executive Editor, Petroleum Economist, and included Rune Bjørnson, Senior Vice President for Natural Gas, Statoil; David Odling, Oil & Gas UK’s Energy Policy Manager; Alastair Reid, Business Analyst, IHS and Guy Newey, Head of Energy and Environment at Policy Exchange. Guy was very much the saviour of the day, having stepped in only two hours previously when Energy Minister John Hayes had to cancel due to a three line whip!

The purpose of the evening was to bring to life the conversations going on every day across the globe in Statoil’s LinkedIn group – Energy Innovation by Statoil (for which we help manage, generate content and drive membership). The group has over 27,000 members and has become one of LinkedIn’s flagship groups. With around 3,000 of those members based in the UK we decided to hold the first live debate.

And finally, our Sport’s team marked 100 days to the start of the ICC Champions Trophy this week. Working with the three grounds to create a unique 100 days image either using their scoreboard or taking the trophy out into the city centres. The images were released with regionally targeted quotes from Boris Johnson, Cllr Ian Ward – Deputy Leader of Birmingham City Council and The First Minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones AM. We also asked fans on the ICC facebook page facebook.com/cricketicc to vote for their favourite century of the tournament to date and produced a special 100 days newsletter featuring an exclusive interview with England cricketer James Anderson.

Enjoy the first weekend in March everyone, I’m hoping Spring is just around the corner now!