Hill+Knowlton Strategies

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!

I don’t know about love being in the air over at H+K Towers this week, we have been way too busy delivering some great work for our lovely clients.   Its been a crazy one!

The H+K team had an extra spring in their step this week as they helped adidas launch its revolutionary new running shoe.  adidas BOOST™ is a groundbreaking innovation in cushioning technology, providing the most energy return in the running industry and the team supported the global launch event that took place in New York this week.  Find out more at http://youtu.be/YgMYSi-eQOc

Back by popular demand, Belvita Facebook team in Food+Drink has launched the Valentine’s Day Fruit Machine app this week, where fans play to win fantastic prizes for two weeks. Following the success of the first Fruit Machine, Belvita is spreading love by offering their 50,000 fans the chance to win Belvita Breakfast Biscuits; a Tassimo Coffee Maker; a Kindle; or the ultimate grand prize…a trip to Paris, the city of love!

The app was designed and built by the digital studio at H+K and since launching on Monday, has been played 11,821 times…and the numbers just keep going up!  Visit http://www.facebook.com/BelvitaUK to have a go yourself…good luck!

The British Army team have been working on a nationwide recruitment campaign for the Territorial Army, with over 150 separate events taking place up and down the country this month. The campaign includes taking over the city centres in London, Liverpool, Birmingham,  Cardiff, Glasgow, Newcastle and Portsmouth this Saturday 16th February. These extensive TA open events are designed to demonstrate to the public what the TA is all about, and showcase the opportunities available

The team in Food+Drink have also been busy launching Splenda’s ‘Small Steps’ campaign. The team commissioned a piece of research into women’s diets to generate newsworthy hooks that would create context and relevance to the overarching brand platform. Results were sold into key media, creating relevant dialogue with journalists and driving coverage for the brand campaign. To bolster campaign awareness, brand ambassador Nadia Sawalha conducted broadcast interviews using the research as a base from which to drive deeper messaging of the campaign and brand ethos. Results were extensive across national online and print media, and key consumer titles including The Telegraph, The Mirror, The Sun, The Express and the Mail online. Find out more at www.splenda.co.uk

And finally, with four months to go to the ICC Champions Trophy 2013, a tournament that features the world’s top 8 cricket teams and the world’s best players, the H+K team took Radio 1 DJ – DJ Nihal – on a tour of The Oval, which is one of the three host grounds for the tournament. The aim was to get some shots with DJ Nihal and the Championship Trophy and facilitate media interviews to help raise awareness of the tournament and promote the fact that fans can buy their tickets now from www.icc-cricket.com. Nihal, an avid Sri Lanka fan commented that he “hoped that he wouldn’t be the only Sri Lankan to get his hands on the ICC Champions Trophy this summer”.

Hope some of the teams have a nice romantic weekend planned to recover from the week!

This week there has been a real cross section of work undertaken within the agency.  Here are just a few highlights

H+K has supported Brand South Africa over at the World Economic Forum in Davos, working on media engagements for ministers and South African business leaders with interviews lined up with Sky, the BBC, CNBC, the FT and Caijing, to name a few!

Our Food + Drink team coordinated nine advertorials across national and consumer media, including The Sun, Metro and OK!, to mark the launch of new Cranberry Belvita Breakfast Biscuits. Featuring hints and tips from Belvita Breakfast ambassador Lisa Snowdon, along with nutritionist Fiona Hunter and fitness expert Vinnie Freeman, the advertorials were designed to inspire readers to adopt a New Year’s resolution that will be easy to keep all year – eating a balanced breakfast.  I do love these breakfast biscuits and the cranberry addition sounds yummy!!

On to a different kind of biscuit…. The Invisalign team here at H+K decided to make a difference on Blue Monday by sending out some ‘perfect smile’ shaped biscuits to our top journalists… Smile and the World Smiles With You!!

As well as all of that we have also been busy monitoring media and social media coverage of the events in Algeria for one of our clients, designing training courses for wind power developers, watching and analysing the committee hearings around the Energy Bill and Vicky McPhail from our Beauty + Grooming team pulled on her snow boots and trotted off to Iceland to introduce some of the most glamorous beauty directors to our amazing new products at a cross agency event hosted by Talk PR.

PHEW!! Is it the weekend yet??

Our Food + Drink team launched Belvita Breakfast’s Spot the Biscuit competition, hot on the heels of the hugely successful virtual Fruit Machine. Players can win an array of prizes including a trip to Miami and of course lots of fantastic Belvita Breakfast Biscuits. The app was designed and built by the digital studio at H+K and has already seen an enormous number of plays despite only being launched this week. Have a go!

Our Sports team have also been a busy bunch.  This week they launched the first ever Pan-European survey of football managers & coaches with the LMA & Castrol.  The survey gathers the views of top-level managers across Europe on the most important issues in modern football.

The key points and outcomes from the results of the survey are as follows:

• Respondents identified a professional referee training academy as the main factor that could help improve the standards of refereeing, and also that refereeing was the main area that could help improve the overall standard of the game
• 83% of respondents considered that the handball rule requires further clarification
• 65% of respondents deemed the ‘denial of an obvious goal scoring opportunity’(DOGSO), triple jeopardy law (penalty, sending off, suspension) as unfair
• 69% of respondents opposed the current dates for the transfer window
• 72% of respondents are in favour of a reduction in international friendlies
• 62% of respondents support the introduction of not just goal line but also video technology with 63% deeming that football should consider using a decision referral system where

In addition, they announced Falcao as ambassador for Western Union’s PASS initiative.

Also this week, we supported 12 new Army recruits from Salisbury today (Monday 19^th November 2012) as they swore an oath of allegiance to the Queen as part of their official entry into a career with the British Army. The Attestation ceremony took place at The Rifles Museum, Salisbury and included a traditional parade of the new recruits in front of their proud friends and family.

Another crazy busy week over in Soho Square,

Early in the week we launched HSBC Expat’s annual Expat Explorer survey.  Now in its 5th year, it surveyed 5,339 expats, 1,078 of which are living in the UK, from nearly 100 countries worldwide, making it the largest ever sample to date. The findings reflect the views of survey respondents living and working abroad.  Top line shows

• Economic confidence in the UK is low with seven in ten expats reporting they are unhappy with the current state of the economy
• Despite economic concerns expats in the UK and much of Europe are willing to weather the storm
• Recent events have showcased the UK as a cultural hotspot with expats rating the country highly as a destination for entertainment and culture
• Britons wait longer than their expat counterparts before making the move abroad

Rima in our Energy + Industrials team was lucky enough to visit the bottom of the north sea with Statoil and even signed her name on the bottom of the sea. She was staffing a press trip for Statoil’s gas campaign, where we took a group of journalists from the UK and Germany to the Troll platform off the coast of Norway. The Troll platform is the largest manmade structure to have ever been moved, and sources about 25% of UK gas supply.  To find out more, that a look at the report by Bloomberg

And… our Food + Drink team launched Belvita Breakfast’s ultimate virtual fruit machine on Facebook! Players can win an array of prizes for a better morning, including a luxurious castle getaway and of course lots of scrummy Belvita Breakfast Biscuits- spin to win.The app was designed and built by the digital studio  at H+K and has been a resounding success and hugely popular with the community.

Last week, I mentioned the Pampers and UNICEF work but this week it has gone further and we launched their ‘Picture a Better Future’ campaign on Tuesday with support from Amanda Holden which received fantastic coverage, including Daily Express, Daily Mirror, Mail Online and The Lorraine Show, to name a few.

A photography exhibition was also held on Thursday 11^th October which showcased Pampers and UNICEF’s story through the eyes of mums and babies across the world.

Gotta love the super cute baby pic!!!