Hill+Knowlton Strategies

2013 is back in full swing already at H+K Towers but in addition to sharing a couple of great bits of work from this week, I also wanted to look back on some of the campaigns that are my H+K highlights of 2012

But first, this week….

Our Retail + Leisure team, the team behind the #nameourplane campaign for Tui, have struck gold with their latest campaign.  The ultimate job search is on: to be First Choice’s SplashWorld waterslide tester http://t.co/x7ytHkPc.  It’s got huge media attention, gone viral and better still, already had a massive amount of applications!

In addition, as part of our work for the Mayor’s Fund, we launched the Mayor’s Fund Magic Breakfast programme.  With the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson at the helm, this healthy eating initiative will fuel 5,000 hungry children with free, healthy breakfasts in 50 schools across London’s most disadvantaged areas.

So stepping back into the not too distant past, below are just a few of my favourite H+K Campaigns of 2012

First up, has to be our idea to surprise some shoppers at Westfield who were taking advantage of the adidas #takethestage photobooth with none other than Mr Beckham himself: the shoppers couldn’t believe it, the media loved it, it went viral and went global. AMAZING

Next up:  The P&G Capital Clean Up campaign. As part of P&G’s 10 year partnership with the IOC they wanted to demonstrate its commitment to helping London look its best ahead of the London 2012 Olympic Games. P&G’s household brands Flash, Ariel and Febreze joined with Greater London Authority to launch the P&G Capital Clean Up, a 3 month campaign to clean up London. Actress Keeley Hawes and over 1,600 community champions took part in 20 clean up events, sprucing up 10 square miles over 20 of London’s boroughs.  A great initiative that made a real difference!

Next, a great creative idea that was original, simple and flawlessly executed:  To support the launch of Hotel Indigo Newcastle, H+K replaced the traditional Gideon’s Bible in each hotel room with a Kindle e-reader pre-loaded with an electronic version of The Bible. The initiative was inspired by Hotel Indigo Newcastle’s history as a publishing area and the hotel’s close proximity to the renowned Literary & Philosophical society (Lit & Phil). More than 200 pieces of coverage were achieved in the UK and beyond, as well as more than 500 twitter interactions

To build excitement about Thomson Airways being the first UK airline to fly the Boeing 787 Dreamliner ahead of the delivery of its fleet, H+K came up with the idea to invite the British public to name the first in the fleet using a Twitter hashtag. In line with the wider marketing strategy  to modernise the Thomson brand, it became the first airline to crowd source the name of one of its planes using a Twitter hashtag: #nameourplane. Major media coverage was generated across national  and international print and online media and naturally, social media played a key part in spreading the word.

And then there was our launch of the fifth annual Global Peace Index (GPI).  The GPI ranks 158 countries based on 23 indicators of peace. H+K set up a Parliamentary Early Day Motion, stakeholder dinner at the House of Commons, and organised the official GPI launch event at Chatham House, which was attended by over 100 delegates and included a panel consisting of Martin Bell and Lord St. John of Blesto.  Relieved to see we seem to be getting more peaceful overall!

And lastly, I just loved the P&G Thank You Mum campaign – all elements were great but I thought the Mother’s Day campaign was just perfect! It still gets me a little teary!

There are loads more I could, and probably should, mention, but I will leave it at that for now.  Do let us know which are your favourite campaigns of 2012

Continuing on from the work H+K delivered around Gillette’s Great Starts campaign, the H+K Gillette press team helped amplify the brands association with the UK Coaching Awards. Prior to the awards ceremony, we held a radio day with three finalists of the prestigious ‘High Performance Coach’ award, including Toni Minichiello, Jenny Archer and Paul Stannard. The objective of the radio day was to secure broadcast coverage across multiple national and regional channels, which would communicate Gillette’s association with the awards, an objective which was achieved.

At the UK Coaching Awards, H+K, working collaboratively with Sports Coach UK coordinated the smooth running of the ceremony. Numerous press interviews took place before and after the presentation, which delivered high standard of results leaving all stakeholders delighted.

Our Head & Shoulders team hosted a styling day last week. Guests were invited to the Wella Studios and treated to a top of the range haircut and style by Head & Shoulders style director Michael Douglas, as well as receiving information on the latest Head & Shoulders 2in1 product range.  Attendees included Toby Hancock, Ok! Extra; Sam Rider, Men’s Fitness; Matt Browning, heDD; Graham Willgoss, Sport; Chris Mandle as well as Laurence Mozafari, Zoo & Gothinkbig.co.uk

On Wednesday the P&G Beauty team created their very own Winter Wonderland at the Soho Hotel, inviting journalists down for a truly magical experience and preview of some the latest beauty innovations.

This week has also been the culmination of our Movember campaign.  Here are some of the best ‘mos’

Not sure what is in the October air but my goodness it has been busy at H+K Towers this week

Monday saw the external launch of our Aviva S2S Mumsnet campaign which is  centred on encouraging parents to talk to their children about running away from home in order to  raise awareness of the issue, and of the Railway children charity.  As its such an important and topical issue, our launch story has gained lots of media interest including Yahoo.com, Female.First.co.uk and Radio 5 Live and is naturally all over the twittersphere

Mumsnet.com Running Away home page

Also on Monday, we launched Family Investment’s Hotspots report which has received widespread national media coverage including seven of the national newspapers reporting the story. If you have somehow managed to miss it, Wokingham is the best place to live to bring up a family.

Hotspots Report Infographic

Our healthcare team has been working hard at the European Society of Medical Oncology’s (ESMO) annual meeting (a huge event in the world of cancer research) which took place in Vienna last weekend. During ESMO the team supported a media roundtable where two leading experts in the field of bone metastases, a severely painful type of bone cancer often associated with advanced stages, were well received by the audience including 14 top-tier European journalists from Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland.  Don’t just take our word for it, check out this infographic about the hot topics from the meeting

The Healthcare team also recently won some inspiring new business with The Harley Street Clinic in London. Earlier this week, members of the team had the opportunity to visit the clinic’s recently refurbished Paediatric Intensive Care Unit to see firsthand the importance of the unit in providing complex care to very ill children. The team is excited to be working with H+K offices in Kuwait on this project. See more of the great work done by the clinic here

Our Food + Drink team have also had a rewarding week, after over seven months of campaigning for public votes, yesterday the Transform Your Patch team took Fazer from N-Dubz to Dartford Skate Park to celebrate his triumph in Transform Your Patch – a regeneration campaign from Britivic and PepsiCo that has transformed around 165 outdoor spaces across the UK.  Since March, Fazer has been competing against three other celebrity faces, to win an additional £100,000 for an outdoor space he is passionate about, skate parks. Yesterday saw him emerge triumphant against Densie Van Outen campaigning for playgrounds, Robbie Savage squaring up for five-a-side football pitches and Emma Willis championing picnic areas and parks. The £100,000 will now go towards making sure communities get the most out of the transformed skate parks across the UK. Read more about the campaign here.

Our Energy + Industrials team have also been mega busy, not only did they launch Enphase Energy into the UK at Solar Power UK – we set up and staffed media interviews with the key trades to support the launch. Fantastic response so far!

… But they also provided media support for the launch of Sheringham Shoal wind farm off the coast of Norfolk – resulting in a lovely exclusive with Channel 4 News, take a look at the video

And as if that wasn’t enough, we also helped Pampers® and UNICEF launch their “1 pack = 1 vaccine” initiative for the seventh year running, celebrating that together they have helped eliminate Maternal & Newborn Tetanus (MNT) in eight of the world’s poorest countries.

Roll on the weekend!  Hope you all have a good one!

Big well done to our Ariel ‘Big Sprint’ P&G Team.  Yesterday Olympian Jeanette Kwakye teamed up with good ole household favourite Ariel Detergent & Stain remover, to lead the Ariel Big Sprint, a ‘Capital wide’ clean-up challenge that will saw Jeanette travel across London cleaning four dirty hotspots in record breaking time. At each location Jeanette tackled different cleaning challenges including collecting litter, erasing graffiti, repainting fences, clearing fly tip areas and tidying disused parkland. Jeanette had just 60 minutes per location to do as much cleaning as she can.

Jeanette had just seven hours, from start to finish, to tackle some of London’s biggest clean up challenges in the London Boroughs of Waltham Forest, Camden, Brent and Lambeth.

• Waltham Forest – Jeanette tidied up Wanstead Flats and helped to clear dirty parkland
• Camden – Jeanette painted over graffiti found on the Regents Canal
• Brent – Jeanette tackled fly tipping and paint over graffiti on the defaced garages and garden fences of Leybourne Open Space
• Lambeth – Jeanette helped restore the local playing fields in Norwood, put up new tennis nets and painted the club house so that local kids can enjoy a summer of sport.

Online coverage has already started to appear, including a great interview with Jeanette that was posted on both Yahoo! Lifestyle (3,524,000) and Zest Magazine (39,000) that features our campaign image.

We also secured two online hits in the Evening Standard (235,514) – a news write up, and featuring in their  Pictures of the Day gallery.  Metro online (2,900,000) also included one of the images in their news picture gallery.

Jeanette also conducted interviews with the Evening Standard, Daily Star, Christian Radio, London Mums, Bodyfit Magazine, Ham and High, Camden Community Radio, Your News UK TV and The Voice. She has also been very active on Twitter throughout the day – snapshot captured in the coverage summary attached.

The Ariel Big Sprint, part of the P&G Capital Clean Up, is a three month programme run in partnership with The Greater London Authority with the aim of helping make London stainless this summer. Every event is designed to make London an even cleaner, fresher, greener place in the run up to the London 2012 Olympic Games and beyond, via local bursaries to help sustain the clean-up efforts.  P&G, the company behind Flash, Febreze and Ariel is a worldwide partner of the London 2012 Olympic Games through a 10 year, global partnership with the International Olympic Committee and P&G ‘Thank You, Mum’ campaign.

Don’t know about you but I put off cleaning my own house as much as I can, so lending a hand to clean up the capital gets a lot of kudos in my book!

Congratulations to Jenna Randall who has been selected as captain of the Team GB Synchronised Swimming team.  We worked with her last month as the new face and legs of the Braun Silk-epil Xpressive Pro Epilator as part of P&G’s Worldwide Sponsor status with the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Hope those silky smooth limbs help her on her quest for medal glory this Summer!

Today, P&G launched its first ever global advertising and marketing campaign for the corporate brand which went live in markets across the world simultaneously. The global ‘Thank you, Mum’ campaign is the first Olympic Games themed activity from P&G which has a global 10 year partnership with the International Olympic Committee.

The activity forms part of P&G’s ‘Proud sponsor of Mums’ campaign which recognises and celebrates the dedication and sacrifices mums make for their children every day.

The highly emotive advert titled ‘The Hardest Job is the Best Job’ brings to life the hard work and dedication of mums across the world every day to help their kids to achieve their dreams. It culminates with that once-in-a-lifetime moment when each child first competes at the London 2012 Olympic Games, interspersed with authentic clips of mums supporting their kids from the stands.

The campaign kick’s off on P&G’s digital and social media platforms to coincide with 100 days to go until the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games. The majority of the company’s brands – including Gillette, Pampers and Oral-B – as well as P&G’s corporate brand in all regions will activate the ‘Thank you, Mum’ campaign.

Inspired viewers can then go to www.facebook.com/thankyoumum on Facebook where, through the ‘Mum Thanker,’ they can then create their own ‘Thank you, Mum’ message by uploading personalized content in the form of a video, still image with caption or text-based message. Users will then be able to encourage friends and family to do the same, spreading the word to thank and celebrate all mums.

Irwin Lee, Managing Director and Vice President, P&G UK and Ireland, says, “Launching our first global P&G campaign allows us to shine a light on the amazing work mums do every single day in raising their children. At P&G, our business is all about supporting mums across the world with products like Pampers, Ariel and Fairy. Through our partnership with the IOC, we are using our voice to celebrate mums for everything they do, and to inspire people everywhere to express thanks to their mum or a mum that they know.”

Paula Radcliffe, athlete and Pampers ambassador for P&G says, “I am very proud to be part of this campaign as I know that I wouldn’t be where I am today without the unconditional support of my mum and family. Thank you Mum.”

P&G’s sponsorship and marketing activity for London 2012 is an important step in a decade-long, global partnership with the IOC spanning the next 10 years until 2020. The partnership begins with London 2012 and continues with the subsequent four Olympic Games: Sochi 2014, Rio 2016, Pyeongchang 2018 and the 2020 Games.

Since stepping out from behind its brands for the first time in March 2011, P&G’s ‘Proud sponsor of Mums,’ campaign has delivered outstanding business and brand-building results in the UK. P&G’s corporate brand has increased +20% in familiarity and +10% in favourability with consumers in the UK[1]. A single gondola-end display in one of P&G’s leading retailers delivers +12% higher sales with the IOC association than an identical display without it.

As part of its ‘Proud sponsor of Mums’ campaign in the UK, P&G has partnered with the BOA and BPA on a ‘nearest & dearest’ support programme for the friends and family of Team GB and ParalympicsGB leading up to and during the Games. As part of the programme, P&G has guaranteed two tickets per opening session each athlete competes in for their nearest and dearest. P&G is giving 95% of its corporate ticket allocation away to consumers.

Tell us how you would thank your mum on P&G’s Thank You Mum Facebook page

My goodness, P&G were busy last week! As well as the Thank You Mum work, last week also saw the launch of the P&G Capital Clean Up campaign a joint venture between P&G and Mayor of London Boris Johnson, supported by campaign ambassador Keeley Hawes. Over the next three months a series of 20 clean up events designed to bring Londoners together to spruce up neglected areas of the city will be hosted as London gears up to host the greatest show on earth this summer. The public can get involved in joining the clean up efforts at www.pgcapitalcleanup.com

Some of the UK’s most recognisable household brands – Flash, Febreze and Ariel detergent and stain remover– are behind the P&G Capital Clean-up and committed to working with the Mayor of London, the GLA, and Londoners to help add sparkle to our host city full of heritage and culture ahead of the London 2012 Games. To further raise awareness for the initiative and encourage Londoners to sign up to participate in one the 20 clean up events, the brands will be putting on their own events;

• Flash will be using its amazing cleaning power to create shining landmark images on the Southbank that will help get Londoners excited about the clean up campaign

• Febreze is planning to make London a fresher, greener place by creating a series of Fresh Havens to help Londoners breathe happy

• Ariel is on a mission to make London stain free using the ‘Love Clean London’ app: a call to arms for Londoners to report grime and stains across the capital

Looks a lot more fun than cleaning my kitchen!!

We do lots of great work at H+K, but every once in a while there is one that touches a cord or heart string in me.   Today, that is our Thank You Mum campaign for P&G.

We have been working with some of the GB team’s biggest names for the Olympics and Paralympics on what they want to thank their mums for this Mother’s Day and got them to record this video of their messages

P&G is calling on the nation to tell their mums how much they appreciate them and be in with a chance of winning their mum the gift of a lifetime; family tickets to selected events at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The lucky winners could find themselves in the heart of the action this summer with winners’ tickets including the 100m Athletics Final, the Opening Ceremony and Closing Ceremony at both the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

With 50 sets of four tickets to selected events at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games up for grabs, people can enter by going to www.youtube.com/pg and uploading a video, photo or text message telling their mum what they’d like to thank her for this Mother’s Day, holding their hands out in front of them in a heart shape to say, ‘Thank you, Mum.’

I used to laugh at the sentimentality of my mum but now a mum of two boys myself, I find myself being just the same…. Don’t forget Mother’s Day is this Sunday in the UK and whether you record a video, send a card or just give her a call, a Thank You Mum will go a long way….

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.

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