Hill+Knowlton Strategies

Hello – I’m really pleased to be a contributor for the H+KStrategies UK London Blog. My name is Andrew, and I have recently started at H+K on the graduate scheme. I will write a couple of blog entries about the graduate scheme – students and those starting a career who want the best start to the PR + Communications industry watch this space!

The majority of my posts however will be on behavioural economics. Behavioural economics is delivering very interesting insights and is something I find exciting and topical. As means of an introduction, behavioural economics is somewhat an umbrella term for a range of approaches that seeks to understand and explain the effects social, cognitive and emotional factors have in influencing the choices and (economic) decisions of individuals and institutions.

Behavioural Economics - an umbrella term

Why I find behavioural economics so interesting, and why it is so popular across the advertising, marketing and PR service industry, is that it provides the framework and insights to better understand people and the way people behave. Therefore behavioural economics can be an incredibly useful tool because it can assist in better understanding the ‘public’ and provide the structure in which to devise the most effective strategies to shape and influence conversations.

There are various ways in which social, cognitive and emotional factors influence choices and decisions – such as loss aversion, framing, status quo bias or simply not putting in the mental effort to make the right decision!  Check back here for my blogs, which are going to give a range of examples to show how these different factors and behaviours influence choices and (economic) decisions.

Follow @AndrewPCBarratt

We thought it would be a nice change to show you what our busy Food+Drink team get up to here at Hill+Knowlton Strategies, when last week, F+D’s Bombay Sapphire VIP Trips team hosted 36 Nordic bartenders and media. The event saw them taking guests on a whistle stop ‘Taste of Imagination’ tour of London town. By lunchtime the group had enjoyed Bombay Sapphire French 75 cocktails and canapés on board the London Eye and were soon heading off for a three-course botanical inspired British lunch at Kettners in Soho.

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Every so often a cultural spoof comes along that is eminently watchable and shareable.  Or a song that is so catchy that it gets stuck in your head – an ‘ear flee’ as The Today Programme so elegantly phrased it this week.

And sometimes the stars align and a catchy spoof is born – as with the boys from Eton’s ‘Eton Style’ homage to Psy’s hit track and video Gangnam Style….  1.6 million views to date and counting….

Now I love nothing better than the sound of plummy voices  rapping – my three all-time favourites are Smirnoff Ice’s Tea Partay, the Yeo Valley rap from 2010, and (showing my age now) the 1991 French hit Auteuil Neuilly Pass by Les Inconnus – it helps if you speak French, but even if you don’t you’ll enjoy the video and  the ‘Salut tu vas bien’ chorus.   But ‘Eton Style’ is something else, it’s  genuine, it’s joyful – no brand has interfered in the making of this video – and it’s very very silly.

If you haven’t watched it, you need to do so now.

A marvellous glimpse into the hallowed cloisters of Britain’s most famous boys’ school.  And what an awesome dance move that little horsey trot is.  The Eton boys don’t quite pull it off, and the production is a little slick for a homework project, but just how charming is that video?  In case you are wondering they are six formers –  apparently this is recognisable from their ‘white tie’ (there are occasional information advantages to living with an old Etonian…).

You probably recognise the tune, but have you seen the real thing? Quality at 531 million views, give or take a million or so. Read the rest of this entry »

Pharma and healthcare has an image problem. Or at least, it has sometimes had a problem conveying itself in a compelling way through visual media. It’s curious then, that a number of prominent pharma companies in the US have set up corporate accounts on Pinterest, the latest much-hyped plaything of the social media world. Bayer US, Boehringer Ingelheim, Menarini Spain, GE and Novo Nordisk have all begun populating their boards with healthy-looking people and clinical researchers on a site more often associated with pictures of wedding dresses and cakes.

Let’s take a step back and explain Pinterest for those who may not yet have come across the site. Pinterest allows you to ‘organize and share things you love’ so your collection of paperclip sculptures can be ranked according to the number of prizes they have won and your photo albums of Iggy the pet stick insect can be shared with all of your friends. The medium is incessantly visual, as posts consist almost solely of either images or video, which can then be shared (‘repinned’), liked or commented upon by other users. While the site has grown at an exponential rate in the US, it remains to be seen whether it will have the same impact among the same groups of people in the UK and elsewhere when the site spends some of its recently-raised funds for international expansion. What does seem clear is that the site is growing fast and companies have begun to take note.

Now, back to that image problem. It may be exciting for pharma companies to have accounts across all the latest social media platforms, but it is important for companies to ask whether this will provide tangible benefits from a strategic communications perspective. Between them, Bayer, Boehringer, and Novo have a total of 355 followers. Meanwhile, the accounts don’t seem to have elicited much in the way ‘interaction’ or ‘engagement’ with these followers. 

 On the other hand, GE Healthcare has managed to capitalise on both the clout of its parent group and the innovative work done in other areas of the business to transform apparently visually unappealing engineering and energy operations into captivating images and video. By posting via the General Electric umbrella account, the healthcare arm already has an audience of over 9,562 followers, and the specialist healthcare Pinboards are original and well-populated. More importantly, they are also well planned with a clear remit and strategy.

 Of particular note are the Cancer Pintherapy and Pinspire boards, which manage to be both warm and engaging. The Pintherapy board features a collection of pictures alongside famous motivational quotes and experiences of ordinary people affected by cancer and particulalry breast cancer. Pinspire asks users to submit their own inspiring content on the subject of cancer experiences, one of which is then chosen to be featured each week. Just as with the GE Healthymagination Facebook page, the account is particularly good at interacting with users promptly and with a personal touch.

It remains to be seen whether pharma and healthcare companies can make Pinterest into a truly effective communication tool, or, for that matter, whether Pinterest itself will survive in an often faddy social media environment.

On Tuesday, H+K London hosted the PRCA Technology Group meeting – The Shapeshift of Tech Media: Why, How & Where to now? Leading the discussion was a panel of tech media’s leading journalists: Matt Warman (The Telegraph), Duncan Geere (Wired.co.uk), Bobbie Johnson (GigaOM), Bryan Glick (Computer Weekly) and Mike Simons (ComputerWorld UK).

How to monetise digital content and social media integration

Matt Warman kicked off the discussion with some comments on the tech websites and the challenges the nationals face in competing with them. His view was that the nationals simply can’t match the experts and ad revenue of publications like Wired so they rely on big executive interviews as their differentiator.

Duncan Geere said that the tech media are not using the technology they write about to report stories in dramatically different ways and that they should experiment more with form and content. To this, Bobbie Johnson added that more thought is needed on how stories are developed and offered, rather than just the story itself.

Bryan Glick took to the stage to tell us how he is bringing ComputerWeekly into the digital age. His view is that publications simply can’t get away with charging for content if their competitors don’t. Also, readers have never paid for content; they have paid for the platform to access that content. Everyone agreed on this point and a couple of panellists went as far as to say that technology innovation is just what tech media need to get up to speed.  The industry is in the process of learning how to adapt content to different platforms – B2B publications in particular are often tempted to chase consumer traffic and ultimately forget their readers’ needs. On social media the consensus was that it generates minimal traffic but is essential to adding a deeper social layer to the relationship between journalists and readers.

Finally, the panel discussed the growing interest of digital audiences in the availability of long form content on mobiles devices – a shift away from the previous assumption that only short-from content was suitable.

Are tech media going in the right direction? Are they equipped to win over the digital challenges they face on a daily basis? Can they master the same technology they write about to help the industry move forward?

Check out our Twitter feed for live updates at future events – @HK_TechLabs

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Mario Morello

Welcome to this week’s An Apple a Day.

Firstly, I recommend checking out this post on the BMJ Web Development blog on the most impactful time to disseminate blog posts on different social networks to help them ‘go viral’. A really interesting piece and the sort of insight that might add real value when planning social media campaigns or blogger outreach for clients.

In other digital health news, a recent survey of around 4,000 nurses and nursing students in the US has found that around 71% use smartphones for work, with 66% of students using them at nursing school. It’d be interesting to see if the stats match up in Europe but these findings are a pretty compelling argument for the value of smartphone apps for this audience.

Read the rest of this entry »

HSBC Expat Explorer has been nominated for the prestigious Webby award, and is in the running against CNN Money, mint, wikinvest and wonga for the People’s Voice award, in the financial services category.

The Webby awards is recognised as the most celebrated accolade for innovative and accomplished websites. Being a nominee alone means that HSBC is in the top 3% from over 10,000 entries worldwide.

H+K towers and the team, who have been working on Expat Explorer since its inception, are super excited about the news. From its humble beginnings as basic PDF reports, last year, the research results were taken to a new level and became a highly interactive online tool for the expat community. The work has already won a good deal of awards but this is the most high profile to date.

For those who wish to support Expat Explorer for the People’s Voice Award, it couldn’t be easier. Simply visit the website, register your vote using your email, Twitter or Facebook account – it only takes a minute. The closing date is this Thursday (26^th April) so get voting.

The awards will be presented at the end of May in New York. If you fancy getting in the spirit of the Webbys beforehand, you can check out a compilation of the ceremony’s best 5-word acceptance speeches here.

Happy Thursday!  Today The Spark’s inventiveness comes courtesy of a surprise Easter Egg from H+K.  So while chocolate has not been proven to make you more creative (unlike alcohol) it’s contributed to this week’s FOOD theme.  Here’s three things that have inspired us this week:

First up, from Germany, the world’s first edible cookbook. 

“The first and only Cookbook you can actually read, cook and eat. Made out of 100% fresh pasta it can be opened, filled with ingredients and finally be cooked. Packaged as classic lasagne. The Cookbook was designed as a special project for a large publishing house.”

I get really inspired by ideas that redefine products.  I saw brilliant use of  pasta at the Experimental Food Society Spectacular last year – lasagna that was cut into geographical contours (very Geography GCSE), but this is so much better.  Why shouldn’t a recipe be read, digested and then eaten?

Next is Burger King Netherlands’ new ad campaign – an eye-shadow burger.  An dreamy and arresting image that tells a story.  If you look more closely the detail is delicious, the bun on the eye-lid, the lashes are lettuce.  Painting body parts is nothing new, but can be very effective.  This image has an element of surprise, and is memorable.

Last up a lovely campaign from Rowse Honey.  I’ve never thought much about honey brands, but I love love this.

So the way it works is: if you like honey, you write a thank you note to the bees, Rowse plant a bee-friendly plant with your thank you note, sends you a pic, bees make honey.  Voila!  More info on their Facebook page.  I love this because it’s sweet, it’s engaging, it’s shareable, it’s natural, and it’s simple.

Let us know if you’ve seen anything else inspiring this week, and have a great Easter Break!

- Annouchka

What sort of training do you think someone needs who is working in PR today?

It’s on my mind as we’re in the middle of developing new training modules for TheHub, our internal training programme. And I got to thinking about just how different the agency workplace is to when I started in the mid-1980s.

For those of you who remember those days we wrote press releases by hand for someone else to transcribe on a golf ball typewriter. (I wish I’d had shares in Tipp-Ex.) The fax was a dazzling new gadget to provide media with content ‘instantly’. And we were all just a little more carefree – and badly dressed.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big fan of nostalgia in film and music; but not the workplace. Agency life today is so much more challenging than we could have imagined but its dynamism, variety and the continual expansion of our scope of work is a real rush.

From the days of being a ‘people person’ and a newshound we’ve rocketed into the cloud. And we’re still newshounds.

But we’re more business savvy, more expert. Our insights are deeper. We’ve become business experts not just communications experts – the division no longer exists (if we’re honest, never really did).

So what skills need to be acquired to operate in this brave new world? Digital expertise goes without saying. Client service ditto. But those are just for starters. We’d really like to hear your thoughts.

We’ve always been a fan of infographics here at Tech_Labs towers. Over the past few days we’ve seen an infographic on the buzz of trendy tech conference SXSW (where there were three times more conversations about parties than panel discussions), and a day in the life of the internet (detailing how 864,000 hours of videos are uploaded to YouTube per 24 hours  – that’s 98 years of non-stop cat videos). We’ve even spotted a Mother’s Day infographic, illustrating the value we put on our mums (note: it doesn’t go down too well if you send this in lieu of the standard bunch of hastily ordered Interflora flowers).

But you know, while we’ll happily spend a couple of minutes perusing infographics on the worst dinner guest ever or the 10 weirdest things you never knew came from Irish inventors, we felt it was all going a step too far when we came across the following. Yes, an infographic on infographics. Another one. A mind blowing topic we know (or rather, thinly veiled advertising for companies creating infographics, but we’re not cynical or anything).

Now we’re not saying this is a bad infographic. Not too many random images, no sign of the oft-present angled bar chart. On the whole it’s readable and the stats add up. There are plenty of far worse attempts just a Google search away. Rather, we’re asking the question of why does nearly every topic, trend and trending topic have to have its own infographic?

“Can someone please stop the infographic madness?” pleads Om Malik in a recent blog post. “Quit with all the infographics already” implores another. With their explosion in popularity (and subsequent onslaught of below par interpretations) is it the case that infographics, once the darling of information sharing, have reached their zenith on the curve of cool and are already considered overdone, passé?

Well no. We don’t think it’s game over for the infographic. There are plenty of brilliant ones out there, explaining large amounts of data in an easy to interpret way. As technology develops, we’re bombarded with more and more information; we need it quick and simple to digest. Rather than jumping on the bandwagon and creating an infographic off the cuff however, we all need to stay aware of the reasons why and the times when we should create an infographic. And an infographic detailing this information is an infographic we’d be happy to see.

(This post was written by Sophie who you can follow at: @HK_TechLabs)