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!

This week, the Schwartz team in Food + Drink hosted a tasting and briefing session with top foodie journalists to showcase the McCormick and Schwartz Global Flavour Forecast 2103. Attendees included Lulu Grimes, Deputy Editor at Olive magazine; Sheena Correa, Deputy Editor at Eat In; and Rebecca Seal, who writes for a number of national titles and is currently resident drinks expert on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch TV programme.

Developed by a dynamic group of foodie experts, The Flavour Forecast identifies emerging culinary trends and plays a distinctive role in altering the culinary landscape of the year to come.  What follows are five trends with flavour combinations that illustrate how these trends are coming to life through taste, which will shape the way we eat in 2013 and beyond.

Lead by Schwartz Senior Culinary Development chef, Ian Craddock, our journalists were taken through the five trends with a delicious bento box filled with dishes that bring them and their respective flavour combinations to life – a mouthwatering lunchtime treat for all!

Other McCormick and Schwartz Flavour Forecast 2013 briefings included The Grocer, Leith’s School of Cookery and Wine and Harvey Nicholls (Knightsbridge) 5^th Floor Bar Manager.

We also released a report for Macmillan Cancer Support which revealed that the single biggest trigger for people to first write their will is having children, yet despite this over half of adults in the UK today have not put pen to paper.

The research marked the launch of new Discounted Will-Writing Service which helps people find a legal professional they can trust to write their will at a discounted cost. To launch the new service and raise awareness of the importance of writing a will, we teamed up with Holby City actress, well known mum and Macmillan supporter Tina Hobley.

Anyone can use the service and people don’t have to leave a gift in their will to Macmillan, but by launching the service, we can raise awareness of importance of leaving gifts to Macmillan, which funds the good work they do.

Coverage for the story included a news feature on Daybreak, Sky New Radio and a Q&A on Mumsnet to mention a few.

In addition Chris Pratt from our Energy + Industrials team visited tunnel boring operations under the streets of London to replace the capital’s High Voltage electricity network.  This pictures shows the main tunnelling shaft in Willesden Junction, from where a 3 metre wide tunnel, 50 metres under the streets of London stretches all the way to St John’s Wood

And lastly the Statoil team helped to launch a debate on shale gas on The Economist’s website.

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!!!