Hill+Knowlton Strategies

March! Spring! Hares! Yes, all of that stuff. Whatever this morning’s commuter rag may have told us, Web Curios is declaring winter over. So there. That’s ok then.

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Launched as a closed beta in March 2010, Pinterest is a lighthearted niche platform getting serious amounts of mainstream attention. It even made it to the Channel 4 News tonight in a well rounded report by Benjamin Cohen who compared it to one of my favourite places in London, the amazing John Sloan Museum. So via popular demand, I’m posting the briefing email I wrote for our clients on the top three things that make this growing platform important for big brands.

UPDATE: Pinterest is addressing use of copyrighted material and other issues. They’ve updated their Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, and Acceptable Use Policy. Considering that over 80 percent of content is currently re-pinned rather than original content, I think there is a huge opportunity for brands to offer legally pinnable, aesthetically pleasing content to their users.

Pinterest self describes as a Virtual Pinboard and their wonderfully simple interface is as intuitive as tacking postcards on a bulletin board or pasting images in a scrapbook. One of Time Magazine’s 50 Best Websites of 2011, data from comScore shows Pinterest recently hit 11.7 million unique monthly U.S. visitors, crossing the 10 million mark faster than any other standalone site in history and had a 55 percent gain in unique visitors between November and December 2011. A hot site indeed.

1. A niche network for a heartland audience
Especially for all brands courting the 18-45 female consumer demographic, the reports that 97% of users on Pinterest are women are music to a social marketers’ ears. Fashion, food, and family milestones like weddings lend themselves to visual image Boards made easy by Pinterest. But don’t discount this site as an addition to your social strategy just because your audience skews male or your brand is B2B. I think we’ll see use of the platform from all sectors. Check out a macho Board from GE titled Badass Machines or our own Duncan Gallagher’s Race and Rally Car collection.

2. ‘Frictionless Creativity’
We all want to be creative, but not everyone can be a famous artist or a Martha Stewart. The stats around Pinterest rocket ship growth are interesting, but we can learn more studying the reasons why people love it. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week saw the conclusion to the third successful series of ‘Social Media Week’ in London which has gone from strength to strength since its inauguration in February, 2009 in the US. Chinwag played host to one of the last seminars of the week, The Firewall: The Social Business Revolution supported by Nokia on February 17^th at the Design Council in Covent Garden. The session moved at a swift pace as we heard from: Adrian Cockle, Head of Online, WWF UK; Euan Semple, Leading Consultant on Social Business; Anirban Saha, Global Head of Social Innovation and Intelligence, Nokia; Simon Morris, Director of EMEA Marketing, Adobe, Chaired by Will McInnes Managing Director, Nixon McInnes.

The central discussion point was how social businesses should look at the way people interact with digital experiences and how they can apply any insight gained to a variety of business processes.

In order to be a ‘social business’ social tools are required to help build your business and can help a huge organisation feel like a startup by bringing people together for example:

• The WWF uses an Intranet called Arena to help support peer to peer communication. Key features:
  • Provides survey applications to gauge opinions before and after their internal lunchtime debates.
  • Showcases thumbnail galleries, journey sharing tools, discussion forums
  • Includes a Google map highlighting 180 of their projects around the world so that staff can see the breadth of their work.

• Adobe Vibe is an internal made micoblog which allows users to post daily updates, tweets and issues with no restrictions. Key features:
  • Create groups and access the service on a mobile device.
  • Created to help employees become evangelists for the business and to reflect on daily learnings as well as to share relevant findings.
  • Encourages teams to give themselves credit for their successes by featuring their best customers.
  • Every team member can share their status via Vibe, without having to send weekly e-mail reports.

• Anirban Saha from Nokia introduced their recently launched ‘social visualizer’ multi- screen installation called Agora. Key benefits:
  • He noted that as Nokia has more than 100,000 employees and cover over 150 markets, they needed to encourage employees to take an interest in monitoring what people are saying about them as a business
  • Tells them how customers use their products and how the business is responding and innovating accordingly.
  • helps employees to be immersed in the customer experience

As the panel discussion analysed wider industry and business challenges it was highlighted that the world of work has become so professionalised that we’ve forgotten how to communicate. As such there needs to be a push towards encouraging social media literacy and training to help professionals become a customer service agent and a spokesperson for their business. Ultimately, in order to take part in the social business revolution, businesses everywhere must look to provide individuals with the power to connect, innovate, enable, empower and listen!

I AM BORED OF FOOTBALL. Or at the very least the in-no-way-criminal, potentially racist / definitely racist, stroppy foreigner elements of it. Does anyone remember when football used to be a fun distraction from the woes of the world rather than a major constituent part of said woes? No, me neither, but there must have been a time. Personally I blame social media.  Could everyone stop talking about the DAMN FOOTBALL PLEASE?

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So we near the end of the first month of 2012 – WELL DONE US. Except that Italian captain. And Tom Watson’s intern. And all those naive enough to believe that the SOPA/PIPA thing has gone away (if those words mean nothing to you then read this). And Snickers. And unwitting singers at American churches. And the Russian police. And Bayern Munich. And Uzbekistan. Everyone else, though, pat yourselves on the back – especially me, who found my very own doppelganger last week! We survived the most depressing day of the year, and from hereon in everything will be just peachy.

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Last week, H+K Strategies held its first D2 event of the year which was also our first sector-specific D2 for the healthcare sector.  Demystifying digital in the healthcare sector provided a wealth of interesting and insightful tips for healthcare communicators to use in the future.

H+K was joined by Kantar Health, Orital Consultancy, H+K Denmark, Kai Gait (former digital commerce marketing manager, GSK)and Google+ each of whom gave presentations highlighting the key challenges, developments and tips for healthcare PRs looking to extend their communications strategy into the digital sphere.

Kantar Health informed our attendees key stats about healthcare consumers. 47% of people write comments about brands, mainly to share or offer advice. Further to this, 70% of people surveyed said they are influenced by ‘social comments’, mainly from other users rather than from the brand. This insight reiterates the importance of social media and the challenges that brands must to respond to, listen to and engage with.

Arve Overland from H+K Denmark talked about Mobile Health. Digital’s move to mobile apps is an area in which the healthcare industry needs to assess whether the platform is right for them. Healthcare app devices generated $718m in 2011, although this figure is impressive, how can PR’s ensure they are creating a good mobile app in a cluttered environment.

1. Does it solve a problem – is there a need?
2. Does it extend product offering onto phone?
3. Does it provide information, reference or education?
4. Does it increase productivity?

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Tomorrow,  H+K Healthcare takes centre stage in Soho Square, with H+K Strategies‘ first-ever sector-specific Demystifying Digital (#HKD2).  With a formidable list of participants and speakers from major platforms as well as industry leaders from the public and private sector, the event is poised to make a real difference to our understanding of what’s possible and where we should be heading with healthcare digital communications this year. Kantar Health and Orital will talk about how patients and physicians really use the internet, Google will help us understand how we can make the most of Google+ and key note speaker, Kai Gait, Former Digital Commerce Marketing Manager, GSK will share specific examples of how to add value to our work with healthcare communities through digital initiatives. If you’re not able to come along tomorrow, don’t forget to follow #HKD2 on Twitter or check out the blog for a post-event summary.

We’ll be back on the blog after the event to let you know how it all went!

New Year, everyone (I feel that it’s inappropriate to bother with the ‘happy’ charade after nearly two weeks of workaday tedium). Well, it’s been a while. HOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED! A new era has been ushered in, where a man’s political fate can rest on a small-if-perplexingly-executed typographical error, and where said typographical error causes the entire country (or at least the white-collar, desk-bound, twitter-using part of it) to down tools and descend into some horrendous infinitely recursive spiral of non-humour; in which a new way of drinking whisky is almost certainly the first harbinger of the forthcoming Mayan apocalypse;  in which a bunch of apparently sentient adults chose, of their own volition, to spend a night in a furniture warehouse; and, hopefully, in which this particular Italian politician will never again be allowed to make videos.

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I’ve been enjoying the entertaining farewells to 2011. Videos, memes, and pretty much anything digital. But I think the more important part of any happy new year reflection is gazing forward at 2012. I won’t detail my theory on the future of agencies in general, or give advice like this. Instead, my crystal ball shows very clearly the immediate future of my own agency. Because — as with any business based on talent — our fate is clearly written in our open job opportunities.

PLEASE PASS THE LINKS BELOW ON TO SUPER SMART, NICELY AMBITIOUS FRIENDS. While the specifics are all about H+K Strategies 2012, I truly think you’ll find this list serves as an accurate prediction of the marketing and communication industry as a whole. Happy New Year.
Stay with me after the jump, or go straight to the job specs:

• Head of Digital Studio
• Senior Digital Strategist, Consumer Packaged Goods
• Director, Change + Internal Communications
• Director, Issues + Crisis
• Intern, Food & Drink

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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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