Hill+Knowlton Strategies

While Tom Daley was the star attraction at the FINA Diving World Cup 2012 at Aquatic Centre in the Olympic Park, title sponsors and H+K longstanding client Visa were one of the big winners as they topped City AM’s Repskan’s Olympic Media Buzz table.

The table, complied in association with Repskan.com, the media monitoring and analytics platform, measures the relative Olympic media buzz around the partners for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and Visa topped the rankings in the run up to the debut aquatic international event in the Olympic Park.

On top of their top tier sponsorship of the Olympic movement that is currently in its 26^th year, Visa has agreed to sponsor six of the Olympic test events which offer them not only an unrivalled opportunity of raising awareness of their Olympic relationship but also an invaluable opportunity to engage with the media and the public at the iconic Olympic venues.

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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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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I believe it was contemporary urban philosopher Ferris Bueller who once said ‘Life moves pretty fast; if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it’ (NB – on reflection, I don’t know why I wrote that; I hate people who ascribe deep significance to the throwaway utterances of fictional characters. IT WAS WRITTEN BY A SCREENWRITER, YOU CHUMP). This edition of Web Curios is brought to you by the whooosh-ing sound that time makes as it flies past your ears; it seems like only yesterday that I was writing the last one of these, talking about holidays and the end of summer and stuff. All of a sudden it’s December, I’ve not written a Curios for a month (not that any of you CARE, you unappreciative whelps), and you can’t turn on the television without a famous trying to sell you stinkwater. On an unrelated note, I am yet to eat a mince pie in 2011. If anyone would like to courier some over to H&K towers, I will be very grateful and possibly do a small happy dance in gratitude; thanks (in the unlikely event that HRH Prince Charles is reading this, I am a massive fan of Duchy Originals).

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Phew. Three weeks since I last did one of these, and my word has there been a lot going on. Bankers have shut down a church (well, you know, indirectly)! The Sun gave us possibly the most tasteless frontpage in years! One of the most appalling hatecrimes of the (admittedly newish) decade was committed to little or no mainstream media fanfare! France and Germany mocked Italy’s sexually incontinent Premier! The filthy rich just keep on getting richer! And loads more besides, much of it even more dispiriting than those few links I’ve just shared.

Ignoring the fact that world is going to hell in the proverbial handcart, though, I’ve actually had rather a lot of fun (because that is obviously the MOST IMPORTANT THING). I’ve seen comedy; I’ve been to an awesome gig;I’ve been to the theatre and seen probably the most harrowing play I’ve ever seen, ever (actually, make that the second-most harrowing - this was probably worse); I’ve eaten some truly tremendous food; and I got to see a truly tremendous rapper live in a tiny venue. So, you know, I’m alright. Are you alright? I’m starting to worry.

Anyway, enough of this. Make yourself a cup of tea, settle down in a suitably confortable chair, and imagine my soothing, dulcet tones reading this out to you (and, if you like, imagine my malcoordinated body acting out every single video too. You pervert). You may want to get some biscuits too; this could take a while.

Image courtesy of Neutron, LLC

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Why me...one of the questions you'll be asked

If you’ve been thinking about applying to Hill & Knowlton’s graduate scheme but not sure where to start or what we’re looking for, here are some top tips from our current crop of H&K grads, Chris, Daisy and Becca on what makes a successful grad applicant:

1. Read widely and understand your industry

PR is a broad discipline and spans many sectors, including consumer packaged goods, technology, healthcare, retail & leisure, financial & professional services just to name a few. It’s important like any other job to familiarise yourself with the industry and the sectors involved. A good starting point is to pick up with a copy of PR Week and read about the latest news and campaigns and increase your media consumption to see how brands and companies are being talked about in the press.

2. Digital ‘do’

There’s no denying that digital is important these days. Most campaigns have some form of digital element involved so it’s important to have an understanding of how Facebook, Twitter and blogger campaigns work. Research around successful digital campaigns and come armed with examples of digital work you’ve seen and liked. Even better, try and think about why they’ve worked (or haven’t) and what you would do to differently.

Also, if you’re not on Twitter already, it’s always worth opening an account and try to understand how it works.

3. Be prepared

Take a look at H&K’s website to see our recent campaigns, the brands we look after and community manage to familiarise yourself with the work we do. You can also find us on Twitter, HANK and vimeo to give you a better idea of what it’s like working at H&K towers.

4. Be a team player

We work in a collaborative environment, be it cross-sector or across different markets. If you do get invited to the assessment day, remember to pace yourself, listen to others contributions and don’t try and dominate with your own. It is difficult to ignore the fact that you are essentially competing against all other people on the day, but those who take that attitude into the team task are doomed to failure. Be prepared to work together to shine as a team.

Remember no idea is a bad idea during a brainstorm. Look to build upon or take inspiration from other ideas rather than dismissing them, and make sure all feedback is constructive rather than critical.

5. And finally…

Don’t be afraid to eat as many sandwiches as you want at lunch on the day of the assessment. Your lack of fear in taking the last egg and cress could give you a competitive edge due to increased energy levels in the second half of the day.

Good luck!

Follow the grads on:

@chrissssmith

@daisysheps

@juange18

@liyywln

“Seasons of mist and mellow fruitfulness; close bosom friend of the maturing sun…” – or that’s what Keats said. Personally speaking, I think Keats can do one, as can September and Autumn in general. Everything smells of wet dog and regret, it’s cold and miserable and it’s now just the long, slow trudge towards another season of crass mass-consumerism and endless, interminable, incomprehensible perfume adverts (NB – anyone who works in advertising who reads this, please feel free to explain to me why perfume advertising is so oblique, as I have literally no idea).

Think, then, of this edition of Web Curios as the lightbox to your SAD, the plaster to your axewound (for future reference, an unpleasant conjunction of words to Google), the United Nations to your genocide. I’m here to help. To that end, here are some recommendations for awesome stuff you can do in London over the next few months (NB – that last link is one of the best things I’ve seen in years, very much recommended. Oh, and for an interesting take on Libya, you could do worse than read this). In the real world! NOT ON THE INTERNET! Crazy but true.

But for now it’s still all about the internet. Well, on this particular blog it is, anyway. If you don’t like it, you know what you can do (though I’d prefer it if you didn’t; I’m needy, and low-to-moderate traffic figures are all that’s standing between me and a P45).

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I’m excited to be here at our office in Copenhagen polishing my presentation for tomorrow. This is our third full day D2 conference of 2011 following on the London event in June. We are blessed to once again have top shelf speakers from Facebook, Google Mobile, TNS, Wikipedia and especially welcome a new addition: Google+. In an input survey we are doing with our clients to structure the next conference, we had more clients asking to learn about Google+ than any other platform.

Follow #HKD2 for snippets from the day. We will be posting some of the presentations afterward. My short but sweet talk below to get the ball rolling. It explains what we mean by Demystifying Digital; feel free toping me if you want the voice over.

As you may know from previous posts, I’m a devotee of Lucy Kellaway’s weekly column in the FT on working life. Her missive last week declared war on the use of Powerpoint by presenters. As she sees it, Powerpoint leads to boring, ineffective presentations which “lower the quality of discussion and lead to bad decisions”.

We wouldn’t go that far, but we do recognise there is a definite art to the use of Powerpoint to make sure that it’s a useful tool for supporting your delivery to an audience. So, below are a series of top tips from across the agency on how we believe you can get the best out of it.Thanks to Ed, Nick, Matt and Candace for their thoughts.

Powerpoint - making best use of it can be tricky (Image: PresentationMagazine.com)

1. Know when (not) to use it – Powerpoint isn’t Word, and similarly Word isn’t Powerpoint. Sadly, they’re often mistaken as being interchangeable. They aren’t. Powerpoint slides and lots of text are a very unhappy couple and serve to do only two things: bore your audience, and distract them from your speech as they struggle to read all the information on the slide. This is something Lucy Kellaway’s colleague noted in a defence of Powerpoint this week.

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