Hill+Knowlton Strategies

Flights reserved. Hotels booked. Euro’s ordered.

There are just a few weeks until we head out to the world’s largest annual mobile event, Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Some our clients on exhibitor list include, Visa Mobile, Dolby and Tata Communications.

As a look ahead, here are the top 3 things we’re most excited in the lead up to the event:

• Connected devices: the rise of cross-platform apps to create the ultimate machine-to-machine experience, from TV, mobile, gaming consoles, tablets and cars
• LTE roll-out and equipment: as demands for high-bandwidth capacity continue to grow, operators will be looking to evolve their infrastructure and offerings
• New products: the rumour mill tells us product launches may include handsets and tablets from Samsung, HTC, Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Huawei

If you haven’t already planned your itinerary for MWC12, here are some handy guides that we’ve found online:

• Conference schedule and events calendar by fonearena.com
• Networking, events and parties list by m-trends.org
• Analyst preview by Mobile World Live

Watch this space for more news and photos from MWC in the next fortnight, we’ll also be reporting live on the ground from MWC.

If you’re going to be at MWC and fancy meeting up for a quick chinwag, you can reach us on Twitter via @HK_TechLabs.

I was struck by this piece from Treehugger which talks about ways to preserve food without a fridge.  You could put this under the head of ‘austerity living’, but I have a suspicion that much of this would not have been a surprise to my grandparents’ generation.  (How do you tell if an egg is fresh, for example.) How did this knowlege become lost between generations?  Where should the responsibility lie to make sure that this is passed on?

Great work has been done by WRAP and there are retailers like Morrisons who are trying to help people store food more effectively, but the fridge is still the default for many people.  

And on the subject of food, I know it was originally launched in the middle of last year, but I caught the A-Z of McDonalds ad again at the weekend.  I am not sure I want to like something quite so cute, but I do.  They have packed a lot of information in here, but managed to make it fun rather than worthy.    

100 billion dollars. Sounds good doesn’t it? Now say it again and savour the clean, evenness of it and just consider all the possibilities that come with it…one hundred. Billion. Dollars.

It’s an impressive sum, no? For most of us to even consider having anything to do with such a figure is (and could unfortunately remain) the dreams of pipes, but for a lucky few, this landmark has been realised. That’s it – the end of the rainbow…time to kick back and relax, right? Wrong. A small group of technological/business/social visionaries who have reached the 100 billion dollar mark, are now setting their sights on even loftier fortunes! But where do you go from 100 billion dollars?

Well, as Facebook hits the stock markets in what is the tech industry’s most hotly anticipated flotation since sliced bread, the key question (besides the final valuation – currently estimated at $100 billion) is how will it continue to grow? Or indeed can it continue to grow?? Well rather unsurprisingly, the bedroom-born behemoth’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, is assuredly positive about how it can and will continue to develop as a company…

• Facebook – such an ‘appy’ place!

“Facebook revealed that $557m of its $3.7bn revenues last year came from taking a cut of payments that users make to Facebook app developers.” – with such a significant portion of its revenue coming from apps, Facebook needs to demonstrate to investors that more and more businesses will continue to see it as a platform upon which they can connect with consumers

• Advertising adds up

“The speed with which Facebook has been growing revenues from advertising slowed over 2011. Growth is still enviable, at 44 per cent in the last three months, but the company now needs to persuade investors that advertisers will expand their spending with Facebook dramatically.” – the heady days of a ‘Mad Men’-esque advertising industry are, well not ‘over’ but definitely ‘on hold’…and in a time of increasingly restricted budgets, Facebook faces the challenge of convincing investors that it is the most desirable and engaging direct-to-consumer platform.

Now, this sounds like an easy enough sell given its popularity, but the delicate balance Facebook needs to strike is to merge advertising into the users experience without becoming too abrasive for the 850million members – something that has already been flagged as an issue with advertising regulators taking steps to allow web users the option of opting out of all Online Behavioural Advertising. While this will make web browsing less intrusive for the consumer, it could spell trouble for Facebook’s ad revenue…

• Cashing in on China

“China has around 500 million citizens on the internet, and social networking is as ubiquitous there as it is in the West, but Facebook is blocked by the Communist authorities in favour of local sites that are willing to censor.” – the absence of a single dominant social network makes China a hugely promising market for Facebook and although there are no definite plans for Facebook to look East yet, perhaps you could be scrolling through your friends ‘狀態更新’s soon…

Now it’s not for me to say whether Facebook should focus on hosting apps that offer focused advertising for Chinese organisations, or whether it should celebrate it’s $100bn and sell up to one of the other tech behemoths, but even the most hardened cynics can’t questions that from a college dorm creation to $100 billion, is an inspiring journey…

For more thoughts from the H+K Strategies’ Technology team, check us out on Twitter – @HK_TechLabs

Those of you who have come to see us in Soho Square this year, will have seen that our ground floor was screened off whilst it underwent a bit of an ‘extreme makeover’.

Well the ‘big reveal’ was yesterday morning and I must say we are looking hot imho.

Mind you, it is still taking a bit of getting used to as everytime I come down in the lift, I think i have just  been transported to a rather cool hotel lobby rather than just down to our ground floor.

Thankfully the coffee machine is working today and our lovely barman Andrew was back to his usual singing self!

Well down to our boys in Facilities for sorting it all out for us!

This year’s World Economic Forum in Davos was one of the most anticipated of recent years. At the forefront of the agenda, global growth, euro zone and the wealth gap between the haves and have-nots – in part thanks to the presence of strands of the Occupy protestors’ movement.

Welcoming the great and good of the world, Davos attendees included British Prime Minister David Cameron, business leaders Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook) and Paul Polman (Unilever), and even ageing musician Mick Jagger. Included as part of the stellar cast of dignitaries, Hill+Knowlton Strategies client Wipro Chairman, Azim Premji and CEO, TK Kurien were also present.

Wipro’s Mr. Premji was listed, prior to WEF, as one of the top 10 power brokers to watch at Davos. It was evident that Wipro’s 2012 appearance would be one of its most significant. Representing a booming Indian economy, Wipro would discuss global growth in face of economic uncertainty.

To help promote its message, Wipro sought to secure an audience with some of the world’s most influential journalists. Flexing the global reach and network of H+K Strategies, the UK Technology team coordinated international outreach in partnership with its counterparts in the US and India.

In the weeks before WEF, the UK, US and Indian teams worked closely with the Wipro in-house team to arrange high-profile interviews with their respective media to ensure a global response. Populating busy schedules for Mr. Premji and TK Kurien, the teams arranged briefings with Reuters, The Economist, The Daily Telegraph, CNBC EMEA, CNN International, Bloomberg TV (Europe), BBC (Radio 4 and News Online) and New York Times. The response was overwhelmingly positive with media keen to hear from two of the world’s most relevant businessmen and gather their thoughts on how to repair the economy.

During a hectic week, where H+K Strategies and Wipro communications teams juggled schedules and continued to secure briefings, Wipro executives met with some of the world’s most influential media, sharing the company’s vision and building relationships for the future. In its 8^th year at Davos, Wipro acknowledged one of its greatest ever media responses and an exceptional quality of media reached.  Attending over 20 interviews, with international media, in just five days – H+K Strategies’ Technology, in partnership with our friends at Wipro, has set the scene for a great year ahead.

CNBC Europe

CNN International

Bloomberg TV

For more information on the H+K Strategies’ Technology team, follow us on Twitter – @HK_TechLabs

It’s a bit like when you are a buying a car, you see car ads everywhere.  I keep seeing new developments of our ‘ones to watch’. There is the fascinating Carrotmob, which uses collective spending power to make companies behave more sustainably.

And on the hunt for a vacuum cleaner, I was interested to come across Electrofarm.  I am very tempted to buy one of their previously used cleaners.  Not ’second hand’ I noticed, the word does not seem to appear on their website.   I also liked the money back guarantee and the warranty.  I will let you know if I go for it.

Welcome to the new blog from the CR + Sustainability team in London. We thought about giving you our predictions for the year, but with so many lists out there, you are probably sick of them already.  When we were discussing it, we kept coming back to five areas that fascinated us and we wanted to watch develop in 2012.

So here are our ‘ones to watch’.  They may turn out to be trends or they may not.  What we will aim to do over the course of the year is to write about how they change, grow or whatever…

1. Austerity living takes off

We wonder if this is the year, that living differently in an age of austerity becomes cool.  In our minds, this is not about depriving yourself, it’s about living in a way that saves you money, but can be fun and makes you feel good because it was smart.  It could be sharing more things rather than buying, splitting weekly shops with friends to save money and avoid throwing anything away or making money out of the things you no longer need.  We may have already seen some signs of this in the study by Young and Rubican published just before Christmas.

2. Companies exploring new business models

Last year we saw companies explore how they can find additional or new revenue streams from sustainable business models – things like new business models from the Co-operative, with its energy company and Recyclematch, launching an  eBay-like market for industrial waste, as well as start-ups like in.gredients, (soon to be launched),  which  will be the first package-free and zero waste grocery store or Dyesol (formed in 2004), a supplier of solar technology that has integrated solar cells into fabric,  such as backpacks and tents to give access to portable sustainable energy solutions. More examples are in WWF’s Green game-changers report.  Old models of consumption are no longer fit for purpose and we think we will see more renting, less ownership, reselling and making money out of waste…

3. Activists teaching us how to be creative…

Over the past couple of years we have seen activists such as Greenpeace, 38 degrees and AVAAZ use social media and other digital channels, to successfully protest in creative and innovative ways. Greenpeace had a taste of success in June 2011, when it was announced that, “the most-watched-ever advert to hit YouTube was Volkswagen’s “The Force”. Activists are teaching us all how to drive change through creativity. We see groups replicate previous successful campaigns, for example, one of the original spoof hijackings of Exxon Mobil, was so popular that, now when a brand enters a crisis, someone copies the idea and sets up another fake account for the brand they are attacking. When we find ways to get attention, we expect others to use these techniques. We now even have organisations like The Yes Men running a hub to teach other activist organisations how to creatively gain attention through media pranks and stunts. It will be interesting to watch how this grows over the next year, what else we can learn from activists and what other creative ways of protesting comes through…

4. Sustainability benefitting from the recession

Times are tight for companies and individuals, whether or not we fall back into recession.  We’re all having to make do with less and make that go further.  This is good for sustainability, so maybe tough times will help build the case for sustainability for both businesses and for individuals.  Will organisations think twice about cutting back a team who can help deliver efficiency and cost savings? Or companies who invest in this area succeed in making their businesses more robust?  Ironically this could be an opportunity for the leaders to push harder and get even further ahead. On the other hand, it may force a race to the bottom with companies simply offering cheaper and cheaper goods regardless of the environmental impact.

5. A new game changer emerging in 2012

For many years the sustainability business leaders have been companies such as M&S, Unilever and SAB Miller .  It seems to us that it is time for another leader to emerge.  We have a hope that it will come from the tech sector.  As we can see from Greenpeace’s Greener Guide to Electronics, tech companies are moving in this direction. Treehugger this month reported from CES 2012, that “consumer electronics manufacturers have a long way to go before the industry can be called “sustainable”… But companies have come a long way in even just the last few years in designing for recyclability and efficiency”. With risks piling up around areas like the supply chain and e-waste, 2012 could be an opportunity for a game changer to emerge.

The failure of Egypt, the champions of the past three tournaments, to qualify for the 2012 African Cup of Nations, alongside the absence of regional heavyweights Cameroon and Nigeria, has thrown the tournament wide open.

However, the list of qualifiers for the tournament has thrown up a number of surprise names, not least Libya and Sudan, as well as (less surprisingly) Tunisia and Morocco. Alongside Algeria (who just missed out of qualification) and Egypt, all these nations have experienced significant upheavals and protests during the Arab Spring and in the case of Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, regime change.

It seems implausible that national footballers can remain unaffected by such political turmoil. Yet in many ways the performances of the North African national football sides in 2011 have reflected the political actions of the Arab Spring in each nation. With the exception of Egypt, the statistics also show that all of these North African nations have dramatically improved their results on the football field since the beginning of the Arab Spring in each nation as compared to results from the 12 months prior.

Why? Read on here

We recently hosted a sustainable brands roundtable, here at H+K, in association with Forum for the Future. A diverse group of sustainability marketeers attended (Burberry, Alliance Boots, Cafedirect, Dyson and eBay to name a few), some brands were just stepping into this space and some had been carrying the flag for years, but the desire to mainstream sustainability was felt throughout the room.

1. Forum for the Future has been exploring the role of brands as agents of transformative change for some time, most recently through the launch of Consumer Futures. This research highlighted that there are huge opportunities for brands to engage with consumers on sustainability. It’s clear that most companies are only beginning to explore what sustainability means for their brand, and what their brand can do for sustainability. At the roundtable, we had a productive and lively discussion about what brands need to do individually and collectively. Three take outs from the session were the need for brands to:
2. 
3. 1) Be brave: There are huge (commercial) opportunities out there for brands on this agenda if they’re prepared to be brave and do things differently
4. 2) Be authentic: It’s crucial to find what’s authentic to the brand (e.g. quality/ durability in the case of the Patagonia/ eBay partnership) and to play to those strengths, rather than blindly trying to sell ‘green’ credentials to an audience who aren’t looking for that
5. 3) Be open: Don’t do this in
   a vacuum. Sharing challenges, stories and best practice openly with non-rival brands can be hugely inspiring and empowering. It’s only by coming together that we’ll stand any chance of overcoming some of the systemic barriers that exist.

There are of course plenty of challenges to overcome before brands and sustainability can work together to deliver a sustainable future, from the ways in which marketeers are incentivised through to the tensions in that small phrase, sustainable consumption.

Overall it was really encouraging to see the enthusiasm for brands wanting to push the boundaries in this area.

I always regret not going home for Thanksgiving, as it is one of the my favorite days of the year. No gift pressure. Just food, family, friends and football. I’ve resisted the urge to spray some pepper on the turkey below because today is about the best of America and my country’s roots as a nation made strong by immigrants from all lands. Now that I am one myself, this really hits home. I did however balance the sweet sentimentality of this Rockwell painting with an old favorite Thanksgiving theme video embedded below. People here in the London office didn’t quite get the appeal, so it might be an American thing. You’re welcome.

Norman Rockwell: Thanksgiving