Futureheads is a leading tech recruitment business working to build teams for some of the UK’s most exciting tech-led businesses. Futureheads engaged Bristol-based comms agency, Yours Sincerely, to act as their external marketing team, with the aim to take their marketing to the next level, re-engage with their existing users and bring the Futureheads brand to a whole new audience.
Working directly with the Board and Senior Leadership Team, Yours Sincerely initially worked with Futureheads to develop a detailed marketing strategy. This strategy built on their existing plans, whilst also activating new ways of working to supercharge marketing efforts. What’s more, and crucially in terms of delivery, this strategy was built specifically to deliver against the wider business’s commercial objectives.
Following this, a detailed channel plan was built and YS began delivering against this, acting as Futureheads marketing team. Tactics implemented spanned the digital spectrum, including everything from content marketing, email, paid search and social, to PR, digital events and more.
Within 12 months of working together, Yours Sincerely had:
Co-founder of Futureheads, Be Kaler Pilgrim, commented:
“We chose to work with YS as they really understand our business, our wider strategy goals, and what we are trying to achieve. Within the first three months we saw our social KPIs jump more than our total goal for the previous year, and have continued to see similar successes across a number of channels. As the business landscape has changed, they’ve adapted with us, continuing to add value and their expertise. We very much see the team at YS as part of the Futureheads team and would recommend them to anyone.”
If you are looking to supercharge your marketing strategy this year, Yours Sincerely would love to help.
This year, we’re kicking off our first guest blog series with Jon Mowat, founder of the award-winning video and marketing agency, Hurricane Media and author of the book “Video Marketing Strategy”.
Sharing his thoughts on how lockdown has affected the video marketing landscape, to suggesting how brands can best adapt to meet these new trends, Jon’s insight unpacks issues at the very forefront of video today.
“People have realised you don’t necessarily need production to be shiny. You just have to be authentic.”
When it comes to video consumption and engagement, the three key things that lockdown has affected are volume, duration and tone. During lockdown, adults spent 40% of their day in front of screens and their time spent on streaming services doubled. Not only have we gained back time from the commute, but video has also become an essential part of our daily life – be it video calls at work or social media.
Duration is the other thing that’s changed – long form video has increased in popularity, as have webinars. So the average watch time has gone up too. I was talking to a colleague of mine at the video marketing platform, 23 – they’ve seen a 1710% increase in webinar usage on their platform in 6 months, and most webinars are over 30 minutes.
The third effect of lockdown is that the tone of video has changed. Brands have been forced to develop a more authentic tone of voice and react faster to the real world. Some of the shine has gone from brand films due to the impact of the pandemic on production, but everyone’s realised you don’t necessarily need it to be shiny. You just have to be authentic.
The big video trends of 2021? Well, these will continue to be driven by an increased fragmentation of formats. We’ve got YouTube, Facebook and Tik Tok as established leaders, but there will be others like these in the pipeline, as well as more variations of video being shared on these channels. Some will be 5 seconds, some 15 seconds, and some 25 seconds. On top of that, you’ve got the addition of longer form content coming into the marketing stack more and more, from webinars to mid funnel consideration content.
“Brands need to adapt to people becoming less sympathetic to corporate messages – they want more emotive, “real” quality content.”
Brands need to have a wider strategy than just one single form of content. At Hurricane, we help brands to consider how they’re going to repurpose their content across all of these platforms, as well as which to focus on. Trying to be on all of them will stretch resources too thin and weaken your targeting.
Alongside this, brands are having to adapt to the fact that people are becoming less sympathetic to corporate messages. Viewers want more emotive, “real” quality content. So brands also have to think about how they can make content that’s emotional and that really connects to its audience.
On top of this, with different parts of the sales funnel using different platforms, brands also have to focus on using the right content at the right time. For instance, you may have an initial 15 second video on Instagram to capture attention, followed by a three minute YouTube piece, ultimately driving viewers to a two hour webinar. It’s about understanding the digital sales funnel and serving the right content at the right time.
“The days when you could just put content on your website, put it on your social, and still make traffic, are long gone.”
There are two parts to this: ensuring your content gets found by a SERP and creating content that’s engaging. SERPs, especially YouTube, care about two things: clicks and engagement. Essentially, this means it’s not enough making sure people click, you need to make them stay too. A good way to achieve this is by doubling down on thumbnails and descriptions, making sure that you’ve got that strong emotional connection in the first ten seconds. And, if it’s long-form, you need to give people reasons to stay by building up to a crescendo and dropping a few stats at key moments as you go along.
The second thing is that, now more than ever, you have to put paid behind your content. The days when you could just put it on your website, put it on your social, and still make traffic are long gone. Content that hasn’t got paid behind it is now being actively punished by SERPs as they want to push things that are being paid. So with paid activity, yes you’re going to get found by a new group of people, but it also means your organic posts will appear higher to your existing followers. If you choose not to put money behind your posts, they are more likely to disappear without a trace. So firstly, focus on people clicking it and watching it, but then also focus on getting people to find it, which is through paid activity.
“What we’re actually doing with video is we’re affecting behaviour by changing brain chemistry. That’s why it’s so powerful. It’s a science of activating emotions.”
There are four key reasons that video works: one, it has a moving image; two, we just can’t put our phones down; three, it’s highly targeted; and four, it allows emotional storytelling.
So first, let’s look at moving image. As humans, we’ve got these things in our eyes, called ganglion cells, that are designed to pick up movement, which evolved over time to stop us getting eaten. If you look at a scene and something moves, your eyes are instantly drawn to it. The ganglion cells trigger a reaction so you pay attention. It’s known as the Snake Detection Theory and it’s why, if your phone is facing down on the other side of the desk and you get a LinkedIn notification, you’re instantly drawn to the tiny lighting change that you eyes detect. You don’t stand a chance of ignoring it!
Number two is that we love dopamine. And every time we pick up a phone, and see that we’ve got a like, or a social mention, or we get re-shared, we get a little kick of dopamine. The phone is a dopamine pump and we love it. Loads of research has been done into it, and app developers know how to maximize its addictiveness, which is why you get irregular notifications and irregular likes, because we’re never quite sure when that treat is coming.
Then the next thing is that it’s highly targeted. As marketers, we can now target specific socio-economic groups. This targeting means that we can be much more effective with our content. Unlike TV which has a mass audience, you’re aiming a video at people who are exactly your audience. You can look at keywords they’re using, their consumption patterns, their location, what conversations they take part in and more. All of which means people are served highly relevant videos.
And then the big one is emotional storytelling. Since neanderthals sat around campfires 700,000 years ago, human beings have communicated through stories (both visual and verbal). When we tell a story, and when we hear a story, all sorts of chemicals kick around our brain. The amygdala kicks off, the hippocampus kicks off, and we get all of these neurochemicals like vasopressin, serotonin and endorphins pumping around the body. These make us ready to listen, and ready to learn. And, when we tell emotional stories with video, it’s the same reaction – we are naturally more engaged and our vasopressin, endorphins and oxytocin levels go through the roof. What’s fascinating is that this correlates directly with behaviour. For instance, High Cortisol and oxytocin levels directly correlate to how much money you’re willing to give to charity.
In the real world, if you show a powerful charity film to people, they are more likely to donate. So the worst thing to do is to create a film that just says, “well, here’s a thing that we do that’s important”, because you’re not connecting emotionally at any point. Whereas, if you add a personal story and emotional music, then we’re forced to directly connect with it. It bypasses the logical part of the brain and creates an emotional response. So what we’re actually doing with emotional stories is directly changing behaviour by changing brain chemistry. That’s why it’s so powerful. It’s a science of activating emotions.
I think my favourite campaign at the moment is for Sykes Holiday Cottages, which is on national TV at the moment. Not only were we able to build on the existing creative that we had done for the brand, but it speaks directly to the current climate of the pandemic. We’ve managed to centre the messaging around why you should holiday in the UK without being horrifically obvious or alarmist, while being focused on the authentic and warm truth that we all love spending time with our family on holiday.
Alongside this 30 seconds “above the line” TV commercial, we’ve also targeted individual pieces of content digitally at the four of Skyes’ key audiences. What we’re doing is reaching a mass audience with the TV, while at the same time, highly targeting specific audiences on Facebook and Instagram with different messaging and formats. The campaign is connected with the same central idea, but additional video formats have been approached in a different manner depending on the audience. I think that’s very much the way everything’s going; taking one single idea and then running it through all the assets and all the different platforms.
We’ve also just created a series of 15-seconds-long adverts over Christmas for Shelter which were very successful. This was coupled with a 45 minute Christmas carol concert, which delivered great engagement rates and generated a lot of donations. This goes back to my earlier point that there’s no longer ‘the perfect’ duration, there’s only the correct duration for what you’re trying to achieve. It’s now about being flexible and changing your approach based on your understanding of the platform – asking yourself who’s on it, what they want and how to talk to them in the best way.
I think the key takeaway for 2021 is that video will make a huge difference to your brand, but it’s worth being mindful about where you spend your money. No matter the budget, if you haven’t planned it – what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and who you’re talking to – it won’t have the desired impact and you’ll waste money. Ultimately, video will help transform your brand but you need to know what it is you want to achieve with it, and it’s a good idea to consider getting someone on board to help you do this.
The second edition of Jon’s book, Video Marketing Strategy: Harness the Power of Online Video to Drive Brand Growth, published later this year, delves deeper into the future of video and it’s increasing importance within the world of digital marketing. You can find it on Amazon or purchase directly from the publisher.
We don’t need to repeat what you’ve already heard – 2020 was pretty unforgiving. This post, however, is not about the last year, it’s about looking forward to the upcoming year and beginning to predict what tools we might need to include in our arsenal for the coming year.
We’ve gathered insight from our clients, and the Financial Services industry as a whole, and have pulled together key activities that every business in the Financial Services industry should do now, to take their marketing to the next level in 2021.
One thing that will remain certain, especially for the early part of this year, is uncertainty. The most effective marketing plans will be built to be fluid, flexible and adaptable – that way change can be easily navigated.
When Covid struck and the country came to a stand-still, there was a wide-spread feeling of uncertainty both around people’s personal finances as well as the wider economy. For Financial Services companies, this presented an opportunity to step in and provide assurances and insight.
Starling Bank ran a content series offering money management and financial advice to those who had been furloughed. Moneyhub Enterprise, on other hand, made their unique insights available in the form of a spending tracker – monitoring the habits and trends of users and allowing businesses to see where and how people are spending (or not spending) and plan around this.
More broadly, when it comes to making these plans, don’t put all your eggs in one basket – as we’ve seen, anything could change. In terms of execution, consumers need brands they can trust more than ever. A number of 2020’s challenges are likely to remain well into next year and beyond, so smart FS brands will continue to step in and help the consumer navigate through this difficult time.
A lot of brands will be working with smaller budgets going into 2021, so keeping a close eye on the bottom line and ensuring shrinking budgets are being put to best use will be more imperative than ever. Any good marketeer will always be focussed on the performance – now is absolutely the right time to report back on 2020’s performance in detail ahead of next year. Marketing budgets are essential for business success, although can often be the first for the chop. Taking the time now to look back on this year will help bolster the likelihood of a stronger budget as we go into 2021.
For smaller brands, no matter which channels of distribution make up your marketing mix, ensure you are able to track each pound back to the source. This may mean spending more time in your website analytics or planning campaigns differently, to ensure that each member of the team is working towards a common ROI based objective.
More broadly, a lot of brands (particularly in the FS space) will work across different platforms and systems and these may not talk to each other. This year is a good opportunity to revisit this. Create a plan, along with other stakeholders, your marketing team, agency or partners and decide which goals are most important to you and begin to get those systems in place to allow for accurate tracking.
One positive outcome of 2020 was the increased sense of community and camaraderie, and this has been reflected in the business world too.
Organisations who have taken care of their staff and their customers have been rewarded and those who have not have had their cards marked. More broadly, research from summer this year shows that Financial Services brands are the least trusted brands by customers – although there are exceptions. FS businesses that take a personal approach can create a brilliant relationship with customers.
This year, take the time to say thank you to staff, clients, partners and customers that have stuck with you over the pandemic. It will go a long way!
There is a huge opportunity for brands in so-called ‘low interest’ categories to rise above the noise by pushing boundaries and going against the grain. This is particularly true when people are looking for something to make them feel good.
Brands in sectors like insurance, energy, banking, medical, law and so on are bound unnecessarily by un-written, and frankly antiquated, rules of branding and marketing. Each with a similar look, similar fonts, similar messaging and similar marketing tactics.
However, when a brave marketing manager bends these rules and gets it right, the result is often break-away growth. We’re already seeing a rising trend in comical or satirical ads, in place of emotional or aspirational ones, Tesco’s ‘No naughty list’ for instance.
And we’ve all seen it happen on the big stage in markets like insurance, with ‘Compare the Meerkat’ all those years ago, or more recently in the energy sector, with Good Energy.
It comes down to idea generation and creativity and the possibilities for creativity right now, particularly in the FS space, are quite literally endless. So, be brave, do something different and push the boundaries in 2021.
We’re all very aware of how quickly the media landscape is changing. New mediums online and offline are worth investigating, so use 2021 as a chance to consider what ‘new’ things you’re going to do. Key media channels have seen real growth this year, January affords some time to stop and reflect on what has worked, and to weave these into your plans for 2021.
Let’s take podcasts as an example, there are currently more than 850,000 active podcasts available to listen to, and 12% of adults in the UK listen to podcasts every week. You just have to look at the success of Churchill Insurance’s ‘Little Chapters of Chill’ campaign which harnessed the power of podcasts to promote mindfulness for families struggling during lockdown.
Podcasts work in the same way as any form of online media, you either create, grow and own the channel as many brands are, or you buy media to reach users that might buy from you.
Podcasts as a form of consumption are growing faster than any other. On top of this, the targeting is becoming more advanced and the audience is far less distracted than other online channels. Hence why 2020 saw the launch of dedicated podcasts from Barclays, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JP Morgan and others.
Plus, the old can still be new – Newsletters have seen something of a resurgence in 2020, offering a welcome return to a direct relationship between publisher and reader. A great example of this is Morning Brew.
Creative approaches to video-led marketing, podcasts and newsletters are three of many interesting and accelerating means of distribution, to unearth new customers and more effectively engage your current customer base in 2021.
There we have it, five crucial considerations for anybody at the heart of a Financial Services marketing world, for a time that will hopefully be a fantastic and prosperous year for us all.
We’ve had the pleasure of working with a range of Financial Services Businesses, in the South West and afar. If you are planning now, for 2021 or you are looking to supercharge your marketing, we’d love to help.
Several times a year, Google makes significant and broad changes to their search algorithms and systems. These ‘core updates’ are designed to ensure Google is delivering on their mission to present relevant and useful content to searches. Whilst the latest instalment has gone under the radar, the updates are a pretty big deal, with many websites having lost rankings, engagement and revenue as a result. So, what are the latest changes and how will they affect how we produce content?
At YS, we’ve pulled together a checklist of questions to ask yourself in the new year, focused on Google’s key factors needed to create killer content in 2021.
For those of us generating content everyday, it can be easy to forget that it’s purpose is to serve the genuine interests of visitors to the site, rather than attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines. Carefully formed content provides value to your audience by solving their problems and in doing so, it positions you as the Go-To for your particular area of expertise.
By asking yourself the questions above and by asking others who you trust, to give an honest assessment of each piece that you produce, the quality of your content will be improved remarkably. If you’ve noticed some of your pages drop in search ranking, consider looking closely at these questions to understand why and how you can improve.
At YS, our goal is to maximise the value of your content to engage and re-engage your audience, bring new customers to your business and help get your message out there.
Whether you’re looking to build and maintain a blog for your brand, drive traffic through ranking across core terms or get the message out through press, social and distributed marketing YOURS . SINCERELY can help.
2020 has certainly been a rollercoaster and while we’ve had some pretty big lows, there’s also been some highs. Over the year, one thing that has come up again and again is the number of inspiring people and businesses that have come together in our city over the past year to support each other.
From our favourite restaurants providing free school meals to virtual initiatives across all sectors, it’s been efforts like these which have helped us get through and kept spirits high despite all the doom and gloom.
To share the love ahead of the end of the year, we thought we’d spend some time saying thank you to Bristol’s Best people and businesses, and encourage others to do the same.
We’re encouraging everyone to use the hashtag #BristolsBest to thank the businesses and people that have been brilliant over the past year – whether someone has stood by your business, supported you in personal capacity or just made you laugh. Why not take 30 seconds to call them out as Bristol’s best?
To help share the love, for everyone who tags us into a social media post ( LinkedIn, twitter or insta) we’ll be randomly sending little gifts from a selection of some of Bristol’s best independent businesses to those nominated and those saying thank you.
So, what are you waiting for? Let’s end the year on a high. Who do you want to call out as BristolsBest?
In the age of information, content is in abundance.
Scroll through social media and you will be spoilt for choice: every company worth its salt pumps out content to win over the hearts and minds of prospective customers.
Sadly, it doesn’t always hit the mark. When the ‘Likes’ are low and the average time spent on the page is not marrying up to your expectations, it might be time to go back to the drawing board.
Whether you have yet to devise a strategy or you want to revisit your plan, we’ve put together a step by step guide to help you win at content marketing.
Often, we spend so much time involved in our own products and services that we fail to see the real issues our customers want to hear about.
The outcome? Complex, jargon-filled content that our target audience has no real need for.
If this sounds familiar, take a step back to map out your buyer’s persona. Instead of taking briefs from an ops team, ask your salespeople to give you the lowdown on the conversations they’re having with prospective clients.
What genuine problems do they have that your content could solve?
By taking the time to understand their unique interests, pain points and motivations for choosing a particular solution, you will form a strong starting point from which to build your content marketing strategy upon.
Your goal is to create a content marketing strategy that attracts a steady flow of on-target traffic to your website. After all, without a strategy, the performance of your content is a matter of luck. As with all marketing activity, your efforts should never be random, nor should they be derailed by something shiny.
(“Shall we do a blog post about…” and “I’ve seen so and so doing a podcast” are perfect examples of how not to plan your content. Don’t chase a bandwagon – start your own.)
The best way to achieve goals is to make them measurable and to tie them into wider marketing KPIs. Content-specific performance indicators will help you stick to goals by giving you clear milestones to tick off that prevent you from getting derailed.
Content KPIs will vary depending on your wider objectives but could include form-fills and conversions, page views, time spent on a page as well as social media metrics and email campaign results.
Once you have identified and set-out a thought-cloud of topics to fuel your content, consider the medium they will best respond to. Written content is a classic – as well as conveying the expertise of your company, it can enhance visibility across search engines given the right research.
However, that doesn’t mean you can’t step outside the parameters of your business’ blog to engage your audience. Research from Cisco projects that global internet traffic from videos will make up 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2021 – and you don’t have to be Spielberg to tell a compelling story through video.
Concise and captivating video content can be as simple as your CEO answering a frequently asked question. It also presents an opportunity to showcase a snippet of your employer brand to the outside world. Charity events and team days out can make for clickable content that acts as a window into your company culture, and all it takes is a phone with a good quality camera to get started.
Beyond video, helpful content such as short slide decks and eye-catching infographics can help your brand to stand out in a crowded space.
Now that you have laid the foundations of your content marketing strategy, the next step is to ensure you can deliver on your intentions.
Without an individual or team to take ownership of your strategy, the task often falls to anyone with free time. Of course, time is money, and when urgent issues take priority, content slips back down to the bottom of the pile until – yep, you guessed it – someone sees something a competitor is doing on LinkedIn and asks:
“Why aren’t we doing that?”
More often than not, it comes down to a lack of commitment.
Simply put – if you want your business to be a leader in content marketing, it must be a top priority. As such, it should have ample resources behind it. Hiring a dedicated team or even just one specialist is far more effective than leaning on the sales team to throw something together when they have a spare moment.
A winning content marketing strategy is often best executed with the help of a content calendar.
Why?
Because a big behemoth that comprises of several mediums and messages can make for a daunting task. By breaking it down into smaller blocks that chunk off particular themes against set times in the year, the plan becomes a lot more manageable.
A reliable content calendar can be organised on a weekly or monthly basis, and helps keep track of all content being produced and published, whether that means upcoming articles, whitepapers, case studies, webinars, or promotional event updates.
As well as saving considerable time, a content calendar keeps the momentum going to prevent infrequency and encourages regular audience engagement.
Top tip: Before putting an editorial calendar together, we recommend undertaking a content audit on your website to determine which pieces can be re-used, re-purposed or re-shared throughout the year.
Just as every business is different, so too are your audiences. While there are certain mediums and channels that help boost engagement and increase reach, there is no off-the-shelf solution that works for all.
Analytics are your North star – they should help guide you in the right direction by identifying what is working and what is not. Don’t hesitate to make changes on the fly: if a particular style of content isn’t resonating as you thought it would, do some digging to discover the reason.
There will nearly always be key takeaways that can tell you more about what went wrong and what to action in the future to improve performance.
Need a hand on creating a content marketing strategy? We’re here to help. Drop us a message or give us a call to find out what we can do for you.
Marketing and Communications agency YOURS. SINCERELY teams up with business leaders for a virtual panel event
For a year that was tipped to be transformational, 2020 has certainly lived up to expectations – just not in the way we had imagined. With budgets slashed and plans rendered redundant, uncertainty looms over the business landscape.
Should we increase digital ad spend? Should we do a webinar? Do our clients want to receive regular comms? What stories are journalists eager to hear, and perhaps more to the point, what do our customers want to hear?
As a comms agency YOURS. SINCERELY, understanding what ‘good’ looks like is a critical part of our day-to-day in helping our clients achieve their goals.
In the wake of recent events, however, we’ve all been forced to re-evaluate the best strategies for success in the ‘new normal’.
In an effort to explore this, we’ve been tracking emerging insights and will be discussing these in more detail with founders and marketing leaders of some of the UK’s most exciting businesses later this month – sign up for free here.
What makes for a successful marketing strategy?
The answer to this question has changed over time in line with technological advancements and cultural evolution. Usually, it takes months and even years for trends to take hold.
In the case of Covid-19, the shift happened overnight.
As lockdown began, entire industries were forced to rethink their approach as the marketing landscape experienced the biggest shake-up in recent history. Marketers across the UK, and the world, were forced to rip up their plans for the year and spin on a dime – but the landscape had changed, and all the previous wisdom about what works was no longer valid.
Want to get your clients to trust you? An aggressive campaign won’t be well-received in this era. Want to offer help but afraid of sounding like a broken record, or worse – an ambulance chaser? Getting cut-through is a delicate balancing act.
So, how can you win the game when the rules have been changed?
If only there was a map to guide marketers through the uncharted waters of the new normal. The good news? We are now seeing some consistency in emerging trends, as well as some valuable insight into what works.
To try and better understand what good looks like in the new landscape, we’re hosting a panel discussion with founders and senior marketers from a range of businesses.
If you’re looking for advice, tips or tricks to survive and even thrive through this challenging time, join us at 10:30am on July 2nd and put your questions to our panel of experts. Find out more and sign up at: http://yourssincerely.online/virtual-panel-event/
If history has taught us anything, it’s that when the going gets tough, marketing is nearly always the first department to face cuts.
Predictably, research from the World Federation of Advertisers’ Covid-19 response tracker has now revealed that 89% of large multinational companies deferred marketing campaigns in April, up from 81% in March. What’s more, 52% of marketers at these companies said they’ll now hold back ad spend for six months or more, compared to just 19% who considered taking similar medium-term action last month.
At present, only 7% of brands want to ‘seize the opportunity’ to invest more in marketing during Covid-19.
While the need to keep a cap on spend and adopt a delicate approach to advertising is perfectly reasonable given the uncertainty of the current climate, this knee-jerk reaction could in fact be to the detriment of their sustainability and growth in the long-term.
When McGraw-Hill Research studied the 1981 and ’82 recession, it found that companies that marketed aggressively had 256% higher sales than those that did not.
Of course, much has changed since then.
However, studies since then have consistently shown that stopping all marketing activity in the wake of an economic downturn hurts a business’ chance of bouncing back stronger.
While the Coronavirus pandemic has been colossal by comparison to previous crises, it would be shortsighted to say there won’t be opportunities for success in the future.
During the financial crash of 2008, swathes of businesses struggled to stay afloat – on the other hand, job losses in the tech and creative industries saw a surge in start-up activity as talented professionals took their skills to new ventures that flourished to become some of the industry’s most dominant players. Uber, Airbnb and Slack were just a few of the enterprises founded at the time of the credit crunch.
In the next ten years, there will no doubt be a host of new brands delivering solutions for a whole new breed of consumer.
The best-received stories on the news right now are the uplifting ones. From a business perspective, that could mean an initiative your company has launched to support your customers, valuable insights your company has uncovered from research or a successful fundraising campaign it has spearheaded.
When pitching stories to the press, it is of the utmost importance for customers to respond positively to the crisis without sounding tone-deaf. Consumers are more alert than ever (no pun intended) to the companies looking for a quick win in the crisis. For that reason, the severity of the situation must always be acknowledged while the tone must be uplifting: juggling the two is a challenging task to say the least.
Prior to the pandemic, people were increasingly engaging with brands who were honest and transparent in their approach, and little will change here.
A recent study from Kantar shone a light into consumer expectations during the coronavirus pandemic. According to their research, 75% of respondents feel strongly that companies should not use this time to promote their band – yet only 8% of the same group suggested that companies should halt PR & advertising activities altogether.
This leaves us in a grey area.
However, 77% of respondents expect brands to be helpful during the pandemic. In practice, that means choosing carefully what you promote, how you position successes and putting the focus firmly on ways you can genuinely support your customers.
It isn’t about spinning an unrelated victory to appeal to your audience or bombarding your audience with ads about how you can “help.”
It’s not about completely cutting spend, but rather about taking a sensitive approach to PR and marketing campaigns. Only by delivering an authentic message that clearly communicates how your product, service or personnel can help during this difficult time.
In truth, it’s the same approach we’ve always taken to advertising, marketing, and PR:
your goal, above all, should be to earn your audience’s trust. Only a genuine brand who stays true to their values can be successful during this time: if that isn’t your business, it’s best to take a step back.
For more advice, insights, tips and tricks in digital marketing and PR, follow us on LinkedIn or get in touch with our team.
The Children’s Air Ambulance appoints YOURS. SINCERELY as retained communications agency in the South West
National charity The Children’s Air Ambulance has appointed Bristol communications agency YOURS. SINCERELY to boost the profile of its life saving work across the country, with an emphasis on the South West.
The Children’s Air Ambulance provides a high speed, helicopter transfer service for critically ill babies and children who are too sick to travel by road, and work with clinical partners at hospitals and specialist centres across the country. Bristol is the second biggest user nationally of the charity’s service with more than 100 potentially life saving missions flown in the region with Bristol’s NEST (Newborn Emergency Stabilisation and Transfer) and WATCh (West Acute Transport for Children) teams.
Dave Richards, Head of Communications at the Children’s Air Ambulance, said: “We’re delighted to be partnering with YOURS. SINCERELY as we maximise awareness of our unique lifesaving service. The agency brings valuable expertise, experience and understanding as we promote the vital work we do in keeping families together.”
YOURS. SINCERELY, a hybrid PR and marketing agency, will work alongside the in-house team at the Children’s Air Ambulance to raise public awareness of its charity status and highlight the essential work it does throughout the region. In particular, the agency will provide strategic consultancy and implement a proactive media engagement campaign.
YOURS. SINCERELY co-founder Amy Simpson said: “We are thrilled to announce our new partnership with the Children’s Air Ambulance and cannot wait to get started. The importance of the work they do cannot be stressed enough and we are looking forward to showcasing the skill and dedication of the team who work tirelessly to help sick children across the country.”
Founded in early 2019, YOURS. SINCERELY has signed a raft of new clients in just six months and is now predicted to hit the £250,000 mark by the end of the year, making it is one of the fastest growing communications agencies in Bristol. Co-founder Amy Simpson, who has previously worked at agencies such as Frank PR and MHP, was one of just fifteen senior professionals selected for PR Week’s prestigious Women in PR 2019 mentoring scheme.
About YOURS.SINCERELY
YOURS.SINCERELY is a hybrid PR and marketing agency which offers a bespoke combination of digital and communications expertise. The agency works with clients spanning a range of industries from fintech, financial services and retail to academia, film and TV and the charity sector. Blending traditional PR and communications with a detailed understanding of the digital landscape and wider marketing discipline, YOURS.SINCERELY offers a range of services from best-in-class content and performance marketing to PR activity and social media management.
For more information, visit www.yourssincerely.online or email team@yourssincerely.online
Moonraker VFX calls for Bristol creative industry to champion inclusion through new mentoring programme
Moonraker VFX, the award-winning Bristol visual effects studio is shining a spotlight on the lack of diversity in the creative industries and leading the call to action by urging more regional companies to join a unique mentoring programme.
Moonraker VFX is a member of the innovative e-mentoring scheme run by ACCESS:VFX, a global non-profit organisation focused on driving inclusion and diversity in the creative industry. The online mentoring initiative is managed by third-party provider, Prospela and uses private Slack channels to connect aspiring talent from all walks of life. Mentors include representatives from some of the leading global VFX, animation and games studios, delivering personalised career advice on demand.
According to diversity statistics released by UK Screen Alliance & Animation UK, only 27% of those working in VFX are female, rising to just 40% in the Animation sector. To date, the ACCESS:VFX mentoring scheme has helped more than 100 people aged between 13 and 41, with 70% of mentees either female or BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) – targets are set to over 350 for 2020.
Leading creative companies such as Framestore, The Mill and DNEG are all onboard and provide mentors for the scheme, alongside Moonraker VFX in the South West.
Emma Kolasinska at Moonraker VFX, commented: “Bristol is at the forefront of the thriving UK creative industry, and as a socially diverse and culturally rich city, we should be leading the way in opening up our industry to talent from all backgrounds. Just think of the positive impact we could have if all the creative studios in Bristol came together for this initiative to inspire the next generation.”
ACCESS:VFX brings together a wealth of experience in an industry-led drive to increase opportunities for aspiring creatives around the globe. With growing numbers across the UK and new chapters opening throughout North America, including Montreal, New York, and Chicago.
“Just last month, the number of mentees and mentors grew 15% and 11% respectively. We’re proud to see an increasing number of students and creatives joining the initiative. However, this is just the beginning, our goal is to make our industry more accessible to everyone, across the country and beyond. This is a call to action as we actively seek industry mentors to help lead talent through their first steps into animation, VFX and post-production” said Simon Devereux from ACCESS:VFX.
Moonraker is a Bristol-based VFX studio, creating award-winning Visual Effects and CGI content for TV, film, commercials, museums and visitor attractions.
Access:VFX
ACCESS:VFX is a global, industry-led, non-profit comprised of 47 leading employers, industry bodies and educational establishments in the VFX, animation and games industries. It focuses on actively pursuing and encouraging inclusion, diversity, awareness and opportunity under its four pillars of Inspiration, Education, Mentoring and Recruitment.
Contact:
Alex Humphries-French at Red Lorry Yellow Lorry
accessvfx@rlyl.com / 020 7403 8878
You need to load content from reCAPTCHA to submit the form. Please note that doing so will share data with third-party providers.
More InformationNotifications