As we reach the end of 2020, it’s no understatement to say the experience of the last year has been of epic proportions.
For our team, our business and our clients, 2020 has been a year of monumental highs and lows, where we’ve tried to predict the unpredictable, revolutionised how we work and play, swapped offices for homes, exchanged teams for Teams and used the phrase ‘you’re on mute’ more times in a week that we’ve done in a pre-pandemic lifetime.
But in the year that forced us apart, we’ve also come together.
As a team, and as a growing business.
And as we finished the year admittedly nursing a few Covid battle scars, there’s a lot to be proud of. We’ve won more work than we lost at the start of the pandemic, expanded and developed new service lines, have won national awards and almost tripled the size of our business with two fantastic acquisitions in W&P and Redhouse – which now puts us in the Top 5 B2B PR agencies in the UK.
But on top of all that – and most importantly – as a team we’ve stuck together, kept close to our clients, and supported one another. In hard times as an agency we’ve always looked to our values to influence and guide our actions and this has never been truer than in 202o – when Think Differently, Advise Wisely, Support Positively and Deliver Consistently have been the golden threads running through so many of our achievements.
Some – and by no means all of these include:
Girl Power – our Brand You business leader profiling programme has gone from strength to strength and it’s been an absolute delight to work with our leaders and entrepreneurs, including Connie Nam and the phenomenal Astrid & Miyu team, profiling the stellar growth of their business. In just six months, we’ve worked with the team to raise Connie’s profile on the national stage with a 9th place ranking in the Sunday Times Virgin Atlantic Fast Track 100 and national award wins including the 2020 NatWest everywoman Awards, the Great British Entrepreneur Awards and the Barclays Entrepreneur Awards, as well as delivering a run of national media profiles.
Navigating Change – our maritime team has worked with clients to champion major issues relating to an industry often out of sight and out of mind. This included working with client Nautilus International to secure national exposure for its Crew Changes campaign for the hundreds of thousands of seafarers who are unable to leave or join their vessel due to the Covid pandemic – securing high profile national news pieces with the BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Times and The New Statesman.
Painting pictures with – well, pictures – our maritime team also secured a record-breaking 2,000+ entries to this year’s Shipwrecked Mariners photography competition – which generated a whopping 370 pieces of coverage for the charity, with our digital galleries featured in The Times, The Guardian, Metro, BBC News and The Mail Online.
Global Recognition – our team has delivered a number of international media campaigns throughout the year, including selling in the news of eight-times Paralympian athlete Blake Leeper’s appeal to run in the Olympics, taking this to the highest Swiss court supported by our US law firm client Winston & Strawn. Sky Sports News and the BBC ran the story a total of 11 times across five programmes and on the BBC website with a total audience of 17 million.
Championing Keyworkers – our Health & Wellness team has delivered a range of projects to champion the fantastic work of care providers during Covid – from working with care home Royal Alfred Seafarers Society during the pandemic, including a series of heartwarming resident video stories, to working with Kirkwood Hospice to help drive future fundraising. Activity around health tech innovation during the pandemic also kept us busy, spanning assisted living, to tracking NHS patient satisfaction.
Life in Lockdown and Wellness at Work – our work with Benenden Health topped 2 billion opportunities to hear about this leading healthcare provider from campaigns delivered this year, which included positive physical and mental wellbeing during the pandemic, mental health in the workplace and latterly awareness around perinatal health – which secured recent coverage in the Sun. We also lined up CEO Bob Andrews on Sky TV speaking about the future of healthcare in the UK.
Winner winner chicken dinner – and last but by no means least – winning B2B Agency of the Year at the PR Moment Awards 2020. We missed out on the glitzy awards do, but more than made up for it at our Taskmaster themed zoom Christmas party. What you can create from a root vegetable is a sight to behold.
It goes without saying – but I will – that we couldn’t have done any of this without our amazing clients, but even more so, without our talented team. It’s down to you that we are still here, still together and still smiling. And after the Coronacoaster we’ve been on, that’s some achievement.
Here’s to an even bigger and better 2021 for us all.
Louise.