Digital PR Campaigns. How Important Are They?
At 72Point we are constantly experimenting to try and create digital PR campaigns that work for our clients and publishers.
Interestingly we're seeing great results from online quizzes, which are getting great digital pick up with the added benefit of real engagement from readers.
This represents a win for both parties. The client is getting thousands of completions on their quiz which is specifically designed to align with their messaging and the publishers are getting an uptick in terms of dwell time.
Our in-house design team, Oath Studio, create these assets to engage target audiences spanning and coupled with our experience of what stories drive the news agenda, these digital-first campaigns have been driving punchy results for our clients.
YourRedCar
Our recent project for The Romans and YourRedCar featured a fully branded quiz to discover what your car choice says about your personality.
As well as the vast news coverage secured, the quiz delivered 11,568 completions, providing great engagement with the brand and carrying their key message to their audience in a fun and memorable way.
Average completion time of the quiz was 2 minutes and 30 secs, showing that visitors had a solid dwell time too.
Fixter
Likewise, MOT and car service provider Fixter needed content to engage their audience. We put together a quiz to test for dashboard knowledge, promoting their key message of being a revolutionary car maintenance provider.
That quiz generated 11,300 plays to give Fixter a highly engaging asset to embed on their website and supplementing the widespread media coverage secured.
As part of SWNS Media Group, we have access to a social media audience of over 540,000 users, meaning that we can distribute content to a wide audience on those digital platforms, ultimately directing viewers to our clients' websites.
If you'd like to know more, drop us a line. Hello@72point.com
72Point Moves Up the PRWeek Top 150
72Point is delighted to rise up the PRWeek Top 150 rankings yet again this year, now placing at no. 37. Climbing one spot in PRWeek Consumer Top 100, now ranking at no. 8. With a 40 per cent increase in revenue, it's evident 2021 has been our best year yet.
Over 62 per cent of PRWeek Top 150 fastest growing agencies are our clients. We are proud to work alongside the UK's leading PR agencies.
These results are a testament to the hard work of our team throughout the past year. A year in which we’ve grown our team significantly, whilst continuing to evolve our services to match the requirements of our client base... and we’ve had lots of fun along the way working on some cracking campaigns.
Our Managing Director Chris Pharo said: "Thanks to all our clients who have placed their faith in us to deliver, it’s been a hell of a ride. We’re looking forward to what the future of 72Point holds.”
We've Grown Our Creative Department
72Point has grown its creative department, with the hires of Creative Director Sam Brown, Senior Account Manager Rob Etheridge, and Campaigns Director Katie Earlam.
Brown brings a wealth of brand experience having worked as a freelance Creative Director at leading consumer agencies. She joins the team to drive brand work, working across FMCG and consumer lifestyle sectors and has worked with household names such as Selfridges, British Fashion Council and Lidl.
Etheridge joins 72Point from Ogilvy UK. Notable previous client experience includes Ford, LEGO, Nissan, Formula 1, and Bosch, and he has a wide range of B2C comms experience. Etheridge joins to elevate client relations and to manage 72Point’s growing portfolio of clients.
Katie Earlam has been appointed Campaigns Director and has significant media experience having held roles as a News Reporter and TV Columnist at The Sun and Interviews Producer at Sky News. Earlam also holds agency experience, joining from Goldbug Brand & Communications, with previous clients including Martin Lewis, IKEA and Internet Matters.
Chris Pharo, Managing Director said: “I’m thrilled to welcome Sam, Katie and Rob at an exciting time for the business. They each bring an abundance of knowledge and experience to the team, which will be invaluable as 72Point deliver campaigns that engage consumers and land widespread coverage in the national media.”
PRCA Digital Awards 2022 - Shortlist
Some great news on the awards front.
Our 'Christmas Personalities' campaign with client Don't Cry Wolf for Green Chef has been shortlisted in the Best Use of Content Marketing In a Campaign category at the PRCA Digital Awards 2022.
You can check out the creative here on Oath Studio's website: https://lnkd.in/dAYVY9aw
Great work by all and congratulations to all the other great agencies who have been shortlisted.
2021 Year In Review
Words from Chris Pharo, MD of 72Point.
I'll look back on 2021 with many mixed emotions. Like many others across the world, dealing with the Covid pandemic and everything that has come about because of it has been hugely challenging on a personal level.
From a professional perspective I'll look back on it as the year 72Point came of age, with an immense amount of pride in our team and a deep sense of gratitude to the many, many clients who trusted us to deliver on their behalf.
By blending our innate knowledge of what publishers want with the ever more demanding need to make headlines for our clients, I think we've kept our side of the bargain this year.
We've achieved record levels of coverage from a record number of campaigns - achieving more than 50,000 published pieces for the first time in our history.
We've landed more coverage in print than ever before and have seen a huge increase in digital coverage as we expand our capabilities in video, pictures and digital design, all of which are vital in achieving digital cut through.
The OnePoll team have handled more than 4.7 million surveys during the year and have asked an extraordinary 52,000 questions of our panel over the past twelve months, receiving an impressive 80 million answers.
And for those clients for whom news generation is not enough, we have PLAY. Launching a comms shop in a pandemic was not without its risks and I'm incredibly proud of our sister agency, which landed New Consultancy of the Year at the PRWeek awards.
Crunching Numbers
Over the course of 2021, we landed 765 stories for our clients, which generated 50,387 pieces of coverage. With a 34% increase in stories landed from the previous year, we landed 2403 print and 47,984 digital pieces. We all know quality and quantity are both significantly important in our industry, so we were proud to have achieved 18,628 top tier pieces with a domain authority exceeding 70.
We carried out some stellar work for our clients throughout the year!
We gave passengers of the ‘Tranquil Train’ a 15-minute moment of calm for Heathrow Express.
The concept of the ‘Tranquil Train’ was created in order to give passengers a 15 minute moment of calm when travelling on Heathrow Express whereby they could be taken through a guided yoga session by a top instructor and influencer, Celest Pereira. The carriage was decorated with a floral display of lavender and eucalyptus, known for their calming aromas. Passengers were also treated to goody bags featuring a face mask, hand sanitizer and a sleep balm as well as a booklet containing the seated yoga sequence to continue on their onward journey. Coverage highlights included a piece in the Times, MailOnline, New York Post and regional broadcast titles.
We worked with Premier Inn to solve the dilemma of meeting friends and family from far away. Meet Inn the Middle landed 141 pieces of coverage.
It all started with a relatable creative idea about the dilemma of meeting friends and family from far away, deploying research to underpin the concept and boost appeal top publishers. Oath then created a striking digital asset that is central to the story. The result was top coverage in Sun, Express, Mirror, MSN and more, an asset that serves both our client and publishers, and a highly relevant story that will live on.
Our poll for TPF and BLAZE went international, with 148 pieces of coverage across UNILAD, Deadline, TMZ, The Daily Express, and Independent, leading to mentions of US and UK broadcast channels.
A campaign for TV channel BLAZE polled Brits to find the top 20 celebrities or public figures they believe would be best suited to deal with an extra-terrestrial threat. Arnold Schwarzenegger topped the list, and even tweeted about the campaign to his 4.9M followers, thanks Arnie!
Supporting Guide Dogs on the launch of their 90th anniversary appeal resulted in 200+ pieces across the press and 10.6k click throughs on social!
72Point supported Guide Dogs on the launch of their 90th anniversary appeal where the globally renowned portrait photographer Andy Gotts pictured some of the UK’s most -loved celebrities and their four-legged friends. The team secured widespread coverage of the anniversary celebration with a bespoke media sell-in strategy that landed coverage in Express, Mail, MailOnline, Mirror, Telegraph, Times, Metro, Sun, Star, Independent and Scotsman.
I’d like to also give recognition to all the brilliant campaigns we’ve seen from across the world of PR. The Kiyan Prince FIFA 21 campaign by the Engine team was a particularly poignant piece of work that has stuck with me. The creativity applied by Cow, who created a new shade of Pantone to raise awareness of menstruation, was also particularly brilliant.
Wrapping up for Christmas
I'm sure I'm not the only person to have seen their team struggle through the past two years, only to watch as they showed extraordinary resilience, talent and commitment to overcome some challenging odds.
Our team has moved mountains throughout the year and I'm deeply grateful for their efforts. It's an honour to lead them.
I'd also like to say a huge thank you to all our clients for trusting us to carry out work on their behalf during these troubled times. I hope we've repaid it and look forward to continuing the journey in 2022, when hopefully life returns to some semblance of normality.
Vacancy - Team Administrator
We're seeking a part-time Administrator to join our fun and busy team at our Media Centre in Filton, Bristol.
Closing date for receipt of applications: Friday 3rd December
Reporting to: Directors of News Generation
Role: Team Administrator (Part-Time)
Hours & Days: 25 hours per week, 1-5:30pm Tuesday and Wednesday, 9-5:30pm Thursday and Friday with half an hour lunch.
Start Date: ASAP
Who are we? 72Point Ltd is the best kept secret in the PR industry. We generate, produce and deliver survey-based news stories, in addition to visual content such as infographics, interactive quizzes and videos to the national press for Britain’s biggest PR companies and their clients, as well as end users.
Why are we recruiting for this position? We're now expanding our team and looking for the right candidate to join our vibrant crew in the Company’s Bristol office.
What are we looking for in a successful candidate? We are looking for someone who is highly efficient, organised and accurate in their work, along with bags of initiative and is very resilient. We're a small, close-knit team and need an enthusiastic and confident communicator to join us.
Main Duties and Responsibilities:
- Organising and preparing daily creative brainstorm sessions
- Monitoring, managing and updating the team database
- Logging ideas, proposals and past brainstorm lists
- Keeping track of the number of ideas and proposals each team member sends
- Logging all coverage secured
- Keeping the team managers’ diaries synced
- Compiling stats for management
- Managing project trackers / various shared spreadsheets for the wider team
- General office admin and any other ad hoc duties needed for the teams
Experience & Skills:
We are looking for someone who has:
- At least 1-2 years proven administration experience
- Very effective communication skill – both verbal and written
- Excellent written skills - good grammar, spelling, proof reading and punctuation
- Ability to learn quickly but not afraid to ask questions
- Used a Content Management System
Also, that they are:
- Confident in Microsoft Office and OneDrive
- Experience using Teams
- Confident, energetic, not afraid to speak up and happy to organise ‘creative’ people who are constantly working to tight deadlines.
- Able to constantly juggle and reprioritise workloads.
Applications to be sent to: Jessica.buck@72point.com
Good News Update
As a result of the growing appetite from publishers for content from our sister company and news agency SWNS, we are closer than ever to the newsrooms of the mainstream media, and as such from November 1st, feel able to improve our Service Levels to clients for our news generation packages.
In addition to our long standing strength in the non-broadcast, print and digital national media sectors, our growing relations with broadcast media, our social communities and proximity to other digital channels makes this a hugely exciting period to be working with 72Point.
Demand for our services has exploded over the past few months for which we thank all our clients. However, resourcing does not afford us the capability to service the volume of campaigns at current levels to the standards we and our clients expect, so we are forced to cap future capacity to 5 campaigns per day, to ensure both the highest quality creative input, and to achieve the maximum coverage and performance for those projects.
So, from Nov 1st our enhanced packages will be available on the following basis:
For more information on our new enhanced packages, visit our Packages page.
VACANCY - Senior Account Manager
FULL TIME – BRISTOL OR LONDON BASED
Who we are:
72Point is the market-leader in content creation.
We generate, produce and deliver top quality news stories, pictures, videos, visual puzzles and animated infographics to the national news media and beyond.
Our client list includes a string of huge global brands, as well as some of the biggest names on PR Week’s Top 150.
We land coverage every day in print, online and social platforms.
The role will involve overseeing projects for clients from the idea stage to the subsequent issue to the national news media.
The successful candidate will generate strong creative concepts, contribute to brainstorms, pitch to clients, write up ideas, compile survey questions, write tight, engaging news copy and attend meetings / calls with sales staff regularly.
They will also liaise with the digital, video, design and social teams to ensure projects run seamlessly.
Who we need:
We have an exciting new opportunity for a highly creative individual – someone who is passionate about fresh ideas and approaches.
The successful candidate will have their finger on the pulse of popular culture and the current news agenda in social, national and international news as well as TV and radio.
They will be confident, organised, efficient and meticulous.
They will also be brimming with great visual ideas and have the ability to juggle projects while dipping in and out of emails and taking and making calls.
The ideal candidate will have at least 3 years’ experience working within the PR agency world, and will thrive in a fast-paced, demanding environment.
72Point is a great place to work; our offices – and now homes - are positive, vibrant and energetic and full of brilliantly creative people who all contribute to making 72Point a phenomenal ideas factory. And during this unprecedented time we are offering a flexible approach to working.
So if you fancy swapping your current role for a key position at a fun, fast moving and unique company, get in touch.
Please include your salary expectations within your covering letter, and send all applications to hello@72point.com
WE'RE HIRING - CAMPAIGN DIRECTOR
72Point was the fastest rising agency in the PRWeek Top 150 2021 - we are now hiring a whole new department to bring new levels of creative thinking to the business.
As Campaigns Director, you will own the creative process and roll out of work for hundreds of stellar projects a year - from brief to coverage and evaluation.
- You will be responsible for a trio of brand-new recruits, and will work with the established 72Point team, to articulate crisp, visually captivating PR campaigns for household names in the FMCG, consumer, health and beauty sectors.
- You'll be confident and hands-on in pitching, as well as being commercially astute.
- Reporting to the Creative Director, you'll lead your team and workstream, as well as deputise where needed.
- As a senior in the team, you will be given the freedom and scope to spread your wings.
- Leverage your experiences as a creative and commercially driven PR.
- 8-10+ years agency experience - a trophy cabinet full of accolades is a bonus.
- A consumer generalist able to find the right insights to deliver standout work.
- Putting together decks and pitching to clients will be second nature.
- Culturally tuned in.
- Thorough understanding in the role social media plays in the PR mix.
- Energised and inspiring.
Please send CV's through to: campaigndirector@72point.com
How To Reach a News Editor's Desk In 2021
By News Generation Directors Emma Elsworthy and Gemma Francis
In the daily battle for attention that PRs face, many crucial client stories or campaigns can end up never even being seen by the news editors so pivotal to their success. Over the past 15 months, we’ve seen the news agenda go from difficult to downright virtually impossible to contend with.
However, there are some really easy steps to follow to increase the chances of cutting through the noise and getting that all important features editor to take note of your campaign. So, in no particular order:
Smack them in the face with visual assets
Strong visual assets are essential these days and will go a long way to grabbing attention and carrying something into publication. So, if you have strong images / video then put them at the top of your email / message - do not bury them at the bottom and certainly not in an attachment.
All hacks are a sucker for a pun
This is a universal truth, even if they wouldn't dare use a cheap pun in their lofty publication. It will grab their attention, might make them chuckle, and will give them an idea of how to frame / headline the piece. Remember that a good top line with clever wordplay is very often enough to carry a weak story over the line. Make sure your story is as visible as possible in the first two or three lines of copy and include something that will stand out in the subject line of your email.
Put a face to a story
A story that starts 'Man/woman tells how ..." will always beat a story that starts "Company tells how ..." People just love reading about other people and can relate to it. So, if you can 'humanise' your story with an actual person or case study it stands a much better chance.
Drop the branding
We don’t mean altogether, but certainly don’t have branding, logos, and name checks in the first few pars of copy – as that’ll be a turn off straight away. Tell your story first, and then drop your branding in a little lower down – we usually say line five or six, as by that point, editors genuinely want to know where the good story came from.
Don't underestimate the trivial
If something seemingly innocuous sparks a heated debate / banter in the office (or over group chat) then it is probably the starting point of a story. Sometimes a story is simply a talking point, nothing more. And if it can be tied to your brand, then all the better. The most basic example of this is - 'Making a cup of tea - milk or teabag in first?'. Trivial, but always gets people talking.
Go direct if you can
Contrary to popular belief, many journalists are very polite and will respond to a direct approach; it makes them feel special and they are more likely to respond. Whereas if the journo can see they are one of 50 email addresses or a BCC, it's easy to ignore. A personal email which says "Hi, I notice your website / agency / publication does lots of stories on X so I thought this one would work really well for you" is much more likely to get a response.
Use social media
Press releases aren’t the only way to reach publications - most journalists spend their entire working day on social media, and in particular Twitter ... so reach them where they hang out. In addition, all journalists will follow others in their field on social media. If you can't grab the attention of the Consumer Editor of the Sun, you can be guaranteed they will be following the Twitter accounts of all sorts of specialist reporters on smaller publications. So, target the smaller publications and wait for the bigger ones to pick up the story. Or start off in a local paper - it will eventually find its way up the journalistic food chain if it's good enough.
Know your news
It pays to keep abreast of the current news agenda, read the papers, surf the sites, and understand what people are talking about right now. Not only does this help in brainstorms to ensure your ideas are topical and relevant, but it also helps to ensure you are a pitching a story in a timely fashion – and avoid trying to land a story about dream holidays on the day the government announces the traffic light list or restrictions.
We’ve faced one of the most challenging news agendas ever over the past year and it’s often left our industry with the question; do brands still have a story to tell when the nationals are covering such hard-hitting content? The answer is a resounding yes. There will always be room for light-hearted, engaging creative content that provides some tonic and lifts the public’s spirits. And we have the numbers to back it up. Throughout lockdown, we knuckled down and doubled the amount of coverage we secured for our clients. Over the past two months, we have broken our coverage records twice. We have an innate understanding of how the news desks operate and continue to deliver cut-through for our clients.
Get in touch for more information.