Kicking Off The New Year In True Blue Style

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Whilst fans up and down the country were watching their footballing heroes go toe-to-toe for the first three points of 2015 from the stands or at home, we were delighted to be rubbing shoulders with them along with 10 year old Raza Mohammed.

The lucky Rolls Crescent Primary School pupil kicked off his New Year in true Blue style and joined the team after winning a design competition to find a mascot for the New Year’s Day home tie against Sunderland.

The creative contest, organised by Official Manchester City FC Partner, Nissan, saw schoolchildren across Manchester invited to design their dream Nissan Juke, personalised by taking Manchester City FC as their inspiration. Up for grabs was the ultimate City fan’s prize – the chance to lead the team out of the tunnel and centre stage on to the famous Etihad pitch.

Taking inspiration from the Club’s beginnings and Mancunian heritage, Raza’s design featured the Citizen’s iconic blue and features a symbol taken from the arms of Manchester – a golden eagle.

Raza was treated to a specially-created Nissan Manchester City FC Home Mascot Experience, starting with a surprise chauffeured car journey to the stadium in the ‘MCFC Juke’, a car wrapped in his winning design. His prize also included match tickets, a full team strip, a tour of the Etihad Stadium, access to the home team changing room and the chance to take a shot against City’s goalkeeper in front of a roaring home crowd.

“I was really nervous before we walked out, but I’ve had an amazing day and enjoyed watching the match. Getting picked up and driven to the stadium in my car was really cool too. I’ll never forget today,” said Raza.

As a Club with roots firmly in the local community, Rolls Crescent is just one of the schools that Manchester City FC’s award-winning City in the Community (CITC) regularly works with to help empower lives through football.

All activity was delivered by Rule 5.

Five Nominations For Rule 5 In The Northern Digital Awards

Picture4Rule 5 has been shortlisted five times in the Northern Digital Awards.

The awards recognise the very best in digital marketing campaigns and talent in the North and will be staged at the Royal Armouries in Leeds in January 2015.

Rule 5 has received nominations in each of the five categories entered, including the Best Digital Marketing Campaign – Entertainment/Sports, Best Use of Social Media, Best Use of Video and Small Digital Agency of the Year.

Recognised campaigns include the agency’s work for the UCI Track Cycling World Cup, for which Rule 5 receives three nominations, and the launch of Royal Albert’s Miranda Kerr range.

Both campaigns are nominated for Best Use of Social Media, a category the agency won at this year’s Big Chip Awards.

Track World Cup Social Impacts Top 130m

Track Cycling World Cup

The agency working with British Cycling delivered an astonishing 137 million impacts on Twitter last weekend for the UCI Track Cycling World Cup, a key contest in the run up to Rio 2016. Teams from 39 nations were at the Lee Valley VeloPark in the velodrome that was used at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The social media campaign incorporated video content, edited and shared in near real-time ahead of TV highlights which will be shown on BBC 1 next Saturday. Gold Medal wins from the men’s and women’s team pursuit teams plus Laura Trott in the omnium, Owain Doull and Mark Christian for Great Britain in the madison provided some of the electrifying content.  The social campaign also used interviews with fashion guru and cycling fan Sir Paul Smith and fellow knight and six times Olympic track cycling champion Sir Chris Hoy.

“We had a team of five working shifts throughout the weekend posting content on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, as well as a live blog from 7am through to midnight”, said Rule 5’s Rob Brown. “We were working hand in hand with British Cycling’s team to ensure that if you were following the event on your phone, laptop, tablet or PC you got a real sense of the excitement.”

Social coverage was monitored using Facebook Insights, YouTube Analytics and TweetBinder, which allowed the Twitter statistics to be tracked in real time. Over thirteen thousand tweets used the hashtag #TWC or #TrackWorldCup or the phrase ‘Track World Cup’, reaching 24.4 million people at an average of 5.5 times across the weekend and generating 137m impacts.

Tips from the top. What journalists really think when you’re selling-in

Selling in is core to a PR’s role and as the media landscape continues to evolve and develop, so must we. We are never too old or ‘good at PR’ to learn new tricks and getting insight from our peers is fundamental to growing our expertise.

That said, hearing those nine magical words – ‘can you send it through to the news desk’ – when you’ve finally managed to reach a real person after hours of being stonewalled by man’s friend, voicemail, can be frustrating.

News creation and distribution agency 72Point hosted a breakfast seminar last Thursday. Hosted by Doug Shields, Sam Allcock and Chris Brooks, the talk offered insider tips and advice to help extend the reach of radio, press and digital campaigns.

Notebooks, pens and mobile phones in hand to tweet using the official #72seminar hashtag, Account Executives Chidi and Rachel headed into town to hear what they had to say.

Here are just a few of the tips we came away with:

  1. Send stories early

Journalists on national news desks start their day around 7 or 8am and head into news meetings at 10am. Get your news to them as early as possible to give yourself the best chance of getting on their agenda.

News site web traffic is at its peak at 9am, 1pm and 4pm, with the most popular content featured prominently on home pages and in dedicated ‘trending’ sections.

  1. Keep it brief on the phone and don’t overlook the power of newswires

Tell them you’ve got a story and read the first paragraph. You’ll know if you’ve got their attention if they keep listening. Having the story on a newswire gives it extra credibility too.

  1. Paid for promotions are worth thinking about

So you’ve secured coverage on a national news site and have hit a KPI. Being published shouldn’t mark the end of your activity. You should share links on social media and consider boosting your posts. What works in print shouldn’t be confined to that – extend the reach of all stories in rounded and integrated outreach.

  1. Know your audience

Think about tailoring copy to fit in with style of your target title, as it will be noticed. This is especially true for radio. A press release written as a 15 second news bite shows the story at its full potential. Don’t forget to send the full story along with it for background.

  1. Time is a premium

Make a journalist’s job as straightforward as possible. They just don’t have the time to chase you for extra information. Put the story’s key facts in bullet points at the top – the body of your release might be edited when published, but the most important details will remain.

So This is Christmas?

John Lewis 2014 1

Love or loathe it, that time of year is upon us again. Apple Weather increasingly threatens cloud with a scattering of frostbite towards the afternoon, and inboxes ping with the daily flux of year-end invitations, “Dear <<firstname>>”.  The rebels among us might already be quietly snaffling spiced mince pies.

Yesterday, retail giant John Lewis revealed yet another suitably visceral Christmas TVC. The reception at Rule 5 HQ was decidedly mixed — there were goosebumps sure, some coincidentally watering eyes and what one staffer is calling a penguin-induced nostalgia for all things merry and bright.

It’s widely accepted that the official festive season begins each year when John Lewis deems it so, such is our national affinity with the brand’s hallmark adverts. Some maintain this right belongs to Coca-Cola, the sugar king’s ‘Holidays are coming’ commercial topping Metro’s list of things that put us firmly in the Christmas spirit.

Whichever school of thought you subscribe to, it’s clear the keen effect brand messages have on us during these sentimental months. Would John Lewis’ winter wonderland be so beloved were the ad’s £7m price tag proudly attached? That’s a lot of turkey dinners for people in need.

As an agency, we are often charged with delivering a message that must compete for share of voice against a tide of seasonal news, views and other more abstract editorial interests. It is the remit of every PR to discover what is unique about a story, to express this in real terms and make it matter.

We’re entrusted with the heart and soul of each campaign we deliver, and as the silly season arrives ever-earlier, it reminds us that no year will be the same as the last, no message guaranteed to top the news agenda and no matter how heavy the campaign price tag, there is no ready formula for commercial success at Christmas.

Penguins, however, are eternal.