PR

Building Bridges in Translational Medicine

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Yesterday (27 May 2015) marked the first day of the EATRIS Building Bridges in Translational Medicine conference, and we were delighted to be in attendance providing PR and social media support.

The conference, attended by leading experts, called for closer industry-academia collaboration.

Speakers discussed the importance of increasing collaboration in the field of translational medicine to ensure new drug developments are cost efficient, get to the market more quickly, and are more effective in treating and preventing leading health issues.

The event, which continues today at The Zuiderkerk in Amsterdam, will see over 250 delegates and key international translational research stakeholders meet to discuss the main opportunities and challenges in the field. Topics include de-risking projects and increasing R&D productivity with the aim of achieving better patient outcomes, new developments within the EATRIS-ERIC consortium, and discussions about how translational research infrastructures contribute to the overall field of translational research.

Speaking at the conference, Giovanni Migliaccio, Scientific Director of EATRIS, comments: “As genuine medical needs remain unmet, it has become increasingly important for our industry to bridge the innovation gap, coming together to work towards a common goal – developing new innovative, cost-effective technologies, products and treatment options for patients.”

He continues: “The theme of the conference reflects our mission: to bring the world’s leading thinkers in translational medicine together in order to foster collaboration and share thoughts and developments face-to-face.”

The Building Bridges in Translational Medicine conference is organised by EATRIS (The European Infrastructure for Translational Medicine) – the permanent academic translational research infrastructure supporting researchers and funders in mitigating risk and adding value to high potential products in biomedical development. It provides industry and academia with access to leading translational research facilities and key expertise across Europe.

The second EATRIS conference follows the successful inaugural event in 2013 and brings together the world’s leading minds in the field of translational medicine.

For further details about EATRIS, visit www.eatris.eu

Photo caption: Jan Langermans, Ph.D. Chairman Animal Science Department, Biomedical Primate Research Centre (BPRC), The Netherlands

Biz Stone Awarded CIPR President’s Medal

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The agency’s Managing Partner and CIPR President 2016, Rob Brown, was delighted to present entrepreneur, Biz Stone, with the CIPR President’s Medal at the SXSW Music, Film, and Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas, this week.

The presentation was made on behalf of Stephen Waddington CIPR President 2014, who awarded the founder and CEO of Super.Me, co-founder of Twitter and contributor to Jelly, Medium, The Obvious Corporation, and Odeo the coveted title.

Biz received the CIPR’s most prestigious accolade for his leadership as an entrepreneur at the forefront of developing new forms of media, networks and applications, modernising the business of public relations by enabling genuine two-way engagement between organisations and their publics.

Commenting on receiving the award, Biz Stone said: “We built Twitter to be readable and writable on every mobile phone on the planet because SMS is ubiquitous. Our goal was to provide the infrastructure to support the creativity and engagement that emerged. That ambition has meant that it has become a platform for public engagement and is part of the changing nature of communication between individuals and organizations.”

Speaking at the festival, Rob said: “Biz Stone is a true innovator who has played a fundamental role in how communications has changed, something that in turn has altered the way we practise PR, he’s also a very down to earth guy.”

Four Nominations In PRmoment Awards

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We’re thrilled to have made the shortlist of this year’s PRmoment Awards with nominations in four categories.

The awards recognise outstanding campaigns and exceptional talent and this year attracted over 650 entries.

Rule 5 is shortlisted for Social Media Agency of the Year and Consumer PR Agency of the Year. The agency is also nominated for Best Use of Video for its work on the UCI Track Cycling World Cup London and Social Media Campaign of the Year for its work with Royal Albert, a category Rule 5 won at last year’s Big Chip Awards.

The PRmoment Awards will be announced on March 11 at the Hilton Manchester Deansgate.

Snap snap. Snapchat gets newsy with Discover

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Have you updated Snapchat? For the snap happy ones of us in the office that did, we were confronted with the most interesting feature yet – Discover.

For the uninitiated, Snapchat is an iOS and Android app that lets users take photos or record videos and add text and drawings, before sending them to a list of recipients. These Snaps can be viewed for between one and 10 seconds, then they’re hidden from the receiver’s device and deleted from Snapchat’s servers.

Developed by Stanford University’s Bobby Murphy, Reggie Brown and Evan Spiegel, Snapchat has come a very long way since its release in September 2011:

  • Snapchat is reportedly now worth $10 billion
  • 100 million people actively use the app each month
  • 400 million Snaps are sent every day
  • 1 billion Snapchat Stories are viewed every day
  • Snapchat is the third most popular social app among millennials
  • Facebook offered $3 billion to buy Snapchat in 2013. In cash

Not so bad for an app that was initially dismissed as a novelty act.

In Discover, media companies can publish content to the app for users to view. At launch, these included MTV, Cosmopolitan, Yahoo! News, National Geographic and The Daily Mail just to name a few.

According to Snapchat’s latest blog post, Discover is different because it’s been built for creatives, but keeps Stories – apologies if we don’t watch the entire narrative of your night out, we’ve got better things to do at 3am – at its core.

There’s a beginning, middle and end so editors can put everything in order and every edition is refreshed after 24 hours. Simply tap to open, swipe left to browse, or swipe up on a Snap for more.

With promises of fresh and unique content from each channel every day, Discover has certainly grabbed our attention.

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.