As we continue to evolve the business, we have taken on board comments from our clients and the people we have been in touch with, to find ways to improve the way that we work in the future.
One thing that was evident was that, with every company in the industry, the focus is on London. A visit to a client in the regions, in Scotland, Wales or Ireland involves a lot of planning, difficult travel and a potentially lengthy lead time.
The solution: Welcome to our new Regional Consultants
Sue Prain
Regional Consultant - South West
Servicing the South West, please welcome our new recruit Sue Prain. Sue has a vast amount of experience in the radio industry, having worked with the then GWR group, for leading stations such as;
2-Ten Fm
Mercury Crawley
GWR Swindon
GWR Bath
Sue worked in various advertising roles within the stations and has a keen understanding of the programming and what brands fit where!
Already out on the road and meeting with new clients, Sue has firmly positioned herself as a key member of the consultant team.
We will be announcing more regional consultants in due course. For information on how this can benefit you please call us on 0207 158 0000.
Radio Relations are very pleased to announce that from 1st March 2012 we will be working, on a retained basis, with leading gift card supplier (in association with the Post Office), One4All.
The Gift Voucher Shop, based in Ireland and the UK are the leading supplier of functional, practical and 'the gift of endless choice' gift cards suitable for all the family. Excepted in over 17,000 stores nationwide...One4All Gift Cards truly are the exceptional gift for the friend/relative/loved one that has everything.
Radio Relations have been tasked with a 12 month selection of creative campaigns to promote the One4All Gift Card on radio stations across the UK at key gifting times of the year. Supported by consumer research, radio competitions and feature and news content with the clients leading Gifting Expert will feature heavily in the campaigns to ensure every household in the UK is aware of the One4All Gift Card.
I will be sure to post the outcome of our campaigns with The Gift Voucher Shop...in the meantime why not check them out at www.one4allgiftcard.co.uk
I felt the need to discuss another campaign, so here is another in the series of blogs about what I find exciting!
Our client, UKTV, were looking to raise awareness of the launch of the new american hit series 'GRIMM' on Watch, Monday nights at 9pm.
I have to say, I loved this idea as soon as it appeared - to research parents to find out if they actually still read fairytales to their kids. I just knew the results would cause some controversy - and the prediction of a BBC reaction did not appear to be too far from the truth either.
The client achieved some amazing print coverage for the campaign, but I thought I would share some of our excellent coverage with our blog viewers.
Campaign Highlights:
A total of 21 BBC stations including BBC Radio 4, BBC Five Live, BBC Radio 2, BBC Scotland who all did an amazing feature on the research (and referenced the client and TV show), ITV This Morning opened the phone lines to viewers to open up debate and the continuous conversations today (including a feature on BBC News) just goes to prove the momentum of this story.
My question to you; Do you read these fairytales to your children?
For your reference...here is the story:
Research out today reveals that parents have huffed, puffed and said goodbye to all traditional fairytales of their childhood – choosing to read ‘less scary’ modern books to their own children.
In attempts to avoid nightmares and awkward questions, one quarter of children won’t have heard stories like Cinderella, and Rumplestiltskin by the age of five because of underlying messages like theft and kidnapping…
But why have attitudes changed and are we worrying too much about the overactive imagination of our children? New drama series Grimm is launching tonight at 9pm on Watch, and is inspired by Grimm’s Fairytales, embracing the darker side of fairytale classics.
Joining us to discuss this further is children’s author Diane Purkiss who sits on the advisory board for the Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairytales and Fantasy.
What a great way to begin my blogging adventure on the Radio Relations blog than to talk about what has been one of the most fun, exciting, interesting and varied of my broadcast career.
We were challenged by the lovely people at Bastion to work alongside them for their client The British Toy and Hobby Association, to extend the already impressive coverage usually achieved for the famous trade event, the Toy Fair.
For those not in the know, the Toy Fair is a yearly trade event, held in January, where buyers and members of the press are invited to meet toy manufacturers from all over the country and be introduced to what is 'New for 2012'. To you and I - the toys that the kids are going to be pestering us for next Christmas!
Our remit was simple; broadcast interviews to BBC and commercial radio stations across the country, LIVE from Toy Fair 2012 at London's Olympia. In addition we were tasked with creating a Video News Release (VNR) for distribution online to further enhance coverage.
Simple right? Well for the Radio Relations team, working alongside Independent Media News (IMN), it was!
It all began on Monday 23rd January when the 'tech guys' from IMN made tracks to the Olympia to begin setting up the required equipment for the LIVE broadcasts. This did not simply involved plugging in a couple of microphones and a mixing desk....after connecting several times to Radio Relations ISDN line to test the equipment and the actual line...the team then spent the better part of two hours tweaking the levels of sound to create the perfect balance of ambiance and vocal input to create a natural sounding, 'live from Toy Fair' broadcast. Which I have to say...sounded AMAZING!
While all this is happening, Jo Sutherland and the team from IMN were busy ensuring the stations had everything they needed for this exclusive consumer glimpse into Toy Fair 2012. Tasked with coordinating 4 different spokespeople, potential child spokespeople and reaching a client that was clearly going to be the busiest they had been all year with regular updates. I am glad to say - this all went without a hitch!
8:00am, Tuesday 24th January 2012: So the day arrives, armed with our Press Passes, myself and the IMN team break through tight security and make it to the studio. Back to back interviews began almost immediately, with stations such as BBC Scotland, LBC and BBC Cumbria waiting to go live. Assisted by the amazingly organised press team from Bastion the interviews went smoothly and sounded fantastic!
By this time though, I was long gone from the studio and heading out with 'Dan with the cam' to provide support and networking skills to get some interviews from some of the stand holders. At this point, I would like to thank the stand holders for their patience and understanding as we bugged them for comment. I am pleased to say though, having met some interesting company owners and marketing professionals, we got some quality footage that made the next step so much easier.
So, footage in the bag, interviews still going strong, this ended my time at Toy Fair 2012 - sadly! I would have loved to stay all day but pressing work commitments would not allow. For Dan, this gave him the chance to get back to his editing suite and begin editing - the end result, a great looking VNR that was ready and with the client the following day - complete with some online coverage. Now that is what you call service!
Please take the time to review the VNR linked below
A big thank you to LEGO, Playmobil and Green Board Games to name just a few of the contributors who were kind enough to allow us some time to film them and their stands.
The team here at Radio Relations would like to wish you all a very happy Christmas with our animated chistmas card below! Thank you for an excellent 2011, and we look forward to an exciting 2011!
Avid PR Week readers may have already spotted that there's quite a prominent article about us in this week's issue. In case you haven't seen it yet you can read it online here. The article is part of PR Week's series on specialists, with Radio Relations featured as the radio specialist.
