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Having been a huge advocate of Ogilvy’s pop up agency Idea Shop since it started life in Brixton Market in 2010, Ogilvy PR London was really excited to once more get stuck in at their latest venture at Marketing Week Live last week. Volunteers from across Ogilvy & Mather UK gave up their own time to give free ideas to small businesses, charities, entrepreneurs and community projects. It’s our way of giving back whilst doing what we do best.

Claudia Urquiola, Account Manager on the PR Corporate team gives her account of two very special visitor experiences.

‘At my table, we had the pleasure of first working with Joe’s Tea Company. The East Londoner wanted to conquer the tea market and offer a gourmet British tea straight from the East London docks. He came to us with a launch strategy underway, funky packaging and a contagious enthusiasm (despite me being a non-tea drinker!). Following a brainstorm of ideas, our advice centred on helping Joe prioritise relevant social media platforms and key publications he may want to reach out to, in addition to providing advice on storytelling to engage consumers from the start. And all over a nice brew (apart from myself who stuck to coffee).

Our second visitor of the day was a little different to the first to say the least; the National Space Centre (Leicester). Looking to raise awareness of their centre and drive up the numbers of visitors, their Head of Marketing Malika, on a limited budget, had already managed to try most of the things we proposed. In the end it was not ideas that were needed, but rather she wanted Ogilvy to help her focus her efforts. As with a number of our clients, we advised on establishing her strategy and theme for 2012-2013, rather than spreading her energies across all opportunities that presented themselves. Another happy customer.’

The Idea Shop was definitely a great experience for both the participants and the Ogilvy employees alike. It got our creative juices flowing and allowed us to work with some fantastic people across Ogilvy solving a business problem from a variety of angles.

To find out more, or to invite Idea Shop to your area email: ideashop@ogilvy.com

What makes good telly? We were lucky enough to have a TV legend in the office today to answer that very question.

Having built a successful career gracing many a TV studio couch, we felt it was only fitting to host broadcasting goddess, Lorraine Kelly on our very own Ogilvy PR sofa.

Lorraine gave us her insight during an informal Q&A session, regaling us with many an anecdote on shock celebrity walkouts (all of whom of course remained unnamed!), her favourite news stories and exactly what it is that makes for TV gold … and why she will almost definitely not be getting back on the horse!

Our charming guest was a delight and will always be very welcome back at Ogilvy towers. Thanks Lorraine!

It’s been another tough year for the UK media industry and especially UK PR agencies at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, however an integrated Ogilvy PR London and OgilvyOne campaign proved to be an award winning diamond in the rough. ‘The Gnome Experiment’ for client Kern & Sohn took away a hefty award haul including  Silver for Business Product and Services in the Direct Lions and Bronze for Business Product and Services in the Cyber Lions. The campaign also won a place on the competitive shortlist for the Viral Marketing category of the Cybers .

So what is ‘the Gnome Experiment’ I hear you ask? Through the innovative use of a garden gnome and a set of precision scales we devised a campaign that created the world’s first mass participation experiment into the effects of gravity on weight measurement. The campaign helped increase sales for the client by 22% and the story has reached 355 million people in 152 countries.  We are proud to say that it has also become a TED talk and is now a part of the educational curriculum in different countries around the world.

Taking a step back from the exciting news about Kern, we must take note of the hot debate that this year’s Cannes Lions has sparked around the strength of creativity within the PR industry. Cannes Judges have accused the PR industry of lacking the ‘big ideas’ necessary for award worthy campaigns. This is according to critics reflected in the poor representation of PR agencies on the award’s shortlists and winner’s podium, even in the PR Lion categories. During a debate in PRWeek, Ogilvy PR London’s Managing Director Michael Frohlich took the view that the criteria for Cannes Lions overlooked the wider range of services offered by the PR industry, commenting ‘The problem for the PR category is Cannes is all about creativity. PR is about reputation management and impact and effectiveness, of which creativity is part.’

Ogilvy PR London’s Broadcast team celebrated an outstanding win at the CIPR Excellence Awards last night for their World Scrabble Championships campaign.

Sally Sykes, President of the CIPR, said: “Winning a CIPR Excellence Award is the ultimate public relations accolade and I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to all of this evening’s winners. The competition was fiercer than ever, producing exceptionally high quality entries – which are particularly impressive considering the economic challenges we continue to face. Tonight is a reminder of the contribution excellent public relations makes to business and growth.”

Scrabble became best in class by delivering a broadcast campaign which combined both global broadcast and online outreach. Ogilvy PR London’s broadcast team developed a strategy that combined the development of creative video content and multi-lingual editorial engagement to ensure the Championships were a major news story around the world.

Through timely content deployment the campaign achieved top tier international coverage which directly impacted worldwide sales.

• Global coverage reached over 244 million people, with an ROI of 137:1 against target AVE

• 19% increase in global sales during the week of activity, and a 12% uplift the following week

In an age of social media and fantasy gaming, the campaign demonstrated how a veteran board game can still be relevant and engaging.

A great result for a great piece of work!

The hotly anticipated PRWeek’s Top 150 PR Consultancies league table – the most authoritative analysis of the British PR and comms industry – is finally out. Ogilvy Public Relations and Ogilvy HealthPR have risen impressively up the ranks to secure a spot in the top 15, a significant climb from 2011.

This is a real success story for our agency in an industry hit by recession, and is testament to the extremely hard work of the Ogilvy PR teams.

Last year saw Ogilvy PR achieve substantial growth in revenue and workforce, and the addition of a host of blue chip clients to our roster such as BP, Diageo, UPS and Ford.

Ogilvy HealthPR further strengthened their offer through the launch of new dedicated divisions for Market Access and Digital Health. Growth was driven through global communications for a record four new pharmaceutical brand launches and new business wins with Pfizer and Boehringer Ingelheim.

Together we also achieved a record year in industry awards, having won or been nominated for over 32.  Impressive.

But it mustn’t end there! Ogilvy PR UK Managing Director Michael Frohlich maintains momentum adding that we must continue “to grow our presence in the UK and be known for our enviable client list, exceptional talent and exciting work.We will continue to drive influence at an ever increasing scale.”

Time to crack open the champers and celebrate like true media-darlings!

On Tuesday 1 May 2012, Ogilvy Public Relations announced the appointment of Phil Reay-Smith in the newly created role Head of Media for Ogilvy PR/London.

Joining from ITV where he served as Consumer Editor of Daybreak, Reay-Smith brings more than a decade of newsroom experience and writing for national newspapers. An experienced journalist and story-teller, Reay-Smith provides Ogilvy PR with superior understanding of what news editors require and how Ogilvy’s clients can engage more effectively with them. In his new role, Reay-Smith will be a key member of the London leadership team, and alongside the recently appointed MD (Michael Frohlich), will be responsible for building on the company’s recent success and driving its continued growth.

Reay-Smith’s key remit will be to improve how the agency works with the media by developing effective strategies and programmes which demonstrate Ogilvy’s media prowess.  His extensive background in broadcast will address the increasing need for companies to become content creators, with visual content now recognised as a key form of mass consumer engagement.

Michael Frohlich, UK Managing Director said:

“Media Relations is a core product offering for Ogilvy PR and Phil will play a vital role in ensuring the quality, creativity and effectiveness of our offering. Media relations are a critical part of our growing and ambitious company as we continue to drive influence at an ever increasing scale. We are excited to have a senior media figure join us with such impressive contacts across broadcasting and beyond, who is skilled in formulating stories and pitching them to a variety of audiences.”

About his appointment, Reay-Smith said:

“Having worked closely and regularly with PR teams as Consumer Editor at Daybreak, moving into communications has been a long term career goal, and I am thrilled to be joining such a globally-recognised company at a time where their momentum is so high.”

Reay-Smith’s appointment is effective immediately, adding to Ogilvy PR’s leadership team which recently saw the appointment of Michael Frohlich to UK Managing Director.

Please feel free to contact Phil on:

email:  phil.reay-smith@uk.ogilvypr.com

twitter: @philreaysmith

linkedin: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/philreaysmith

After joining Ogilvy Public Relations in January 2012, the agency announced today that Michael Frohlich will take on additional responsibilities as Managing Director for the UK office. In this role, Frohlich will be responsible for managing all aspects of the UK office, including client service, financial oversight and personnel development. He will also sit on the Ogilvy & Mather UK Board.

Stuart Smith, CEO EAME of Ogilvy PR said, “The past 12 months have been tremendously strong in both EAME and the UK. We’ve added many new clients to our roster, made big strides in social media, internal communications and sustainability and brought in some great fresh talent at all levels. In his short time with us Michael has made a great start as EAME MD for the Consumer Marketing practice. Michael is highly creative, fun to work with and extremely well qualified to take the reins having held a number of P&L roles and run his own agency.”

Frohlich added, “Ogilvy PR UK is enjoying great success and I’ve already been impressed by the quality of the work and the passion of the people.  The office now has the scale to drive influence across a broad audience reach and deep into multidiscipline expertise, making it a powerful player in the UK and global marketplaces. The momentum is infectious and the future is a hugely exciting one for everyone involved in the Ogilvy PR family”

Michael will continue to serve as the EAME MD of our Consumer Marketing practice. He joined Ogilvy PR from the Bell Pottinger Group (part of Chime plc). He led multinational campaigns for some of the world’s leading brands and public figures and has worked across a range of PR and marketing disciplines and businesses including: brand strategy and planning; health; political campaigning; consumer; corporate; tech; marketing services.  Frohlich has won and led teams to win, numerous industry awards (including: Gold at Cannes Lions Festival; UK PR Week Award; Media Guardian Campaign of the Year) and served as a judge at the 2010 Cannes PR Lions Festival. He was also recognised as one of the top 3 “Most Promising Young UK Business Leaders” in the Daily Telegraph Awards, named to the PRWeek Power Book from 2007-2012 and sits on the Public Relations Consultancy Association PR Council.

That was the title of the PR Moment event hosted here at Ogilvy Public Relations this past Wednesday. Chaired by our EAME CEO, Stuart Smith, and with over 100 people in attendance; it was standing room only as representatives from both British Gas and Age UK shared their lessons and findings from their own Facebook marketing endeavours.

Some examples include Rob Mansfield citing that Age UK use Facebook for conversation, feedback and of course, to be a more human brand. With over 5m over-50s on Facebook, Age UK’s choice of social platform is a wise one indeed. Good work.

Following on from that, Laura Price from British Gas talked through their key reasons for Facebook usage; pro-active response, self-help and engagement. With each different area providing a different service for their consumers, Laura pointed out that although many people ‘like’ their page simply to complain, at least that British can do something about it, i.e.: converse with their fans in order to fix the problem at hand.

A telling statement, and one that we agree with.

Also, a worthy mention of customer service tool ‘Get Satisfaction‘, which British Gas also use by way of a Facebook app to help manage the flow of their customer queries.

Finally, our latest recruit James Whatley stepped up to speak about which organisations should use Facebook (and which should not). His slides are up on Slideshare and we throughly recommend clicking through for a peruse (along with slide notes!) to see what he was talking about…

All in all a great night was had by everyone who attended. Keep an eye on PR Moment for information about the next upcoming event and perhaps we’ll see you there!

Ogilvy Public Relations/London has appointed James Whatley as Senior Associate Director, 360° Digital Influence. Reporting to Michael Darragh, James brings seven years experience developing integrated marketing communications campaigns.

James joins from 1000heads where he played an integral part on global award-winning campaigns such as Nokia / Tron: Legacy, the Foursquare-enable d gift machine and, most recently, The Dark Knight Rises limited edition Lumia. Outside of his work with Nokia, James has also worked on projects with Heineken, MARS, P&G and YouthNet.

James’ career highlights and awards include winning best viral campaign (SoMeComms), best use of existing social media channels (Digital Impact Awards) and best viral (Cream London) for Nokia/Tron Legacy.

Michael Darragh, Head of Digital, London, said:

“James joins Ogilvy PR at a time of increased demand for social counsel from corporate brands. Our digital practice is growing rapidly and James’ expertise in enterprise social media strategy, wholly integrated marketing communications programmes, and mobile, adds another string to Ogilvy PR’s bow.”

In his new role, James will lead social business and B2B communications strategy for global clients.

About his appointment, James Whatley said:

“I am very, very excited about joining a fantastic team who are not only going through a period of meteoric growth, but also have the ambition to match.”

James’s appointment is effective immediately and follows recent senior digital hires at Ogilvy PR including Eb Adeyeri (LEWIS PR), Michael Cooper (Wolfstar PR) and Kristin Parrish (Ogilvy PR/Atlanta). Ogilvy PR’s global 360° Digital Influence group was named “Most Outstanding Digital/Social Consultancy” at The Holmes Report’s 2011 Global SABRE Awards.

James is:

• Alumni at The Marketing Academy (Marketing Hall of Legends UK)
• Co-Founder, Writer and Presenter at The Really Mobile Project
• A keen mobile industry commentator and analyst
• Founder at Mobile Geeks of London
• Advisor to a number of start-ups

You can follow him on Twitter as @whatleydude

Seasoned, Award-Winning European Consumer Marketing Specialist Takes on Prominent Regional Role.

We are excited to announce that Michael Frohlich has been appointed to the newly-created role of Managing Director, EAME Consumer Marketing practice. Reporting to Stuart Smith, Frohlich brings more than 17 years expertise in building effective and award-winning consumer marketing campaigns for his clients.

Frohlich joins from the Bell Pottinger Group (part of Chime plc). He led multinational campaigns for some of the world’s leading brands and public figures and has worked across a range of PR and marketing disciplines and businesses including: brand strategy and planning; health; political campaigning; consumer; corporate; tech; marketing services.

Stuart Smith, CEO of the EAME region said:

“We’ve had a great 2011 and we are investing further in the business. Michael is a formidable consumer strategist and astute business leader whose experience, international outlook and energy extends our ability to offer truly global, creative and integrated solutions for brands and businesses. He has led teams to win some of the top awards in the world for creative work and I am confident he will bolster an already flourishing EAME consumer team.”

In his new role, Frohlich will work closely with the consumer practices in other offices throughout EAME to drive business development and contribute across practices in the areas of strategy and creative development. During his time at Chime plc, Frohlich was founder of Resonate Communications, which was named as one of the Best PR Agencies in the UK by Marketing Magazine. He co-founded a joint venture between Resonate Communications and VCCP advertising agency, focusing on ‘social communications’.

Frohlich has won and led teams to win, numerous industry awards (including: Gold at Cannes Lions Festival; UK PR Week Award; Media Guardian Campaign of the Year) and served as a judge at the 2010 Cannes PR Lions Festival. He was also recognised as one of the top 3 “Most Promising Young UK Business Leaders” in the Daily Telegraph Awards, named to the PRWeek Power Book from 2007-2011 and sits on the Public Relations Consultancy Association PR Council.

About his appointment, Michael said:

“Given all the changes in our industry as communications and marketing channels continue to converge, there is nowhere I’d rather practice creative, edgy campaigns for brands than an integrated communications firm full of smart people which is enjoying great growth and winning awards. I look forward to working with the network of entrepreneurial and innovative professionals. ”

Frohlich will join Ogilvy PR in February 2012, further strengthening Ogilvy PR’s EAME leadership team which also includes Sandra Saias, recently transferred from Ogilvy PR’s Chicago office as MD Strategy + Planning EAME, and Kaitlyn Wilkins who leads the EAME 360o Digital Influence team.