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Ogilvy PR has been shortlisted for 10 European SABRE Awards! 

Our European CEO Martin Liptrot said, “I am delighted to see us have so many great campaigns shortlisted for Sabre Awards in 2008. On behalf of the whole Ogilvy family we send our congratulations to those offices who have been selected and hope that we get to bring some more trophies home from Venice later this month.”

The SABRE winners will be announced at an award ceremony in Venice on Thursday 22 May. Good luck to everyone shortlisted from London!

A recent article on psychological research sheds interesting light on people’s behaviour in relation to price.  At its most basic, people expect more expensive things to work better, taste better and look better.  Think about it yourself.  How often have you spent more on something on the basis that the price is indicative of quality?  A bottle of wine, perhaps?  Organic food?  What this…hang on!  This is what brands have always been about.  A brand at its most basic was a marker of quality.  A guarantee of certain contents; certain processes followed; a contract with the purchaser that this was the real McCoy – it built an expectation.  And, as such, it cost a little more.

So why is this research interesting?  The researchers were perpetrating a fraud.  The wine used for the test was the same cheaper variety.  The drugs tested were in fact placebos with no medicinal value whatsoever. 

Interestingly, when the price was not shown the wine drinkers preferred the lowest priced.  When they trusted their own judgement, they went for what they liked, not a promise.  And that, to my mind, is why brands fight for their lives everyday.  If a brand fails to deliver on its promise, be it in big a way or small way, its reputation takes a knock, eroding trust and its value falls.  That’s bad for business. 

Consumer brands can focus on a dominant audience and a clearly defined set of characteristics – taste, colour, aroma – to revive their reputation.  Corporate brands (who might own a consumer brand or two) have a much wider range of people whose expectations need fulfilling such as investment performance, job security, responsible citizenship and so on.

Businesses need to manage their reputations actively on all fronts if they are to prosper and grow.  Effort here will help build up their immune system for bad times and keep them fit and healthy in good.  To be fair most businesses try to do this and devote resources to ensuring their vision, image and culture are all clearly defined though they are managed independently by different elements in the company. 

However, these three building blocks of reputation are dependent on each other and mutually reinforcing, which means we have opportunities to work across the management spectrum to make sure these connections work.  And when the connections do work, a company can live up to expectations.

Laurence Cook

Kiersten Zweibaum has joined us here in Ogilvy PR London as Managing Director and head of our Global Corporate Practice. Welcome Kiersten!As managing director, Kiersten will provide strategic leadership for corporate clients across our global network. She specializes in helping clients build and maintain their corporate reputations, from corporate brand building through issues and crisis management, and everything in between, including employer branding, CSR, influencer relationship building and strategic media relations. Kiersten comes to Ogilvy PR from GCI Group, where she was the director of its global corporate practice. With nearly 20 years of experience, she brings strong expertise in building the corporate reputations of her clients and leading multi-national teams. While at GCI Group, Kiersten was responsible for the operational and business leadership of the practice and focused on clients such as Darden Restaurants, CitiSmithBarney, Nike, British Airways and Goodman, among others. Prior to joining GCI Group, Zweibaum was at Ketchum where she served as Senior Vice President and Associate Director of its Corporate Practice. She has advised such clients as HSBC, American Express, FedEx, Delta Air Lines, First Data Corp, Borders Books & Music and more. Kiersten’s first day with us was on April 7. She will be based in our London office, but will have the opportunity to work with all of the offices across the network.

Welcome to Ogilvy Public Relations London brand new website. This is our blog section where we will be updating you with the latest news, views, things we’ve found that made us smile and insights from our London office.

To find out more about what we do, how we work, why we get out of bed in the morning and what we could potentially do for you and your business, drop one of New Biz guys Laurence or Ash a line. (You could also look at the ‘About Us’ section to your right which covers off our working philosophy).

In the meantime, here’s some stuff we like and we hope we can become a staple part of your RSS feed  too!

Our very own Rory making the front page in The Spectator with his usual wit, sharp eye and uncompromising writing style:

Mad Men are taking over the world. And that’s no bad thing

We didn’t realise you were not only one of the industry’s leading thinkers Rory, but a cycling champion too?! Arrr, the power of google…

Who could not link to the Huffington Post on a blog either, cracking stuff.

…and just finally, our very own “digital gurus” Rohit Bhargava and John Bell’s blogs, definitely worth keeping tabs on for all those wanting to make digital waves and pick up some thoughts from some digital PR experts.