Event Management & PR for 16th Anniversary

Brief

Ashbourne Insurance is a high street insurance broker with in Hertfordshire employing 25 staff. The brief was to organise a celebration to raise the profile of the Hoddesdon branch in its 16th year of business with existing and prospective business clients.

Solution

Mary Sykes managed this event from beginning to end, and complimented the event with a charity fundraiser from The Willow Foundation, founded by footballer Bob Wilson.  The event was further strengthened by inviting a local estate agent, with a similar customer profile to co-sponsor the event.

We used existing office premises to work within budget, and attracted 180 guests who enjoyed informal networking,  impromptu entertainment and a fun casino.  The Mayor attended to attract local media coverage as did local celebrity Gillian Taylforth. Pre and Post event press releases were circulated and achieved coverage in Hertfordshire Life, The Mercury, and The Insurance Times.

Outcome

The event raised more than £5000 for the Willow Foundation and Ashbourne Insurance wrote a commercial insurance policy valued at over £30,000 as a direct result of inviting a potential new customer.

Testimonial

“Mary, it has been a year now since you started working alongside us and I wanted to let you know how much you have helped raise the profile of our 30 year old business!. You have really taken the time to understand and learn all aspects of our trade and actively promote our services wherever you go. Your work and introductions have produced magnificent results and your eye for detail points us in the right direction for marketing our business. You have a great concept for your business.”

Sarah Smits, Finance Director, Ashbourne Insurance

Interactive awareness campaign for saving energy

Brief

Suffolk County Council commissioned Rocoto to create a campaign to make people who live or work in Suffolk aware that ‘green behaviour’ is widespread, and to encourage greater take up of environmentally friendly goods and services.

At a workshop of key public and private sector players in Suffolk, led by Futerra’s Ed Gillespie, Alex Menhams from Rocoto suggested a campaign based on cheeky, double-entendre called ‘everyone is at it’ which got the thumbs up and we were commissioned to develop the campaign.

Solution

Work started on this project in mid April and the strategy, branding, photography, copywriting and collateral were finished and printed for the Suffolk Show at the end of May – just six weeks.

Working with graphic design company Smith, Rocoto helped develop a compelling visual identity art directed photography communicating the idea that ‘we’re all at it’ in the veggie patch, in the loft… fnar fnar.

A key theme of the campaign strategy was a green makeover competition to generate funny comments and marketing data through social networks and PR i.e ‘I’m doing it on the roof’ ‘I’m doing it with the lights out’ etc etc.

Outcome

Rocoto and Smith produced the campaign identity and all collateral for the Suffolk Show including A1 banners and postcards to collect individual comments which was a successful approach for the County Council. The campaign also secured a big spread in the East Anglian Daily Times and various pieces of radio coverage.

Like all councils, Suffolk County Council has had budgetary pressure over the last year, so the campaign is on hold for the moment but we look forward to seeing it reappear soon.

Client perceptions survey for marketing strategy.

Brief

Business Link in the East of England has over 50,000 clients and a wide range of stakeholders from the business community and public sector. Significant changes to the Business Link service meant the regional Business Link operator (Exemplas & Ixion) needed independent marketing insight into perceptions and awareness of the service.

Solution

Working with expert suppliers we devised an online survey with a range of screening questions leading to an in depth survey. The survey was incentivised with M&S vouchers and went out to 11,000 customers, 100 stakeholders and purchased business data.

The findings were presented to the management and advisor teams as part of an ongoing project to focus on customer needs. The survey revealed low levels of awareness for specific services and negative perceptions of certain services amongst business people in different geographic areas.

Outcome

The number of responses received was very high,, and Business Link were able to use the robust findings to underpin the strategy for a regional media relations campaign with a focus on raising awareness for relatively unknown, high value services. The findings also supported the development of new value proposition messaging to promote Business Link to businesses and stakeholders.

The survey was repeated the following year to assess performance against the benchmark results.

Business development with online travel agents

Brief

Guestlink is New Vision Group’s bespoke property management system, and is used by more than 12,000 independent accommodation providers through regional tourist boards in the UK.

The brief was to identify new commercial partners and to negotiate opportunities for systems integration with online travel agents (OTAs) and travel distribution partners. To support this activity new marketing collateral was designed and produced for the suite of online Guestlink Product modules.

Solution

Mary Sykes conducted in-depth research of competitors and OTA prospects and identified the best potential partners based on key criteria including commission levels, technology specifications, exclusivity, territory, marketing presence and the ease of access to senior executives for negotiations.

Meetings were held with Lastminute.com, Laterooms.com, Booking.com, Expedia and Farmstay amongst others, and the client was supported to attend high profile trade shows such as the Travel Distribution Summit Europe, the Travel Technology Show, and the World Travel Market.

Mary worked with in-house designers to develop presentation materials, exhibition displays and promotional literature both printed and in digital format to promote a broad range of products which were sold as annual subscriptions and pay-as-you-go options.

Outcome

The integration of a regional online travel channel with national media coverage lead to more than £100,000 accommodation sales from two main regions in the first five months.  Amongst others, the UK’s most popular consumer online travel agent signed up for the service with integration scheduled for 2011.

Cut Your Carbon

Brief

The East of England Development Agency (EEDA) commissioned the Cut your Carbon campaign to encourage local communities to cut their carbon emissions in response to climate change.

The brief was to develop and run a compelling campaign that would motivate and enable  communities to seek EEDA funding and take local action to reduce carbon emissions.

Solution

Working with Smith design agency, we developed a strong campaign identity with stand out quality around a theme of ‘Be a carbon hero’. Following  a bold angle we produced lycra suits with pants on the outside for a team of unlikely looking carbon superheroes. Not your usual public sector fare but it helped stir up a wave of web traffic, enquiries and community action.

Extensive media relations, online promotion, guerrilla marketing, events and a big conference helped EEDA secure over 100 participating communities in just a few months. In addition, a suite of resources were developed to help communities, including a significant web presence at www.cutyourcarbon.org.uk

Outcome

The Cut your Carbon campaign won Gold for best Integrated Campaign and Gold for best website in the East of England in the 2009 Chartered Institute of PR awards. Over an 18 month period the website received 150,000 visits and in the six months from launch over 100 pieces of media coverage were achieved.

The programme funded community projects to a total of £2 million and the online community carbon footprinting system we developed with Solstice Associates was adopted by the Energy Saving Trust and NESTA as their national software platform for community action.

Marketing and sales support for growth

Brief

Maleon are award-winning international engineering consultants who design building services for blue chip clients such as Barclays and BP.

Rocoto were brought on board to help Maleon grow their business through enhanced sales and marketing activity. Our brief includes working with directors to support sales activity, supporting a marketing executive, and assisting the introduction of a CRM solution.

Solution

After a short review of priorities with the directors, we conducted a client perceptions survey which gained a high response rate, and provided valuable insight on client awareness of Maleon’s services, and identified sales and marketing opportunities.

We presented the findings of the survey at a marketing workshop with the management team, and got senior input and buy-in for a 12 month sales and marketing strategy.

We now act as an extended marketing team for Maleon, providing strategy and guidance, and assisting the delivering of a quarterly marketing plan which has so far included: a suite of new case studies, direct mail, CRM development, and media relations for a national award win.

Outcome

By working with the management team and marketing executive we have developed a robust sales and marketing strategy, and are now delivering this on an ongoing basis to a budgeted timetable of activity.

The sales pipeline is expanding as the company adopts a new approach to generating business, and marketing systems and high quality new collateral are now in place to support the growth of the business.

Testimonial

Alex has a modern approach to marketing and brings together business analysis, insightful marketing and strong management skills. He understands our business and objectives, and has revitalised marketing and sales activity throughout the company. On all the projects Alex has been involved in, the results have been very positive and I am happy to recommend him as a creative, practical and flexible marketing professional.

David Johnson, Director, Maleon