Both Stephen and Fernando demonstrated the beauty of the results that these techniques provide. PR agencies can produce definitive statistics with SEO and PPC campaigns – unequivocal results. Fantastic!

Stephen and Fernando also discussed the complexity of ownership with the group. Eulogy!’s well versed in SEO having completed a number of projects for clients, but Stephen confirmed our fears that the PR industry (and the marketing community at large) is yet to understand the practice.

Five years ago, SEO firmly belonged in the hands of search agencies. Then ad and digital agencies took a bite. And now PR agencies, too? Well, yes of course! It’s editorial. Who else is better placed to write authoritative copy, rich with brand messaging and keywords? SEO sits firmly within the online PR gambit. It amplifies what other marketing channels churn out. It seeds your content all over the shop to encourage people to click, to engage and to talk!

I am committed to working with bodies like the PRCA to carve out a fair share of ownership of online and social media budgets. We’ve seen a big move towards this in the industry. Sure it’s a struggle sometimes, like when clients refuse to acknowledge PR as anything but proof in a paper, but our digital revolution is increasingly inevitable.

We’re working hard to this speed along. As chief exec, it’s my job to drive the agency forward not only in terms of new business but also skills and professional development.We believe PR’s love affair with social media will be a hot and steamy one, and it’s only just begun.

What a difference a year makes!

This time last year I was sat in the library at uni, frantically cramming for my final year exams. Somewhere in between all of the revision and partying I managed to find time to apply for the grad scheme at Eulogy!

Now my student days are well behind me and I’m a fully fledged account exec at one of the country’s leading PR agencies. In less than a year I’ve gone from handing in my dissertation to handing out my own business cards.

It’s all been a bit of a whirlwind to be honest, but from the very beginning Eulogy! invested a lot of time and effort into implementing a training programme for all the grads. Training isn’t just limited to junior staff members though, it’s something that’s rolled out across the agency, irrelevant of how senior you may be.

Now, nine months after starting, and I’ve just been promoted. Eulogy! is really good in that respect – they entrust all their grads with a lot of responsibility from the start, and our efforts are constantly recognised and rewarded.

I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t work hard, and of course I have days when I miss the student life, but I enjoy what I do and it’s nice when you actually look forward to going into the office everyday. One of Eulogy’s greatest assets is its people, and as clichéd as it may sound, it really is like one big family here. One big, slightly mad, family.

TUACA is a delicious Italian spirit that has been part of the Eulogy! portfolio for several years. Our latest PR campaign initially focused on achieving product placement in consumer magazines with recipes for the signature serves, but eventually we found ourselves within the online space – a new foray for the brand.

The key messaging behind TUACA has always been about ‘discovery’. This is reflected in TUACA’s UK launch. Initially discovered by a Brighton snowboarder who tried it on the slopes of Colorado, and then returned to tell all her friends about it, TUACA is all about word of mouth.

Since then, TUACA has always been the darling drink of the snowboarding community. Admittedly it’s a very niche audience – but while other brands may try to shed cult status and go for a more mainstream approach, TUACA uses this to its advantage. Because it’s a drink for the type of person who likes to discover a secret and pass it onto their friends, online PR and word of mouth is a perfect platform.

In the last year, TUACA has built upon this notion of discovery and word of mouth by launching the first-ever TUACA Traveller competition.

The competition offered one person and a friend the opportunity to win a two-week snowboarding trip undiscovered slopes across Europe. The site was hosted by snowboarding enthusiasts’ site Mpora.

To support the campaign, team TUACA launched the TUACA Traveller Blog. The blog is written by the winner and was supported by video content of his adventures picked up by sliding sports sites like  Gone Boarding and Life’s a Beach.

We are now looking forward to further cementing TUACA’s presence with the sliding sports industry for 2010, including regional activity in our key cities.  So watch this space because TUACA may surf up on a shore near you soon.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been lucky enough to gain a bit of an insight into the crazy world of PR.  While friends back home in Australia are spending their Christmas holidays basking on sunny beaches, I leapt at the opportunity to travel to London for a mini working holiday – the 24-hour journey and sub-zero temperatures but a small sacrifice.  As a law student, PR was an area I had never really given much thought to.

Coming in with few expectations, I’ve got to admit that I’ve had a ball.  Despite printing my body weight in media, my time at Eulogy! has definitely opened my eyes to the ins and outs of the industry.  I’ve become familiarised with local press and boardroom brainstorming sessions, press releases and pitches, and been introduced to the once foreign notion of a ‘sell-in’.  While I’ve experienced a lot over the busy weeks leading up to Christmas, I realise it’s probably just a snapshot of what a career in PR would entail.

Without wanting to sound too clichéd, I had a fantastic time at Eulogy!, with an absolutely amazing and dedicated group of people! Perhaps it’s time to consider a career change?

Emily

Eulogy! has won 7 awards so far this year. By the end of November we had 3 accolades for best campaign, 2 agency of the year awards and another 2 for agency individuals.

Sounds good doesn’t it?  Yes, our email footer is ridiculed for being so long and our clients mock us for showing off about it again, but I refuse to apologise. Industry recognition is important!

But the taking part in the awards process can have just as much impact. For example:

1. Morale. Enter a campaign into an award and team morale goes through the roof. Even if you didn’t work on the campaign, you get a buzz knowing you work among award-winners, award-winning contenders even
2. Recruitment. Other people see you at the award ceremony; they see you shortlisted in the trade magazines; they visit your website, and see the campaigns and awards there, too. Hello direct job application, goodbye recruitment fees.
3. Reputation – we’re in the business of it, after all. The award circuit is a tight one. Judges talk and they usually judge several different awards throughout the year. When your name pops up again and again, people get thinking and talking.

Despite the ridicule about our signatures, I believe our clients enjoy the awards as much as we do – especially if it’s their campaign that wins. Saying, “this campaign, that we worked on together, is worthy of an award” is great for client retention.

But let’s get down to the hard facts. A client recently won an agency of the year award. Being the technical sort they were quick to look at the uplift on their website. In just two hours they’d had 172 visits, the average time on the site increased to more than two minutes, average page consumption was four.  In the latter part of this year the Eulogy! website has seen similar results. Visitors are up 20%, page views are up 15% and time on site is up 10%. We’ve not won every award we’ve entered, and sure there are peaks in website performance when we do, but the overarching effect of entering any award is a positive one.

Eulogy! had been nominated for three PRCA awards, Agency of the Year, Specialist Agency of the Year and Best B2B campaign. Our sister agency Onlinefire was shortlisted for Best Technology Campaign for its work with Virgin Mobile and its 30p tariff.

We took home two almighty awards: we are now crowned Consultancy of the Year 2009 and Best B2B Campaign for our work with Mortascreen.

It was a spectacular night. And I can’t lie, it was made all the more wonderful by our two award wins. Throughout this year, Eulogy!’s board, executive committee and team – from the graduates to the directors – have worked exceptionally hard to make a difference to every aspect of the agency, from things like training and internal comms, to client service, marketing and team structure.

It’s been worth all the hard work. These accolades are a great demonstration of the agency’s excellence. Our growth proves we’re a leading agency that delivers creativity with media insight – a formidable combination.

And, as you can see, we really know how to party! Apologies if we deafened anyone sitting near us. We were the noisiest and most fun-loving crowd in the room!

The moment we found out we had won PRCA Consultancy of the Year 2009!

So, what do you think?

I thought I’d put up a quick post explaining why we’ve changed our website and improved the way we communicate with you.

As a client, you’ll doubtless have been to Eulogy! on numerous occasions, walked through our 4th floor door, trod over the wooden floorboards,  down between the meeting rooms and then, whoosh! It hits you! The warmth, passion, laughter and intelligence that encapsulates Eulogy!’s essence and success.

And, let’s be frank. Our old website in no way expressed all that. We want to show people who we really are, what we do and how we do it. So, voila! A new website s born. Please take a look around and tell me what you think.
Particular highlights are the two minute creds , and for those of you in media & marketing services, check out the section dedicated just to you.

As for how we communicate with you, I’m sure you know by now that we’ve always got something to say. We’re continually changing and improving what we do, and we’ve been winning awards, and taking on new staff – we want to share this with you. It affects you directly, after all. So a newsletter updating you on all this will wend its way into your inbox on a regular basis. You can unsubscribe at any time, but I promise we’ll only send you the most pertinent and important information – no spam!

As always, contact me at any time. I look forward to hearing from you.

Helen

A few short years ago it would have been hard to imagine the Evening Standard being handed out free. But the age of the freesheets has radically changed the publishing playing field. Mainstream titles are waging their own price wars in print and online, and looking for ever more radical ways to attract the fickle newspaper buyer – from wallcharts and CDs to winning Stonehenge (well a sunrise there, at least!). But for the freesheets it is a battle of volume; a battle that claimed thelondonpaper as its most recent casualty.

If freesheets are to generate the ad sales required to allow them to continue printing, then consistently appealing to a broad audience is essential. It will be interesting to see how the Evening Standard, which has always cultivated a relatively young, upmarket readership, balances the needs of the commercial department with the editorial integrity on which it has built its reputation.

Mike Ironside, chief executive of the National Readership Survey was at Eulogy! last week and asked us whether we felt our newspapers had a unique voice. Without a doubt, the room replied. It is clear that newspapers are still a national passion. Over the course of a week, three quarters of the UK population reads a newspaper, and half of us are still buying a Sunday paper.

If the Evening Standard can make the free model work, then it is going to put serious pressure on rival titles that are still hanging on to their cover price. But how long can the free model prosper? In this case, the power really is in readers’ hands. If we’re not willing to pick the freesheets up, then the advertisers will follow suit.

Like many others, I have found the evening journey rather empty since thelondonpaper departed and the Evening Standard, which has a distinctly different voice to London Lite and other freesheets, is undoubtedly a welcome addition for commuters and advertisers alike.

The Eulogy! team recently took part in a flash mob at Liverpool Street station for our client Zanussi. Now I have to admit, I was slightly embarrassed at having to strike my best model pose while walking backwards up an escalator in front of hundreds of bemused commuters. However, watching passersby stopping to call their friends to tell them about the madness they’d just witnessed made me realise just how effective such stunts can be.

When times are tough and the papers are full of doom and gloom it makes sense to give consumers something to smile about, and though they may not be able to save the universe, making people smile is something I’ve realised flash mobs are pretty good at.

To kick off with, it’s important that companies choose the right event. Besides the business ramifications of picking the most relevant audience, consumers need to instantly see the point of the tie-up between the brand and event or product it’s getting behind.

Some things do go naturally hand in hand – beer and football, cocktails and fashion – but these days it’s not enough simply to choose the closest fit.  A successful sponsorship deal is one that relies on a real affinity between brand and event that stays in the hearts and minds of audiences because it was funny, touching or just simply spot-on in terms of relevance.  Anything that makes us sit up and say ‘that’s a good match’ has ultimately done the job.  Anything that leaves consumers with a confused expression on their faces has not delivered anything for the client or the sponsorship property.

This year has seen a number of Eulogy! clients embark on intriguing sponsorship deals.  The Intellectual Property Office, the government department that processes trademark and patent applications, might not be a high-street name but has proved the perfect partner for the Science Museum’s Wallace & Gromit exhibition.  Similarly, French black raspberry liqueur Chambord has cleverly carved itself a niche as ‘the spirit of fashion’ through its long-running London Fashion Weekend sponsorship.  It’s now pulled off a major sponsorship coup as the first-ever presenting sponsor of a West End show – Breakfast at Tiffany’s at London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket. Clearly, it pays to be relevant but creativity is key.