PR campaign to promote the North East as a place of digital and creative excellence.
Background
One of the UK’s leading business support agencies for the creative digital and music sectors, Generator, appointed us for a 6-month PR campaign.
Client requirements
Working with the organisation’s CEO, Jim Mawdsley (pictured centre), we developed a PR campaign which would raise the profile of Generator and it’s two business arms, Digital Union and Tipping Point in the North East.
The campaign we developed raised the profile of the organisation’s role in supporting the digital, creative and tech industry in the North East, whilst promoting the region as a place of digital and creative excellence.
How we met their needs
Following a period of initial PR housekeeping, we developed a PR campaign to support Generator’s objectives, using a variety of PR techniques – from media relations and press releases, to reactive comment, journalist interviews and editorial / thought leadership opportunities.
“We always found HAN Communications to be extremely proactive, particularly engaging with us and ensuring we were communicating all our programmes and initiatives effectively. In addition they were excellent at positioning us in the media by exploring media opportunities and offering us up for a range of issues to comment on. They also regularly supplied us with articles of interest relating to our sector that we may have otherwise missed. All in all they provided a very thorough and professional service.”
Jim Mawdsley, CEO, Generator.
Result
Throughout the 6-month campaign we successfully launched and promoted the organisation’s Scale Up business support programme to the relevant target media and worked with various stakeholders to launch and promote a NorthStar Ventures innovation fund business support programme.
We also promoted various networking or major events such as Digital Bootcamps, #DUSocial and partnership events, as well as promoting new music signings to the Tipping Point label, including pop-synth trio, Polo, and Vandebilt.
We achieved a regular presence in the regional media throughout the 6 months generating PR from planned as well as reactive stories, editorials, feature opportunities, reactive comment and via regular media relations with key journalists.
The campaign resulted in 48 pieces of coverage across key regional and trade publications, sharing the organisation’s key messages amongst over 1.39 million people across the North East.
According to anecdotal feedback from CEO, Jim Mawdsley, the firm’s presence in the media had been noticed and commented on by several of the organisation’s key stakeholders too.
As a result of our work, we enabled more digital collaboration between digital support organisations and the digital and creative industry itself, and provided Generator with the profile necessary to support the digital, creative and tech industry in the North East, whilst nurturing new music talent.
“Hannah and her team are an absolute dream. Having worked with freelancers and small agencies in the past and been frustrated with either their account management skills or the results, HAN Communications has been a breath of fresh air. Generator is a complicated organisation to understand but they just got it instantly and hit the ground running from day dot. Thanks to Jamie Hardesty for the recommendation!”
Jodie Balmer, former Marketing Manager, Generator.