Media Matters Q1 2010

Welcome!

One amazing thing that we have recently helped to launch is a new breakthrough in lens implants for our client Bobby Qureshi, leading UK eye surgeon and Medical Director at the London Eye Hospital. The technology behind the new LAL (Light Adjustable Lens) is ground breaking and at CBC we are very excited about the possibilities that it will bring a lot of people with age-related eye conditions, such as presbyopia and cataracts. Media interest has been fantastic, and we have set up interviews with Bobby and two of his patients with the Top UK National Newspapers and National TV and his phone hasn't stopped ringing since! www.londoneyehospital.com

For Charity in November, we arranged the media coverage of the Royal Rajasthan Gala Dinner at the Banqueting House in London. The Ball was hosted by the Maharaja of Jodhpur in aid of the Indian Head Injury Foundation (IHIF). It was a glittering occasion and began with a red carpet paparazzi crush to get photos of the attending royalty and celebs - an interesting first for us, inviting and dealing with the paps! Sir Bob Geldof, true to form turned on a camera crew with his language as vivid as ever. We hosted a media table and I'm pleased to say that all our guests turned up and we met some great people. It was a privilege to be able to arrange a 1-1 press interview with a broadsheet journalist and the Maharaja prior to the event, and to listen to his Highness talk about the personal tragedy that befell his son which prompted him to set up the Charity.

Snow aside, CBC has news of its own to announce, as well. We have introduced a Green Bonus for employees to encourage them to leave their car at home and come to work on foot, by bicycle or public transport. We try to be a micro example of a green office where we can (many clients are near by so we walk to a lot of meetings) and strongly believe that businesses can and should make an effort to be as "green" as possible.

CBC Client News:

Many people outside of the police force will be surprised to hear that a large number of police forces in the UK are still using audio cassette tapes to record and play back even their most sensitive interviews. CBC is working with the Norwegian company Indico Systems (who has recently opened a UK office with growing team in Guildford) to promote its digital recording solutions in a bid to help police forces and criminal justice sectors move away from costly analogue tapes (with their time-consuming drawbacks) to a digital server-based process.With numerous police forces trialing the system, and Gloucester Police the first to implement Indico fully, things are looking positive for 2010 as the NPIA (National Police Improvement Agency), look to make their final recommendations and guidelines to the UK's 54 police forces on the best digital recording solution to adopt. CBC is working hard with Indico to make sure that they get plenty of positive media attention in the build up to this decision with news, case studies and the publishing of the findings from a cost/benefits analysis report of 'Going Digital', to make sure Indico are very much in the minds of the decision making panel. Of course, the Indico team are playing their part too, feverishly visiting the Police forces up and down the country, networking and attending numerous events and conferences.

Everyone loves a Winner! - We were delighted that one of our clients, Jacada won the Global Telecoms Business Award for "Consumer Service Innovation together with their customer o2. Jacada have helped o2 improve customer service across their UK call centres and have since signed another contract with o2. See our special section on how to win Awards for your company. On another winning note, CBC would also like to congratulate Dave Birch, at Consult Hyperion on picking up his ID Trailblazer at the ID People Awards - the Oscars of the Auto ID industry.

And just for everyone who didn't already know, CBC is also hot on Social Media and keeping up with latest trends and thinking around that. The CBC Blog has been going for a while now and we've already been handling Twitter and Facebook accounts for one of our consumer technology clients, Dane Elec - a CBC client since 1998. But, as there are so many different aspects to Social Media and we don't want our clients to miss out, we sent Uli on a training course and now the whole office is tweeting and blogging!

In addition to this newsletter, CBC has been on the case producing the Winter issue of the Surrey Research Park News magazine, which once again is full of interesting updates about the innovation that is taking place daily from companies on the Park, as well as some awards news and superb contract wins. Please contact us if you'd be interested in receiving a copy of this.

And some more good news

Cost Effective, value added PR really is in demand these days! We are delighted to be working with some new clients who have taken up our Cost Effective PR offers this year and are seeing the benefits of calling upon us for self contained projects (News Releases, Copywriting and News Distribution). Much like choosing an off the shelf product, they have opted for our expertise in writing and releasing punchy news items to boost their website hits and fill their order books. See www.chazb.com/bespoke_services.php for more details.

For more client news, feel free to visit the News section of our web site at www.chazb.com anytime! And for our own clients, remember: we want your news! Encourage all of your employees to send any company news, story ideas, or other developments to chazb@chazb.com so that we can include them in our next newsletter.

PR Spotlight this month:

Awards

As an award winning company itself, CBC can help you pick out and target any awards/listings that are relevant to your company and take care of the submission process. We are proud of our excellent track record in winning awards for our clients over the years.

Advantages of entering Awards:

• To keep ahead of your competitors and win industry recognised awards showcasing your company, services, processes, products or people
• An award endorses your company's service or product offering, within your key business/industry community
• Everyone loves a winner, and an award has instant appeal with the Media
• Awards create an excellent buzz amongst your team and are excellent for staff morale and team building
• Winners Logos are an excellent visual tool in making your Press materials stand out from the crowd
• An award adds credibility and appeal for customers wanting to source new products or services and helps boost sales enquiries

The Process:

• CBC has lists of all relevant awards in a whole range of industry sectors and experience in dealing with the organisations
• CBC will advise you to enter awards ONLY where you have a good chance of winning
• CBC will make the most of the opportunity to use an entry/short listing/finalist for any other awards as a source of promotion for your company
• The ideal process is to have your key spokespeople provide bullet points of content for the awards form - CBC will do the rest - word count, reworking and/or proofreading ensuring that your key messages are embedded
• CBC coordinates, manages and completes all the relevant award documentation and attachments and on approval from all parties involved, will submit the forms to the judging panel within good time of the award entry's deadline
• CBC will follow up and get feedback as to the selection process
• Maximise impact of winning award or being short listed with PR

Time and Resources:

• Heads up for your key spokespeople/partners for bullet points on main sections
• Liaison with your financial people for accounts information (often required for growing business awards, financial performance awards). These are kept in a locked area and are then returned to you or destroyed via shredding
• An agreed and timescaled Project based on complexity of award. This will be based on the number of days required + plus entry fees (if relevant)
• Time from initial research to submission to hearing feedback ranges from weeks to months

Recent awards/listings that we have won/achieved for our clients include:

• BCS Information Management Awards
• Best Companies Accreditations
• Best of Business Awards
• CIPR Awards
• CNET Awards
• "Computing" Awards
• Deloittes Listings
• Europe 500 Awards
• Global Telecoms Magazine Award
• GO Awards
• Green Apple awards
• "Growing Business" Awards
• "Information Age" Effective IT Awards
• Local Government IT Excellence Awards
• National Business Awards
• Regional Business Awards
• Red Herring listings
• The Sunday Times- Fast Track/Tech track listings
• Top 100 Green Companies

If you would like to learn more about how winning an award can help you raise your company's profile, so don't hesitate to get in touch with us on 01483 537890. Or email chazb@chazb.com.

Industry News:

PR in 2009 and 2010

After more than two years of gloomy predictions about the sector, an in-depth look at PR spend in 2010 throws up genuine optimism. Surveys, analysts and individual PR bosses are noticeably more bullish than they were this time last year. The consensus is that public relations has survived the recession because clients are regarding it as an essential board-level discipline; they are viewing it as more cost effective than advertising, and because of the huge interest in influencing social media.

We should, of course, put such optimism into context as this has been the worst global recession for 80 years. The Public Relations Consultancy Association (PRCA)'s latest benchmarking report provides insight into what has happened over the past 12 months. Around 50 % of PR agencies have shed staff, and more than half have lost revenue. But about one-third of agencies actually saw revenue grow, while half improved their profitability.

CBC News:

Despite the economic challenges that everyone is facing at the moment, we are committed to working with our staff to help them grow professionally and to respect their work life balance. And last year was particularly successful in terms of the volume of training that we delivered in house and at external training companies. Further to the recruitment of our new Account Executive, we undertook a full 6 months of induction training and on the job training - IT Training, Sales Training, PR Training and Soft skills training. Our staff have also benefited from a Management Academy Programme and Social Media Training.

Chaz Brooks Communications (CBC) has now gained recognition as a UK Learning Provider and offers a full range of PR training and Soft skills training from our accredited in-house trainers. So not only are we committed to developing our staff, we are also now offering training to other companies/individuals looking to benefit from our accredited development programmes and from the expertise of our accredited PR practitioners. Please call us for more details on our customised Training programmes. Visit www.ukrlp.co.uk/.

We hope that you have found our newsletter to be of interest. Of course, do not hesitate to contact us on 01483 537890 with any questions or for any assistance you may need. You can also email me at chazb@chazb.com

In the meantime, we wish you all the best for 2010.

With kind regards,

Chaz Brooks